The Ringer NFL Show - Super Bowl Recap | The Ringer NFL Recap Show

Episode Date: February 13, 2023

Nora and Steven recap the Chiefs' 38-35 comeback victory over the Eagles. They start with Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs' second-half offense. They also discuss Jalen Hurts’s four-touchdown performance, the Eagles' defense, and much more. Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Steven Ruiz Associate Producer: Isaiah Blakely Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Peace! We're out of here. Your NFL Super Bowl Sunday recap show. I'm Norvinciati and I am here in Glendale, Arizona, in the aftermath of Super Bowl 57, Chief Speed Eagles 38 to 35 with none other than Stephen. Stephen, how are you feeling about our recording location right now here in, I think what was a sweet type area in one of the lower concourses? There's a buffet. There are some empty, what looked like beverage bags. baskets of beverages. I don't know. It's a good area. It was a good Super Bowl. It was a good Super Bowl. Very glamorous.

I must say, I have a very high bar for Super Bowls. The first Super Bowl I attended was 28 to 3, Patriots Falcons, and then I see this one. I feel like the NFL should send me to every Super Bowl. I think that's, you know what? It's you. It's this stadium, right, where the helmet catch was here. Malcolm Butler Interception was here. But it's mostly me. But it's mostly you. Yes, correct. Don't push. credit away to someone else. No, it's all me. All right. So this was, because Stephen Ruiz was in the house, it was a great game. It was a great game. I know people feel like the ending maybe didn't live up quite to the excitement that we got

all the way through five minutes and 15 seconds to go, tie game at 35, but incredible offenses and a lot of super interesting storylines to get to. I think where we have to start is the Kansas City offense and Patrick Mahomes, MVP of this game, where this, the story of the Super Bowl to me is going to go down as, you know, the 20, 29 minutes that Andy Reed had at halftime. And, you know, they missed the Rihanna show, which is very unfortunate for them. But it seems like they put it to good use. Peyton Manning must be wrong. Half time adjustments are possible. At least if you have the extra time in a Super Bowl,

because they came out in the second half and scored on every drive. And Andy Reed in particular, especially with some of the Red Zone plays that we saw, the Sky Moore and the Cadarious Tony plays that were nearly identical. Just an unbelievable performance from this offense. And obviously that starts with Patrick Mahomes. What did you think about the Chiefs offensive performance? I wasn't surprised that they came out hot in the second half.

honestly, like after the first half, they were down by 10 points, I still felt good like for the Chiefs. And that's because their one drive where they didn't really put themselves in a position to score was the two minute offense. And that, I think that's a different style of play than the chiefs wanted to have in this game. They had to just go, you know, straight drop back, 11 personnel. Every other drive when there wasn't like constraints based on the clock, they were under center sometimes, a lot of tight ends out on the field, a lot of play action, a lot of misdirection, a lot of plays that like really take the teeth out of that pass rush, which is what you have to do against this team. So like we could talk about the halftime adjustments. I really thought that

the difference was they were on the field more in the second half. They had more drives. Great game plan. Great game plan. They got the Eagles and the looks they wanted. And the Eagles didn't want to, they didn't want to put heavier bodies out on the field to match those tight ends. And they ran the ball. So they, Kansas City finished with 158 rushing yards. Mahomes, even on the bum ankle already. And then after seeming like he got even more hurt in the middle of the game, Mahomes ran it six times for 44 yards, average 7.3 yards per carry. Stephen, you have accused Patrick Mahomes in the past of playing this season.

Dork Ball? Yeah, Dork Ball. Did Dork Ball just win the Super Bowl? It did. I think Dork Ball got them to the Super Bowl. It was kind of, it was kind of that in that same genre, but like tonight, watching him live was a different experience. And it makes you appreciate just how in control of situations he is. There were, there were times, I was in the end zone.

I had the end zone view where he would disappear in the pocket. I was like, where did this guy go? And then he would just come out like the side door and be totally clean and he throw it downfield on the run, the perfect throw. Just an amazing quarterback. And I honestly don't think that the chiefs win this game. a year ago. You put that, that Patrick Mahomes into this game, I think his worst instincts come out. And I think that was what this season was about for him was kind of limiting those plays where he does go into playground mode a little too early. We never saw that. Even in this game,

when he ran, it made the most sense to run. There was wide open grass. He never ran himself into pressure. He ran away from pressure. And that was new this year. So it was really cool to see the culmination of this year for him and his evolution. And also this team building strategy, which I would argue goes back two years. They build up the offensive line. Yeah. An offseason ago to be able to run the ball like this.

When teams play a light box, you put two tight ends out and they match a nickel. If you can't run the ball, that should be insulting to you as an offensive corner. In the past, they couldn't run the ball. Now they can. And Pacheco is just a different type of back, having him, having an offensive line that can get downhill.

just this is a culmination of them building this. And I think they were planning for life without Tyreek Hill even back then. And it came together tonight. They were so, and I think that offensive line and what Pachiko's done for their running game and those evolutions deserve so much credit because they were so able to stay ahead of the sticks on early downs. I think they were only in eight third down situations all night. And the Eagles had a phenomenal. day on third down. They were 11 of 18. That's impressive in its own right, right? But,

but Kansas City just completely avoided the situation. And we talked all week. One of the biggest storylines coming into this game was that the Eagles had this historically deep pass rush. And they did, right? Like that's a real thing. But they ended up getting pressure on Mahomes about a quarter of the time when he dropped back. And they didn't sack him. They did not sack him. Already that pressure rate is low for Philly. It was the first game since week 12 where they didn't record a pressure rate over 34% according to next gen stats. So the pressure in and of itself, they pressured him seven times. That's low, but they could not convert any of those pressures into sacks.

