The Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles will meet subsequent month in Super Bowl LVII, a recreation that may pit Andy Reid towards his former staff and that may characteristic two Black beginning quarterbacks for the first time in Super Bowl historical past.
This will probably be Patrick Mahomes’s third Super Bowl look in his 5 seasons as Kansas City’s starter, whereas Jalen Hurts has led the Eagles to the Super Bowl in his second full season as the beginning quarterback.
The groups will play on Feb. 12 in Glendale, Ariz., and each quarterbacks might want to use the time earlier than the recreation to recuperate from lingering accidents.
Mahomes sprained his proper ankle on Jan. 21 in Kansas City’s divisional-round win towards the Jacksonville Jaguars. While he handed for 326 yards in Sunday’s 23-20 win over the Cincinnati Bengals in the A.F.C. championship, and he nimbly scrambled for a primary down on the play that arrange the game-winning area aim, Mahomes was clearly enjoying via ache and limped at occasions all through the recreation.
Hurts, a right-handed quarterback, sprained his throwing shoulder in December and missed two regular-season video games. He returned for the Eagles’ regular-season finale and each their postseason video games however has stated his shoulder shouldn’t be 100% wholesome.
Each staff entered the postseason as the No. 1 seed in its respective convention, however they superior to the Super Bowl underneath very totally different circumstances.
The Eagles have been in management for many of their 31-7 win towards the San Francisco 49ers, after each the starter Brock Purdy and his backup Josh Johnson — the staff’s third and fourth quarterbacks this season — have been injured.
Kansas City’s recreation towards the Bengals, on the different hand, got here right down to the remaining seconds. On the remaining drive, a 15-yard pointless roughness penalty was known as towards the Bengals on Mahomes’s 5-yard scramble for a primary down, which put Kansas City in place to kick a 45-yard game-winning area aim with three seconds left.
The Super Bowl matchup between Kansas City and Philadelphia ought to pit a pass-heavy juggernaut towards the ground-bound Eagles. Mahomes led the league in passing this season, accruing greater than 5,000 yards in the air throughout the common season. Against the 49ers, each Hurts and the Eagles set information for speeding touchdowns this season: 15 for Hurts and 39 for the staff.
The final time Kansas City and Philadelphia performed one another, in October 2021, Mahomes threw 5 landing passes in a 42-30 victory.
Beyond the quarterbacks, a significant story line over the subsequent two weeks will probably be Reid going through the staff he led for 14 years. In the early 2000s, Reid took the Eagles to 4 straight N.F.C. championship video games, and one Super Bowl look, a loss to the New England Patriots, earlier than the staff determined to not carry him again for the 2013 season.
Reid accepted the Kansas City job days later, and received his first Super Bowl in the 2019 season, towards the 49ers. He took Kansas City again to the Super Bowl in the 2020 season, however the staff misplaced to Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Like Kansas City, the Eagles have additionally just lately been to the Super Bowl. But whereas there are a handful of veteran gamers nonetheless on the roster from the staff that received in the 2017 season, the Eagles are returning to the large recreation with a distinct head coach, Nick Sirianni, and a distinct quarterback, Hurts.
The Kelce brothers — Jason, the Philadelphia heart, and Travis, the Kansas City tight finish — will turn out to be the first set of brothers to play towards one another in the Super Bowl.
The final two Super Bowls performed in the Phoenix space have been two of the most thrilling video games in current historical past: the Giants’ win towards the beforehand undefeated Patriots in Super Bowl XLII, and the Patriots’ victory towards the Seattle Seahawks off Malcolm Butler’s goal-line interception in Super Bowl XLIX.
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