The Fumble. The Penalty? The Receivers! Eagles issues at Super Bowl LVII

GLENDALE, Ariz. — There are two types of Super Bowl hangovers. One is physically painful, what with the dehydration, headaches, and gastrointestinal challenges that accompany all-night partying, but the lingering joy makes it worth all the nausea.

The other involves the mental anguish of relitigating the events of that particular Sunday night. It sometimes lasts for years, and it requires immediate therapy.

» READ MORE: All of The Inquirer's Super Bowl coverage in one place

Here we go.

Every game presents topics to which we assign too much weight, or too little. The play in Super Bowl LVII that’s gotten far too little attention: Jalen Hurts’ fumble.

Hurts played brilliantly in the biggest game of his young life, but he also made the biggest mistake of the game. Leading by seven with 9:48 to play in the first half, Hurts fumbled the ball away on his own 44-yard line and Chiefs returned it for a touchdown and tied the game. He gave the No. 1 offense with the league MVP seven free points.

Ball security is everything in football. Hurts, the son of a coach, has had this drilled into his head since the day he was born. The play was so egregiously bad, so utterly unacceptable, that Hurts apologized to his Eagles teammates afterward.

“I try to protect it,” Hurts said after the game. “But it hurt us.”

It was bizarre.

The Eagles called a quarterback draw in a shotgun formation. Chiefs safety Nick Bolton happened to be “spying” Hurts on the play, and he recognized it before the snap. So, when Hurts tucked the ball away to run, Bolton bolted into the backfield.

Hurts was surprised. He panicked. Instead of securing the ball for the inevitable hit, he tried to switch it from his left hand to his right, and he dropped it. Just dropped it. Then, as Bolton arrived, he kicked it. Bolton scooped it up and scored, untouched.

It was like a soccer midfielder who drills an own goal past his goalkeeper midway through the first half to make it 1-1, later scores twice, but his team loses 4-3. The two goals he scored are fine, but the own-goal was the difference.

The moment was crucial, too. The Eagles had just forced the Chiefs to punt. They scored on their ensuing possession and took a 10-point lead into the locker room, but it might have been 13, or 17.

» READ MORE: In an all-time great Super Bowl, the Eagles weren’t good enough

The Chiefs had the ball first in the third quarter and executed a punishing, 10-play, 75-yard drive on which they ran the ball six times, partly to protect Patrick Mahomes, who’d aggravated his high-ankle sprain on his last play of the first half. Even with a one-legged quarterback, there’s no way Andy Reid is running six times in 10 plays if he’s down by two touchdowns or more.

So no, not even Hurts’ 304 passing yards, 70 rushing yards, three rushing touchdowns, his two-point conversion run, and his passing touchdown obscures the fact that he and he alone gave the Chiefs seven free points. The Eagles lost by three. Do the math.

James Bradberry grabbed the jersey of JuJu Smith-Schuster in the middle of the field, in the red zone, and then admitted it. Greg Olson’s biggest mistake in an otherwise virtuoso performance as Super Bowl analyst for Fox Sports was that he criticized the officials for making an obvious call of an obvious foul by a player who was obviously beaten.

Bradberry admitted, “It was a hold. I hoped they’d let it slide.”

They didn’t. Appropriately.

Gannon got outcoached, especially in the red zone, but Andy Reid is a Hall of Fame coach with perhaps the best quarterback in NFL history, and Reid had two weeks to prepare for an unimaginative defense that feasted on lesser teams and lesser quarterbacks all season. Further, his defense gave up fewer points than Steve Spagnuolo’s, which gave up 35; seven of the Chiefs’ 38 points came off a fumble return.

» READ MORE: Andy Reid reaches Mount Rushmore of coaches

There’s no shame in a second-year defensive coordinator losing a Super Bowl to the offensive genius whose 21 playoff wins rank second only to Bill Belichick, the defensive genius who once surrendered 41 points in a Super Bowl to Doug Pederson and Nick Foles.

Two deceptive motion-based touchdown catches got a lot of attention, and deservedly so, but the blocking scheme Reid designed to shut down the Eagles’ historically productive pass rush was a masterpiece of teamwork and discipline. Running backs and tight ends routinely provided a sixth or seventh blocker, and that drove the Eagles crazy. The Eagles recorded zero sacks for the first time in the postseason.

“They chipped and chipped and chipped all night,” said Josh Sweat, who had 11 of the Eagles’ 70 regular-season sacks, the third-highest total in NFL history.

The Chiefs’ line also attacked the Eagles’ with vigor all night. Running backs Isiah Pacheco and Jerick McKinnon combined for 110 yards on 19 carries, a whopping 5.8 yards per carry.

» READ MORE: Chiefs’ Travis Kelce wins battle of brothers

Meanwhile, the Eagles’ vaunted offensive line lost at every turn. Miles Sanders, Kenneth Gainwell, and Boston Scott combined for 45 yards on 17 carries, a 2.7-yard average.

DeVonta Smith had seven catches for 100 yards. A.J. Brown had six catches for 96 yards, including a career-defining, 45-yard touchdown grab. Tight end Dallas Goedert caught six passes for 60 yards, each one more impressive than the last.

Smith just finished his second season. Brown finished his fourth; Goedert, his fifth. All are under Eagles control through at least 2025.

This is the best group of pass-catchers in franchise history, and they all showed up when the lights were brightest.