And in a game that's this tight, that can be the difference in the outcome of the game. And this, this dynamic between a Chiefs offensive line that has definitely looked better, and that they made all those investments in. But I don't think has been looked at as like, oh my God, you know, they have the Eagles offensive line, right? They,

they won that matchup. And a lot of it had to do a scheme. A lot of it had to do with play calling. A lot of it had to do with being willing to take the gains on the ground. And all of that decision making and Andy Reed and Mahomes' evolution as a player. So it's not just that, you know, their five beat the Eagles five or seven or whatever you want to call it.

but that was that was the thing in this you know this was a this was a hard game to predict and it was the easiest thing to predict was that it would be a tight matchup but Kansas City winning that battle against the the Eagles defensive line is I think the biggest upset in this entire game and if it's not that the next one is the Eagles not being able to run the ball without Jalen Hertz like they're traditional not traditional run game because Jalen Hertz is always involved, but their running backs did not have a very efficient day. The Chiefs really shut them down in terms of the early down offense. If they wanted to run the ball, like the zone read stuff, they really couldn't do it. And like without Jalen Hertz, like I've been, I don't know,

I don't know how to say this. I've been lower on Jalen Hertz than I think like most people have. I've questioned how much of his passing production this year has been a result of a great offensive line, two great receivers, a great scheme. But in this game, you kind of saw the other side of that and what he does for this this team for these players like for a j brown you don't get one-on-one opportunities like that if you don't have a quarterback who can run the ball if the team doesn't have to drop a guy into the box the cheese have to do so much on defense like so much before the snap so much after the snap that because of jaylin hurts and to even up numbers in the run box and i i don't know if that works without him and i i know it sounds weird to give spag's

credit right now, but I really thought Spaggs had a great game plan. And I thought he called a great game. And the only reason that they put up so many points is because of the talent. And there's nothing you can do about that. Like when AJ Brown dunks on two of your defensive backs, you had AJ Brown bracketed. You had him doubled. And he still dunks on you and gets a touchdown. Like, there's nothing you can do about that. Or Jalen Hertz, like, quarterback's draw. He goes out the back door and picks up what that was like a 27 yard game. I thought Spack's called a great game. But it just shows like talent always overcome scheme. The only. problem was they had the best player that's ever played in this league on the other side of

the field. Yeah, that, that AJ Brown, the 45-yard touchdown, um, I think we call that a, a learning experience for Trent McTuffy. Yes. You won the Super Bowl. It's okay. You live, you learn. It happens sometimes. He's really good. Um, it, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the hurts thing after. So if the game ended a few hours ago at this point, and we've both been down in there if, it, it, it, I want to say the locker room, because that's, that's, um, it wasn't actually the locker room. There's like podium areas, whatever. It doesn't matter. But, uh, the post game interview area, I went over to where Hertz was.

And he was really, really, really, really emotional. And, you know, that's, that's an easy thing to say after a Super Bowl where, you know, one team wins, one team loses. Of course, there are a lot of emotions. Um, everybody sound like Siriani, sort of sobbing during the national anthem. but and people process things in very different ways. But he was the person in the Eagles area who was most obviously just completely torn up. And Nick Siriani told a story about going into that locker room and and hurts gathering the rest of the team together and apologizing for the fumble.

Yeah. And saying, you know, I'm sorry that I did that. and that we lost this, this game by, you know, less than seven points. And that was a seven point play. Which I think says a lot about him. And it seemed like he handled that situation incredibly admirably. For the record, I thought he played an incredible game. He was 27 to 38, 304 yards, added 70 on the ground, averaged 4.7 per carry.

scored three touchdowns. I thought he was the vast majority to your point of what they were able to do in the ground game. And it did open up so much in the passing game as it has all year for them. But also we saw him make some incredible throws. I mean, those deep, deep catches, you know, Defonte Smith had another 45-yard catch in this game. Those receivers are incredibly talented and you see their impact and they're,

catch point ability. Dallas Goddard, I thought made a few unbelievable catches in this game. There was the one that had the weird review and everything, but those guys deserve a ton of credit. But Jalen Hertz also made some really,

really, really good throws. So I hope this does go down in history as a great Jalen Hertz game, which I think it will because, I mean, he was going toe to toe out there with Patrick Mahomes. And I agree with you. I thought, especially in the second half, we saw,

I don't have the numbers. It felt like they started even dialing up the blitzes, even a little bit more. It might just have been that they were more effective, but it seemed like more and more they could get him. They could flush him out. They could have the pocket, start to get tight, and they could flush him out to the left,

which had to be such a big part of this game plan. So I'm with you. I thought that, you know, even in a game that had a lot of offense on both sides, Spags did some stuff that really worked. against Philly. Yeah, I really think that. And I, like, Jalen Hertz, in the first half,

I thought that was more of what critics like me, like say about him. Because I don't know if- Critics like me, the Stephen Ruiz show. Because I don't know if his first half was that great, but I thought his second half was as good as I've ever seen him play. Those two throws he made on the opening drive, the first time he touched the ball. There was the deep overout on third down to Goddard,

which was perfect. Yeah. He was blanketed it. And then the third, I think it was another third. down that throw into like the the cover two hole on the sideline just over i think it was a nick bolton's hand it was a our snit's hand perfect passes and and then to come down after they fall behind by eight i know devante smith was wide open and i know it was a coverage bust but you still have to make the throw and i don't know if you thought about this play but my mind went immediately back to jimmy

missing Emmanuel Sanders. Because you could take those. Stephen. It didn't, Stephen, but that's so you. I love it. I don't know how it did it because I was like, if he missed that, like Jimmy G missed that throw, you can't take those throws for granted, especially on this stage, in this situation,

everything that's been said about him as when you make him a passer, when, like, he's late, he's down late. I thought he answered a lot of questions. He answered a lot of my questions. So Jalen Hurts, you satisfied me. Jalen Hurts is beating the Jimmy. Garoppolo allegations. Didn't know he needed to do that in this game.

