Super Bowl ’23

Did the Chiefs win or did the Eagles lose the Super Bowl? Or did the officials decide it?

By my eyeball test, the Eagles were the better team, and statistically Jalen Hurts was the better quarterback. But the teams were close enough in quality that mistakes made the difference: I count five for the Eagles, only two for the Chiefs, and three points is what separated them. Mistake #1, both in time and impact, was Hurts’s unaided fumble that was picked up and run in for a Chiefs touchdown. At that point, it looked like the Eagles would blow the Chiefs out of the water; the free touchdown kept the Chiefs in striking distance for their second-half comeback. Mistake #2 was the line-drive punt in the 4th quarter that Kadarius Toney returned 67 yards, a Super Bowl record, setting up an easy touchdown drive. In fairness to the punter, the Eagles did have two defenders who could have, and maybe should have, tackled Toney before he got started; but a good punt would have prevented any runback at all. Mistakes #3 and 4 were, shockingly, identical: the man coverage that the Eagles ran when the Chiefs were at the 5-yard line which resulted, both times, in the easiest touchdown completions I saw all year. The Chiefs ran the same play both times, just on opposite sides with different receivers: a “whip” route in which the man-in-motion reversed course and went back toward the sideline, while his defender continued across the field in the other direction. Whether it was the call or the execution, it was extraordinary, and inexcusable, to give away touchdowns so easily. Mistake #5 I’ll get to in a minute.

Although the Chiefs did not play inspired football in the first half, they didn’t give much away. They did miss a routine field goal try (Mistake #1), and we know how important every 3 points turned out to be. Then in the second half they blew coverage on a deep pass from Hurts that covered 47 yards down to the 3-yard line, where Hurts’s quarterback sneak machine was unstoppable.

The Eagles’ Mistake #5 was the defensive hold called on James Bradbery that allowed the Chiefs to run out the clock before kicking the winning field goal. I wish the official hadn’t called it, and given how many minor infractions go unpunished he certainly didn’t have to call it. It was the only “ticky-tack” penalty of the game. It didn’t affect the play, as Mahomes’s pass flew well over the receiver’s head. Without the call, the Chiefs would have kicked the field goal and still taken a 38-35 lead. But the Eagles would have gotten the ball back with more than a minute to play, and we would have seen just what Hurts could do in that desperate situation. That’s pretty much the way we want every NFL game to end. Not with an official’s call.