Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs deliver, but the Eagles display a greatness of their own

GLENDALE, Ariz. — He had already done everything he could possibly do and a lot of what he did not appear to be capable of when Patrick Mahomes looked up field and saw the seas part. There were three minutes on the game clock and a tie game on the scoreboard and a seemingly impossible opponent on the field. They were gassed and he was gassed and you could almost see the fumes as he planted his injured right ankle and broke for daylight. Still, there he went: 5 yards, then 10, then 15 then 20. They finally dragged him down after 26 yards, but not before he’d dragged this Super Bowl with him. The Chiefs were in field-goal position at the Eagles’ 17-yard line. By the time they finally kicked, there were only eight seconds left.

You can say a lot of things about the Eagles, about the way they competed, about the things that Jalen Hurts did, about the things that went disastrously wrong. But there is only one place to begin any honest account of their 38-35 loss to the Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII: with the future Hall of Fame quarterback whom they simply could not stop.

“We did feel like if we got the ball back we would come back and tie it,” center Jason Kelce said. “But good quarterbacks don’t let that happen sometimes.”

Of course, Mahomes isn’t just a good quarterback, and he was much better than that on Sunday night. The numbers may not look all that impressive: 182 yards through the air on 21-of-27 passing, three touchdowns, another 44 yards on the ground. But ask anyone with a headset on the Eagles sideline, or any of the defenders who tried to drag him down: His was a game-winning performance. He was the difference.

That 26-yard run with 2:55 left in the fourth quarter was the exact sort of dagger that the great ones deliver. The Eagles had just driven down the field to tie the game at 35-35, Jalen Hurts bulling his way into the end zone for a two-point conversion and a chance at salvaging the game. Mahomes, who’d been playing with a noticeable limp since aggravating his sprained right ankle in the first half, sliced through the heart of an Eagles defense he’d been dissecting all game.

“It was frustrating because of course he’s a great quarterback who can make all the throws, but at the same time he makes plays with his legs,” said Eagles cornerback James Bradberry, whose holding call on third down scuttled any chance to answer the Chiefs’ go-ahead field goal. “He got them out of some binds.”

It’s easy to focus on the culprits in moments like this. Bradberry, the referee who flagged him for such a borderline play in such a crucial moment, the defensive coordinator who failed to anticipate or counter Andy Reid’s red zone wizardry. The false-start penalty that forced the Eagles out of third-and-inches and led to a play that led to the Chiefs’ scoop-and-score touchdown. The fumble itself — the only blemish by Hurts in one of the most perfect games a quarterback can play. The blame is always plentiful in losses like this. The Eagles walked into halftime of a Super Bowl with a 10-point lead, and they did not walk off the field with a win. That is a difficult thing to do: in fact, only one other team had ever done it. The all-time record was 26-1 until the Chiefs came storming back.

» READ MORE: Patrick Mahomes delivers game-winning drive to finish off Eagles in Super Bowl LVII

There will be time for all of that. First, though, let’s acknowledge the greatness these Eagles encountered. They didn’t lose this Super Bowl. They simply — and barely — got beaten.

Other thoughts …

1) Reid deserved the headlines almost as much as Mahomes. The Eagles were the better team. Let’s be clear about that. At several moments, the Chiefs looked to be on the verge of letting the game get away from them. Not the least was their 10-point deficit at halftime. Reid’s ability to keep his team together and keep his offense humming was a master class in coaching and play-calling.

A century from now, football coaches will still be studying tape of Reid’s red-zone plays. Big Red’s creativity and effectiveness near the goal line were again on display in a big-time game. They were as big of a factor as any in the Chiefs’ win. On two straight fourth-quarter possessions, Reid used misdirection from his motion man to confuse the Eagles defense and leave a receiver wide open for a touchdown catch. The first came on third-and-3 with 12 minutes, 4 seconds remaining and the Chiefs trailing 27-21, when Kadarius Toney motioned from his spot on the right side of the formation and then broke in the opposite direction on the snap.

» READ MORE: For the Eagles, what could have been | Mike Sielski

Their next time in the red zone, Reid used similar motion to spring Skyy Moore open for an easy touchdown catch that gave the Chiefs a 35-27 lead.

2) Give Nick Sirianni an equal amount of credit. He went toe-to-toe and point-for-point and play-for-play with one of the best head coaches in NFL history, the best head coach in Eagles franchise history. Reid himself gave Sirianni and his staff a nod on the postgame podium. It was well deserved. The tears that were streaming down Sirianni’s face during Chris Stapleton’s epic rendition of the national anthem were a testament to the things that make him great. Emotion, authenticity, a commitment to being himself.

It’s not that nobody wanted him back in 2021. It’s that nobody knew him. When the Eagles hired Sirianni in January 2021, the universal reaction was: “Who?” He’d spent the previous three years working under his fourth different head coach in 12 NFL seasons. He was an offensive coordinator but not a primary play-caller, a lot that often serves as a preemptive disqualifier for hiring owners throughout the league. The Eagles were the only team that even offered him an interview. In fact, they had to track him down on vacation to set it up. Sirianni didn’t have a suit with him, so he didn’t wear one. The future head coach arrived driving a minivan and wearing jeans.

“He had this infectious personality,” general manager Howie Roseman said after Sirianni was hired, “but it came with knowledge and presence.”

The Eagles reflected both of those traits all season. They did so again against the Chiefs. They just came up short.

Sirianni continued his master class in game management on the Eagles’ third touchdown drive, twice keeping his offense on the field on fourth down. On fourth-and-5 from the Chiefs’ 45-yard line, Hurts broke off a 28-yard run to set the Eagles up in the red zone. A few plays later, on fourth-and-2 from the 4-yard line, he carried the ball into the end zone himself for his second rushing touchdown of the day to give the Eagles a 21-14 lead.

Sirianni’s aggressiveness stood in stark contrast to Reid’s inability to understand what kind of game this Super Bowl was going to be when he sent his field-goal unit out on the field on fourth-and-3 from the Eagles’ 25-yard line in the first quarter. At the time, the Chiefs had the Eagles on their heels. After scoring a game-tying touchdown on their opening drive, they’d forced a three-and-out and then marched right back down the field on their second drive. After a broken play on third-and-3 from the Eagles’ 25-yard line, Reid sent in the field-goal unit rather than attempting a fourth-down conversion. Harrison Butker’s 42-yard attempt bounced off the left upright, and the Eagles scored a touchdown on their next possession on a 45-yard pass from Hurts to A.J. Brown to take a 14-7 lead.

3) Hurts’ performance as a passer shouldn’t get lost in the shuffle here. He may not have been the best player on the field, but he was pretty darn close. The final numbers were impressive enough: 27-of-38 for 304 yards and a touchdown, another 70 yards and 15 carries on the ground. But this game was Hurts doing everything people thought he would never be able to do.

Give him credit. Even if the loss stings.