That's right. Oh my God. Yeah. I need a second. What were the Fanduilots on Jimmy Garoppel catching a stray from Stephen Ruiz on this podcast? They were minus 1,000. Like everyone expected it.

But we talked about the Eagles being emotional or Jalen Hertz. I thought the chiefs players were really emotional. Travis Kelsey was really emotional after the game. And it just seems like this was different from the last one for him and Mahomes. Mahomes kind of hinted at it during. his press conference, he said, like, the first time he was young, and he was kind of just like, you know, he's a young kid just being there, and he's kind of just like happy that they won.

And now this one, I don't want to say it, like every Super Bowl is earned. They earned that Super Bowl in 2019, but it felt like this one, they kind of had to fight a little more. And it kind of, it didn't feel like the same super team that that team was, where they had so many weapons on offense. Like Tyree Kill was at the top of his game. Travis Kelsey was at the top of his game. Sammy Watkins was still a very,

very, very good player. And he was one of the big reasons why they won that Super Bowl. This year, it felt different. It felt like this was Mahomes' offense. Yeah. Well, it's, it's funny that you mentioned that. That's something that Tom Brady talked about a couple times was, you know, and you almost hesitate to use this type of descriptor for it.

But he said that early on in his career after they won the first couple of Super Bowls, he kind of thought it was easy to do. he just kind of thought like, things go your way and the defense is really good and you manage the game and then you win the Super Bowl. And it took losing and losing a couple times to understand how hard it is and what it meant to him. And I do wonder if there's a little bit of that

to just having gone through the experience of losing one and knowing how that feels that makes them a more emotional, charged team in this situation. And then exactly what you said. I do, I think there's a different, it's a different thing going through this with, you know, Tyree Kill being in Miami with someone like Isaiah Pichigo has taken, I don't know how many, how many, um, picks in the draft before Brock Purdy, right? But like he's a bottom of the draft player who has turned into this guy who

fixes what had been genuine problems in their running game for them and is exactly the type of running back that they've really needed. And they're doing it. And I think you can see that in how he runs, right? I mean, he ran really hard in this game. You can always see it. You can always see the attitude. You could even see it in the drive that ended in the game winning drive where they ended with the field goal after the Bradbury call, the holding call. he took two massive hits from Trouncy Gardner Johnson.

And he could have ended the game if Gardner Johnson hadn't made, you know, a tackle by his shoe laces. Right. But when those types of players are key contributors, I do think it gives, there's a slightly different identity to it than just like, we're a super team, so we win. And particularly if that's the feel of a team,

team that hasn't gone through the process of losing, which a lot of these guys and Mahomes and Reed obviously have now. Yeah, and it feels like a different era of the team. Like when Tyree Kill left, like the offense changed. And I think this team got more physical. And we can talk about the Pacheco runs. Like, yes, he's been a huge part, just the ability to fall forward and to turn three yard runs and the five yard runs. They never had that before. But these receivers that they have now block. And a lot of these big runs, they were, like outside of the edge. You would get around the edge,

and it's because they were blocking. Juju can block. MVS, that was one of his big things in Green Bay. He could block. They have a new offensive line. They have a running back that can take advantage of that. Who could take a sliver of daylight and turn that into a 10-yard run.

So this is a different identity, and I understand why these players feel differently about the Super Bowl, especially the guys that were on both teams. I think Mahomes said there were only 12 guys. There may be a few more that were on that last team. This team has undergone change. over the last three, two, three years.

And it's kind of fun to watch this different iteration of the offense because when we think about the early days with Mahomes and Hill, we think about like deep passes, him hitting Hill down the field. They didn't complete a lot of deep passes throughout the season. Like it was all mid-range stuff. Like it was like a different version of Mahomes. And I just can't wait to see where this offense goes from here because Mahomes is getting better every year.

And it just, it's so funny. to think about what he's going to be in five years. Right. I don't know what that's going to look like. And particularly if we know, as I think we do after watching him go through this season and win this game, that he's sort of mentally malleable and can play a different style because it's not, you know, there's no physical trait that Patrick Mahomes doesn't have, but it's really hard to do that.

And you see Travis Kelsey's obviously always been a huge part of their offense, but the middle of the field is so important to them now. And yes, they, look, Kelsey had a lot of good moments against man coverage and the men in question. T.J. Edwards, you know, you're not always the exact guy that you would pick to go one-on-one against Travis Kelsey, who seems to have a knack for being just incredibly open at all times. But Kelsey making those catches over the middle when they're in. 13 personnel. Like, that is who this team is now.

And it's, it's fascinating. It's been fascinating to watch it this season. And it's cool to see it matter in the Super Bowl because they can keep doing that. Or when their personnel changes, they can go back to doing the other stuff. It's not like he can't make outside downfield throws when they have guys who win like that. And that's going to be really important because the, the chiefs, you know, barring. barring issues with health.

And there's some asterisk, obviously, with whenever the end of Andy Reid's career comes, I believe it seems like he's coming back. That was part of the postgame news that he's planning on coming back and isn't thinking about retiring. So that's great news for them. But for the foreseeable future,

they have the biggest leg up of any team in football. And it's just going to be a matter of, can you roll with the punches of season after season and stuff happens and injuries happen and the salary cap is what it is. And sometimes you have to let players go to other teams and just figure out how to adapt. I was thinking about this with the Bengals somewhat recently. Everybody is, I don't know if people can hear this. Everybody's very sad because they turn the lights off in here.

