Chiefs ‘still have a bad taste in our mouth’ from Super Bowl; Patrick Mahomes says Sunday will be different
"We know them, and they know us,” said Chiefs coach Andy Reid. Here's how they are approaching their Super Bowl rematch with the Eagles.
The Eagles blew the doors off the Kansas City Chiefs in New Orleans, leading by 24 points by halftime of Super Bowl LIX on their way to a 40-22 victory. But how useful is that tape heading into Sunday’s rematch at Arrowhead Stadium, with a few new additions and coaches?
“Well, I think we know them, and they know us,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid told reporters Wednesday. “There are going to be wrinkles in there, both teams, but pretty familiar with each other. They have a lot of guys coming back. We have a lot of guys coming back. So, you have that part of it.”
Despite playing in different conferences, the teams are indeed familiar with one another. Sunday’s game will be their fourth head-to-head matchup in the last two and a half years, which includes the teams splitting a pair of Super Bowls.
“We still have a bad taste in our mouth from the Super Bowl,” defensive tackle Chris Jones said Thursday.
After watching the tape back from that game, quarterback Patrick Mahomes praised the Eagles’ game plan against him in the Super Bowl, when he threw two interceptions, including a pick-six, and got sacked six times.
“They played hard and did a great job of disrupting my timing, and so I have to learn from that, find ways to get the ball out of my hand,” Mahomes said. “Then when the opportunities are there, I think that’s something I did miss early in the game, is there was opportunities to make plays, and you got to make those plays because if you don’t, they’re not going to allow those opportunities again.”
Mahomes said any time the Chiefs play “the best of the best,” they have to find “another level,” and come out with energy, something that was lacking in the first half of their season-opening loss to the Los Angeles Chargers.
Jones thinks that edge comes baked into a Super Bowl rematch like this.
“It gives us a little more of an edge that we didn’t win, that we have our opportunity to play these guys again,” Jones said when asked about the differences between playing as a defending champion and playing against one. “It’s a heck of a team, starting with Jalen Hurts and those outside receivers of his, Saquon [Barkley], you can go on and on about the talent that these guys have on their offense. For us, it offers the challenge to play them again, but also to get some payback.”
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Getting payback will require stopping Hurts, which the Chiefs failed to do in both Super Bowl matchups, especially on the ground. The Eagles quarterback rushed for at least 70 yards in each game. Preventing Hurts from extending plays is key Sunday, something defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo knows well — his defense struggled against Justin Herbert doing just that in Week 1.
“It seems like we play one of these quarterbacks [that can extend plays with their legs] every week. … The guy we’re getting ready to play this week is elite at that,” Spagnuolo said of Hurts. “We’ll talk until we’re blue in the face about pass rush lanes and contain — we have some things that we hope will take that away.
“Part of the whole, in football, spying or whatever you want to call it, you’ve got to get them in those situations. When you’re in first and second down, you can’t be spying people because they’re going to run the ball right at you. So we’ve got to try to dictate it somehow by having some negative plays on first and second down to try to get things steered in our direction.”
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Of course, negative plays mean getting the better of one of the Eagles’ most respected units: their offensive line.
“They’re such a well-coached group, a very cohesive group,” Jones said. “They’ve got some big bodies, they’ve got a lot of talent over there. Lane Johnson, the left tackle [Jordan Mailata], they’re some of the better tackles in the league. Landon Dickerson, he’s a stout guy, and the center who Jason Kelce picked [Cam Jurgens] kind of mirrors Jason Kelce’s game. So they have a very good front. The right guard [Tyler Steen] who came from Alabama, is very, very huge, athletic.
“So their offense offers a good challenge to us as a D-line to get after it. We love to compete against this type of talent, so it gives us a challenge to compete against a better offensive line and get after it.”
The Chiefs aren’t just focusing on the Super Bowl game tape. They’re also watching the Birds’ season-opening win against the Dallas Cowboys.
“Oh, a little bit of both,” receiver Hollywood Brown said. “I mean, you got a game plan. You don’t know. When you get out there, you could be preparing for something and get out there, it’ll be totally different. But, just game plan, take it as this week and go from there.”
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The Chiefs have never lost three consecutive games with Mahomes as the starting quarterback, and there’s sure to be a ton of energy at Arrowhead for their home opener.
“This is a really good football team, there’s no way around it,” Mahomes said. “They’re really good on defense and obviously on offense as well. It’s going to take our best football. We learn from the mistakes that we make, that’s part of football, is you learn from your failures like you learn from the positive things that you do.”