Somebody on a radio show asked me the question if the Bengals had missed their best chance. which I think is a really, really, really valid question. And it's very valid to argue, yes, because of the situations with how many guys they're going to have to start paying a lot of money or say goodbye to who are critical to their nucleus. But I do think that there's, and I said that, and I think that's the right answer. But I do think when you have a really, really, really good quarterback who's going to have you in the playoffs on a regular basis, it's not quite the right way to look at it to say

one year is your best year. Yeah. You have to just let the window happen as it's going to happen. Like some years, your offensive line is going to get demolished by injuries and it's never going to be the same guys and you're going to play the bucks and you're going to get smoked. Like it just is sometimes going to happen like that and you just have to keep being there. And how adaptable Kansas City. showed us that they can be over the course of the season

means that they have the best chance just to keep being there. And if they do that and they have Patrick Mahomes, they will probably win a lot of Super Bowls and they got their second one tonight. I mean, that's the Patriots secret sauce during their dynasties. They were always there.

They were just always there. And they didn't lose games. They let the other team lose games for them. But even like they lost some games. They lost some Super Bowls. No, I mean, they didn't give games away. And I think this team does the same thing. Totally.

But they just were there. They just had so many, it takes a lot of chances. Sometimes you lose the chances. And there's not all that much that you can do about it. And this is just like such a long-term viability, proof of concept for that team, Mahomes, how they're building the roster, how they're dealing with the fact that he's a very expensive player now.

And it's kind of, it's cool, even though sometimes, you know, you miss the deep bombs to Tyree Kill or whatever, and that's very fun to watch. But it's cool to see that have so much to do with how they won this game. And it's kind of wild that they got rid of Tyree Kill and the offense got better. And not only did it get better, like, Tyree Kill didn't like go somewhere else. And he was exposed as like a fraud who was only made by Patrick Mahomes. Like he had the best season of his career elsewhere.

And it didn't matter. And I just think it speaks to it speaks to Mahomes' ability to adapt. And like we said, play a different style of offense because this was a different style of offense. And I don't think they could have run the same offense if they had Tyree Kill. Like you can't play 13 personnel and your only receiver on the field is Tyree Kill because he doesn't block. Like even when he was still on the team and they went under center, Tyree Kill would always come off the field. He barely played. So I kind of feel like like all of us were kind of questioning is this, what is this going to look like without Tyreek?

I think the chiefs like internally were like, we're going to be fine. If anything, we might be better off. I think it makes game planning a little easier. It makes, you don't have to, like, play this one style of offense. And that was always, I mean, they won a bunch of games, but when they would go through their cold streets, that's what we would talk about. They're too pass happy. They can't run the ball. They rely on deep throws.

They rely on explosive plays. So, yeah, I really don't think that they saw the Tyree Kill loss as something that was going to make their offense take a step back. If anything, it took a step forward. The NFL season might have just ended, but the rest of the. the sports calendar is kicking into gear and there's no better place to get in on the action than Fandul because new customers get a no sweat first bet up to $1,000. That's bonus bets back if your first bet doesn't win. Just download the Fandle Sportsbook app.

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well, being able to stay ahead of the sticks. But I still think it goes down as a pretty clear L that this defensive line that we chalked up all week didn't make a noticeable impact in this game. How do you think that happened? It seemed like the Eagles game planned for the 2019 chiefs. That's how I would put it. Like they played the they played the chiefs the way that teams used to play them in the past. Like they rushed four. They didn't they played a four down line. They they matched base personnel. So like two wide receivers are fewer with nickel. And they got the ball ran down their throats. Right. And they couldn't.

adjust and they like I thought that was the key because the only way that they were going to be able to start turning the pressure into sacks and the only drive where they really affected Patrick Mahomes was when they knew he had to throw when they were in the two minute offense before the half they weren't able to create those situations on their own and I thought it was Jonathan Gannon trying not to get beat with one play like he wanted to he didn't want Patrick Mahomes to throw it over their heads and I think sometimes you got to you got to concede some stuff and you if you see Isaiah Pacheco running down your throat I think you have to have to You have to drop a safety into the box, maybe bring another linebacker.

And they didn't change anything throughout the game. And I think the perfect illustration is the fact that the chief scored on the same touchdown play. Right. They took advantage of the same flaw in the Eagles defense. And Juju Smith-Schuster said after the game, like, we knew that's how they were going to match that motion. Right. When we motioned into a stack, they were going to kind of communicate and they just busted it both times. And he was like, before the ball was even stabbed, like, I knew we were going to score.

I think Juju's also saying they'd, you know, they'd spend a lot of time practicing that play. It must be fun to practice like the little stop start to it, the motion and then like kind of it just that was such a good Andy Reed absolutely thriving out there moment. But I agree with you, particularly the second time it, it comes up in a game situation. It's a tough look.

It's a tough look for a coach. It's a tough look for a defense to. It's one thing to not have an. answer for it the first time. But when they come right back and do it again, what are we doing here? And the Eagles did not make an adjustment. They played it the same exact way. They had Darius Slay kind of back off and he played high. And then the corner on the inside, the slot corner pressed the line. It was easy, man. You could see it coming right when they did the motion. Like it looked like a, and he was wide open by like 10 yards. It wasn't even close. There's no one in the

area. I think it's inexcusable. And it goes to a point that I think Solac has been making all year long on our feed. Jonathan Gannon doesn't adjust. He's not a good adjuster. And I mean, I don't want to read too much into it, but hiring Vic Fangio, giving him that two-week contract, a little strange.

A little weird. I've never heard of that. I was very exciting in some ways. Vic's great. Vic Fangio is a great defensive coach. But I agree with you. It is a little bit. Did they not trust Gannon to do this game plan on his own?

I don't know. I mean, I don't want to read. too much into it, but out on the field, what we saw on the field, I mean, you got to do something different. It's the Super Bowl. You've had two weeks and you just played the same defense that you played when you played these guys last year and they have a totally different team like we've been talking about throughout the podcast. You know, it was interesting was that it was the drive after the deep AJ Brown touchdown. So, you know, midway through the first half at some point. it looked like and up to that point the Eagles totally dominating time of possession right

but Kansas City when they'd been when they'd been on the field they'd had that really quick touchdown drive that you know it was over in a second it was a five play drive three of those plays were explosives um that was the first big throw to Kelsey uh when he was singled against epps where um they got the touchdown and just was like oh god no one's going to cover Travis Kelsey. So, controlling time and possession, feeling like they're controlling the game, they're up by a score, but when Kansas City's been on the field, they've, they've moved the ball in chunks. Then they get the ball back. And that was the first three and out of the game. And they played, the Eagles played a lot of five-man, you know, it's three plays, right? So it's very hard to draw anything

from. But they played on first down. They came out in a five-man front, got a tackle for loss. The second down was a short pass. And then they brought out another five-man front on third down and got a pressure out of it. It forced a tight throw. Hassan Reddick in particular who didn't, you know, again, a lot of those linemen, just defensive linemen, for the Eagles did not have good games. But I thought he, he looked really impactful on that one defensive series. And again,

it was incredibly short. But it looked in the moment, it looked like, oh, here's something. Here's them trying something out. Here's Jonathan Gannon making an adjustment. And then, and I don't want to,

I don't want to, you know, underline this, highlight it because it's, it's hard to tell watching in real time, everything that they're doing. Angles are weird. Replays are weird. it's the type of thing that you do need to go back and look at,

but it didn't look like they stuck with that. And I really think that just speaks to the fact that they didn't put the chiefs in situations where they could get a little more creative. I thought they were able to do that because it was a two-minute drive, and they knew they were going to pass football. They didn't have to worry so much about the run game. But, I mean, you have to plan for that. You have to, there's a chance when you go up against Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes

that maybe you're not going to have a lot of success on first and second down. Maybe you're not going to get them in third and second down. You have to have a plan. And I brought up this podcast a lot, but Kyle Shanehan did this podcast like two years ago with Chris Sims. I'm being a bad employee because it's on a different network. Oh, my God. We're going to hit Stephen Ruiz bingo on this podcast. I know.

Actually, it's not, I'm not being a bad employee because now you don't have to go listen to the podcast. You can listen to you. I'm stealing the takes. No, this is fantastic. But Kyle Shane Ann was talking about why he chose the type of defensive coordinator he chose like the Seattle type of defense where you rush forward and you play cover three. And he said, because it's a very sound defense. As long as you have that pass rush, you could be sound on the back end. But when you don't have that pass rush, that's when you have to be a little less sound on the back end.

You have to try risky stuff. You have to blitz. You have to play man coverage. And they didn't do it. They didn't do it. They didn't try to get the chiefs into third and long. They waited for the chiefs to get into third and long. And when you have Mahomes and you have Reed and you have Pacheco just running into light boxes, that's not going to happen.

This team is so good. They're going to take advantage of that stuff. And that's what happened. I mean, I don't want to pat me and Solac on the back, but go back and read our game plan piece. We laid out the game plan for the chiefs. Go read it. 13 personnel under center.

Isaiah Pacheco running into light boxes if they match multi-tight end sets with nickel. The script was written. Stephen, I get what you're saying. I don't know if go read our Super Bowl preview after the game is a great sell. We nailed it. It's basically a Super Bowl recap. We should tell that to our editors. Nobody needs to write anything else.

That's right. We're the NFL script writers. One thing we didn't predict in that game playing piece was how bad this grass was. And I think part of the reason why this game was so high scoring is because the grass was bad. Like a lot of, on a lot of the key plays, players slipped. That was a big, like there was a big Mahomes play that he had downfield. I think it was to Kelsey. Josh Sweat beat Orlando Brown Jr.

But he slipped turning the corner. There was a play. I think Jalen Hurts do it at Goddard. There's a little outbreaking route and Justin Reed ended up hitting him. Justin Reed was in position to intercept that ball, but he slipped, breaking on it. The first third down where Devante Smith catches a little drag route and runs away and runs for the first down. Willie Gay is there in position to drive on the route. He slips.

The grass played a large role in this game. I think it played a large role in it being so high scoring. They definitely had trouble. A bunch of players talked about it after the game. I think actually some of the chiefs players were a little bit more willing to say it's crappy because the Eagles were being somewhat magnanimous

and wouldn't seem like sore losers. This is obviously, I blame golf. Apparently this sod, this grass has been grown and curated and grounds kept over the course of like two years and some like golf digest

was tweeted. meeting a bunch of stuff about how as the PGA tour like the U.S. Golf Association or whatever. They were hyping up the grass. They were hyping up the grass. They were like, we helped, we helped the NFL. There's this old man. They call him the sod father who like makes the grass nice.

The fraud father. He's canceled. I swear if people, I'm saying this sort of assuming people are slightly clued into the story, which is probably a mistake. I swear this is real. There's like an old man who's been tending the grass that they used on the Super Bowl for like two years. And that guy stinks. That's awful.

That's what happens when you get fake sport grass. This is hobby grass. Golf is a hobby. This is hobby grass. They try to give hobby grass the real athletes. That's the problem. Yeah, tough scene. We can't be calling in the people who put on the waste management open across town this weekend to help you with your critical Super Bowl turf.

A lot of players definitely were changing cleats. Even on the very last play, the Eagles chance for a Hail Mary. Hertz slipped. It looked like the throw barely went, you know, 15, 20 yards or whatever. And he slipped and like stepped on Kelsey or something. It was a little bit unclear. But it seemed like that was a big deal throughout the game. So get better grass, losers.

That's right. Boo. I'm booing the grass right now. Okay. Grass controversy, well covered. Grass didn't have to do a pool report. Referees, unfortunately, it's always fun when a Super Bowl ends in a pool report from Carl Cheffers.

The defensive holding call on James Bradbury that gave the chiefs a fresh set of downs and ultimately allowed them to kick the game. game-winning field goal. Definitely a little bit tic-y-tack. Bradbury himself, however, did after the game say that he held the jersey. He said, I grabbed his jersey. Cheffers and the two Lindsay Jones, our wonderful editor who was the poor reporter in this case, said that it was a, quote, clear case of a jersey grab that caused restriction. I don't know. It seemed like a weak-ish call, but defensible.

He definitely grabbed his jersey. Whether or not it caused restriction, I don't know, man, but like I've seen refs make worse calls. Yeah, like, I don't know. The angle I saw, I didn't realize there was controversy over it because I like went down to talk to the players. I didn't, I wasn't on Twitter.

I didn't realize it was that big of a deal. Sick flex. Yes. I wasn't like you losers squirrel on Twitter. No, I'm just kidding. But it looked like a hold on the replay. And the one thing I'll say is they could, Bradbury got a way.

with a hold on a key third down in the first half that I think could have changed the game also. So it broke even. I know it happened in crunch time and that makes it a little harder to swallow. But I mean, I didn't think the referee was bad tonight. And like you said, that call was defensible. I think the only problem that like I would have had with it is the consistency. If you didn't call the one on third down in the first half, calling it in crunch time is kind of rough. And it really did not affect the play. They did. I don't know if I would go so far as to say that the refurb. is good. It wasn't great.

They had that weird. They had a better night than the sod father. I'll say that. I'm blaming the bad referee on the grass too. Yeah, that's true. They couldn't keep up. Didn't have the right cleats. They did have that weird moment where something happened on the sideline on the

play that gave Andy Reid a chance to. I think it was one of those Goddard catches. where Reed got to challenge it and probably wouldn't have gotten there if the refs hadn't gotten confused about who was standing where or something. So that was some good hijinks, but yeah, I don't know.

That one ended up working out in Philadelphia's favor, though, because Andy Reid just lost the time out. Andy Reid, by the way, there's some of the stuff where, you know, we want to give Philly all of their due and I think the Eagles offense had a violent, large very good showing. It is interesting to think about it in terms of,

okay, so they're 11 of 18 on third down. They get those sort of high variance, high impact conversions. And then for all of his schematic genius and all of, you know, running that really cool play that went for a touchdown on the red zone back to back times. And trusting that,

the Eagles were playing with four downs on offense. and the Chiefs were not. There were some Andy Reid conservatism moments in this game that we could be spending a lot more time talking about if this game had ended differently. And like that is probably built into the calculus with him at this point. But it is, it's fascinating to watch a game where you can just tell over the course of it,

that one team is playing with an extra down every time they're on offense. It made a huge difference. It made a huge difference. And it's also because, look, the two-cheek sneak is such a big part, such a big tool in the toolbox for Philadelphia. And we saw that three times, four times. Yeah, it felt like a bunch of times. A lot of times. Hot take.

Ban the QB sneak. I don't think. It was so boring to me. It was like, oh, first down. So I feel completely differently. I love it. it is so, it's just like, it's such a fundamental, we're going to be stronger than you.

We're just going to, we're going to get behind this guy and push him. And I love that. And if you can do that, I actually think they should do it more. They got, I think they should run it anytime, if they need less than, if they only need a yard per play, they should just run it over and over again. That said, I don't know,

I would put the odds at that the competition committee reviews that this offseason, but it feels, it feels like they're pretty high. Yeah, I feel like pushing. The pushing is something that's going to get addressed. And I really don't understand why more teams don't do it like the Eagles do it. It's not like there's like some secret to their success. Like you said, they're just, they just push Jalen Hertz across the line and works every time. Just get behind him and push. Also, shout out to Nick Bolton for not falling for the one fake they had off of it where they did like the little toss play. Amazing play. Nick Bowden was amazing tonight. I thought Nick Bolton had an incredible game.

I thought Nick Bolton was going to be in the seventh circle of hell in this game. Nick Bolton was like... No, yeah. He was ready for the moment. He's, I don't think they win the game if he's not on the field. Shout out Nick Bolton. Today's episode is brought to you by Crown Royal. Speaking of Crown Royal, you may have caught their Super Bowl ad with Dave Grohl.

It was fantastic. Thank in Canada for all the things people didn't know were invented by Canadians. Today was, of course, the biggest football Sunday of the year. The Battle of the Kelsey brothers and two young quarterbacks. an event known around the world, and some have been known to call it American football, especially if they're soccer fans. But did you know football was actually invented in Canada? Buckle up, because what we know as football started in an 1874 game between Harvard and McGill, a famous Canadian university. In 1875, Harvard played Tufts using the same rules, and in 1876, Walter Camp,

now known as the father of American football, codified the rules of the sport. Apparently, it's a timeless lesson to never show your new idea or invention to a bunch of kids from Harvard that might borrow it and make it their own happens all the time. Definitely want to thank Canada for that, which is really what the Crown Royal ad is all about. Being thankful. Love that about them. Crown Royal live generously and life will treat you royally. Please drink responsibly. There was the field goal that Harrison Bucker missed that came on the fourth and three. That was definitely a controversial call for Andy to kick in that situation. The fact that they didn't go for two

when they tied the game. And then you just, you, you compare that with how aggressive Philly is offensively. They probably, by the way, would have gone for, went for a number of fourth down tries in this game, probably would have done another one when there was the Derek Nottie neutral zone infraction, when they had four. and two at the eight.

If he hadn't done that, I'm sure they go for it, right? Like, I will say this. I felt like Nick Siriani at the end of the half, they could have like put their foot on the gas a little more. I feel like he settled for three and that kind of came back to bite them. Sure. They had more time on the clock and they kind of like let the clock run and they just took the three points and went into the half.

Maybe it's just like we want to go in the half with momentum, but you're playing the chiefs. You're playing Patrick Mahomes. Every point counts. You should just go for it. you have a quarterback who's playing a really good game, a quarterback who's had a great season. He was an MVP candidate.

I think in that moment, he didn't treat Jalen Hertz like an MVP candidate. And there were some like third and longs where they didn't really give them a chance to throw. Like they threw screen passes. Sometimes they ran the ball. But that was a moment that I marked down and it did come back to bite them. And I really thought that that was a mistake at the end of the game when Andy Reid didn't go for two because the Eagles,

they just came out and ran their offense. And we talked about it all week. Like you've got to get them out of their offense. You've got to make Jalen Hurts a dropback passer on third and long because it's tough. It's tough, especially against the Spag's defense. And I thought Andy let him off the hook. You have the best player on the planet, the best player on the planet, maybe the best player ever. And you only need two yards to essentially put the game away,

two possession game with eight minutes left against a team that we know loves to run the football. I think that was a chance to put the game away. And he didn't do it. And it goes. And then it's just like the. decision in the first half to kick the field goal. Three yards. Pat Mahomes. I trust Pat Mahomes to get three yards throwing it left-handed.

Pat Mahom's trying to throw a pass to a guy that was on the ground laying, and he threw an accurate pass. I mean, okay, so he didn't throw a pass left-handed, but Mahomes is already fighting through injury through these playoffs, and then we see him aggravate the ankle and it not matter. not saying it wasn't bothering him, but it didn't matter in terms of how he was playing. He's now on two Super Bowls,

hopefully a long career ahead. What do you think, how do you think that this Super Bowl will go down for him when we talk about, you know, all the legacy considerations that come out of a game like this? I think this run,

I think this will be the Super Bowl we remember. I mean, he still has a long way to go. maybe he'll throw for a thousand yards in a Super Bowl's 10 touchdowns. But his first Super Bowl, he didn't play all that well. I think he threw two interceptions. They really didn't move the ball well over the first three quarters. It wasn't until the end that they started playing well. This game, he was basically perfect.

Like ESPN QBR, which is on a 100 scale, 96. The way ESPN sets up the stat is basically like, what percent of the time would you win if you get this type of performance? 96 against the best defense in the NFL. on the biggest stage with Juju Smith-Schuster as your number one receiver. His receivers had 80 yards total receiving. 80. And it was one of the best performances I've ever seen.

Even if the numbers don't say, like, they don't look amazing. I think he averaged 6.7 yards per attempt. But it did not look like 6.7 yards per attempt. Yeah. I mean, that's the story of his season, right? It's like I hope, and I think people do. I mean, I think people who listen to our show and read The Ringer and, read a lot of NFL coverage and follow it closely,

get how special what he does is and what he's done this season is. Because you're right, it is a little bit harder to appreciate, but it's actually more impressive once you think about just how much he has to get right and how perfect he has to be on every play. And the fact that he just goes and does it, like he just does it. And I don't know how much. of this outcome will go down as a bit of a referendum of how the Eagles got to this point. Daniel Jones is the only healthy quarterback you play.

It's certainly one of the easier Super Bowl paths in recent memory. I still think, and I don't, I'm with you that I don't think Gannon had a great game, called a great game. That's a good defense. Those are good players. That's not, there's no asterisk based on the other quarterbacks that they played to get here. Or maybe not no, but like what he just did was so impressive. And it's worth appreciating because it's a really special thing to see on a football. I kind of think, and this is a bad thing and this is just a nature of the sports business and how sports are covered that this team would have been forgotten if not for Jalen Hertz having this game.

because no one thinks about the 2019 49ers. No one reminuses about them. And they had a great offense. They had a great running game. They had the same type of defense. First of all, Stephen, you think about the 2019.

No, I think about that one throw by Jimmy G. Make one throw, man. Second Jimmy G. Stray. That one, the odds were a little lower on that one. That one, you could have got like minus 250. But I think Jalen hurts really that.

That's how we're going to look back on the season. This was the season of Jail. hurts. And like the further we get away from it, the less we're going to think about the context. I don't think we're going to think about, we're not going to ask the same questions we were asking earlier. Like, oh, let's see him do it without a supporting cast. And I think that's a good thing. I think we should celebrate great performances. And that's what that was. We got a great performance out of him. And I don't know. I haven't been on Twitter yet, but it seems like no one's really faulting him for the fumble. Except for himself. Yeah, except for himself. That, yeah. So I, yeah,

I think this is going to be remembered as a Super Bowl where two quarterbacks just, you know, match each other, throw for throw. I think it was a, it was not as exciting version, but like a better version from minute one to minute 60 of what we saw last year, Chiefs Bill's bills, two offenses just playing at a high level. Good football.

Great football game. It's a good bowl. A good bowl. All right, before we go, anything with the Eagles going into this offseason, Um, only notable things that I've got right now from downstairs were that it, Jason Kelsey said he was going to take some time, think about his future, but kind of, I guess, sounded like he was hinting.

He felt like he would come back, which would be good, good news for them. Yeah. It's tough because defense is so volatile. Sure. And they're going to lose coaches on, on both sides of the ball. It's tough. when you have a team that's so there there was no one person or one unit that carried this team and that's almost scarier than having a i don't want to say the chiefs are a one-man team but

they have they can rely on patrick mohomes every year i think jalen hurts is a very good quarterback a good quarterback at the very least but i don't think he's at that point and maybe develops into it where as long as he's here we're going to be fine he's still very young he's still very early in his development. Who knows where he takes it from here. But it's hard to keep together a super team. And that's basically what this team was. A lot of talent. So deep. Best depth chart in the entire league. And they're going to lose some guys. They do have four picks in the top 100, which is really interesting because a year ago, those two first round picks felt like ammo to go get a quarterback. Yep. And now that's not something that they need to do. If there's,

ignore the draft board, ignore, you know, exactly how things would fall because it's way too early for us to even try to venture a guess there. But all else being equal, what positions do you attack for this team with those draft picks? I think you got to get, I think you got to get secondary help. I think you have to be able to play a different brand of defense. Like I said, you got to be more on sound. You got to be more willing to be on sound.

You got to play a little bit more man. You got to be willing to blitz. They have to change the. defense because it's not going to be as good as it was this year. Defense rarely is. It's so hard to sustain, especially when you're relying on a pass rush. What was so good about the pass rush? It was so deep.

And those guys are getting older. Like Brandon Graham is old. Obviously Sue's old. Limbaal Joseph's old. Hassan Reddick, great season. Do we think he's going to get 18 sacks again? He's been a 10-sack player ceiling before. I think when you changed the nature of the line,

he came out at the end of the game. They took him off the field because he's not a great run defender. So it's going to be hard to replicate that defense. I think the offense, I mean, I don't know. It's so hard to say because they have an offensive head coach and they have this offensive coordinator. It's hard to say like who deserves the credit. They will have a high floor with what hurts adds to the running game.

And if he continues to be as good of a passer and I'm not saying that he's a perfect passer, he's not Mahomes. But if he is this good, then they have a high seal. dealing high floor offense. Yeah. Like I think with this type of quarterback, and we've seen this throughout the last, I would say 10 years, like when you have a running quarterback who's really good at running,

like Cam Newton, Lamar Jackson, that's kind of your floor is like top 12 offense, no matter what. Like Lamar Jackson, give him anything. You got a top 10 offense because you have like one of the best running games. Give him the rest of the Baltimore Ravens. Yeah, you give him the Ravens. And you still, I think they were fifth in DVOA when he got hurt. And I think Jalen Hertz is that type of runner.

And we saw it tonight. Nothing was working in terms of ground game. And they were like, you know what, let's just spread out, let's empty the box and just have Jalen Hertz run the ball. And they're going to have that. They're going to have that forever, or not forever, but for the next 10 years if they choose. Like I said, the one concerned, it applies to the offensive line. It's hard to keep an offensive line together. And a lot of those guys are getting up there in years.

It's hard to keep an offensive line healthy. It's hard to keep a defensive line together. It's hard to keep a defensive line healthy. And we talk so much about their strength in the trenches that if that goes down by 10%, I think they're good enough to make the playoffs and maybe get a one seed. But I don't think they pose as much of a threat to a team like the Chiefs. And that's the team you're chasing. Yeah.

I don't know. I guess I disagree in a sense just because I think Jalen Hertz showed us something in this. Yeah. Jalen Hertz has gotten better every year for like the last six years. And I think this might have been the best game that I've seen in play. Yeah, definitely. And if that's true, they're going to be okay. They've got picks to make.

They're going to have some guys to replace. That's what happens. But for as much as this does seem like, you know, it always feels like a missed opportunity when you're that close when it's tied with five minutes left, he showed something this year and he was showing more and more and more. right up through this game. And that's the best possible.

Other than winning the Super Bowl, that is the best possible outcome for Philly. I do wonder what this offseason looks like for them because I wonder if they're aggressive and they try to build on an already strong team because I think this is, our next year is the last year of his rookie deal. There's no fifth year option.

He wasn't a first round quarterback. So like, I'm assuming he's going to get a new deal. Usually it happens this offseason four quarterbacks. After your third year, that's when you get the big contract. Are they going to give it to them this year? Are they going to wait?

They have an extra year of control, but I really want to see how they attack the roster. Are they going to kind of like take a step back and be like, all right, we have these draft picks? Maybe let's start to build another core that we could build upon. And maybe in two or three years, we can get back to the Super Bowl.

I think next year is going to be interesting. It's going to be a transition year, no matter what happens because of Jalen Hertz's contract. I think the answer to the question, that you just supposed might end up being both. Yeah. Because we've seen with this team in the past and how Howie Roseman thinks about team building, they are aggressive and they bolster positions before the cupboard gets bare.

And we've seen them do that even at quarterback, obviously. And that's something that's super important to them. The difference is that that's not Carson Wentz out there in eight million different ways, right? So they can probably do those things, I imagine. And it doesn't cause the same type of disruption in what they're doing. He's the perfect GM for this, that situation I were laid out, like kind of being in between going for it and still wanting to build something for the long term. I think he's the perfect GM. Because like you said, we've seen him kind of reinvent this team on the fly at times.

And we were like, oh, they got to blow it up. Like two off seasons ago, people were talking about the Eagles being in Capel and they were like, oh, this is going to be a terrible roster. They made the playoffs. Right. Well, it's interesting. And I agree with you that philosophically he's the right guy for this. Part of the reason, Howie Roseman takes big swings and thinks about reward much more so than risk as long as they feel good about if you do the math that it ends up in a positive risk calculus.

place. They don't freak out about big swings and misses, which I think is a good, a good thing. And it is how you get ahead of schedule in ways that the Eagles have done. Now, if it doesn't work out, all of a sudden, you got a bad team and you've got some big issues. And you've got, you know, you got to move on from Carson Wentz. You got to do all of that stuff. And we have seen, we've seen Howie Roseman build these great teams. We've also seen the Eagles be pretty bad, right? So it can go both ways, but I agree with you.

I think they're, I think they're in a really good position, almost as good as you can be with, with all of the questions about older players, whether the defense can be as good. They found a quarterback and they still have all of that ammunition to add to the roster. So it'll be a really cool offseason for them. Here is one issue. Let me list the free agents. Fletcher Cox, Brandon Graham, Javan Hargrave, Jason Kelsey, James Bradbury, Isaac Siamalu.

Those are a lot of good players that I just named. That's a lot of good players. And they're not going to re-sign them all. So it's going to be a tricky offseason. But I mean, yeah, I think now that they have like Jalen Hertz established, they have this offensive identity that I don't think is going away, even if they lose a guy on the offensive line, I do think they have a high floor

and then they play in the NFC East. And on that note, it would be very cool to watch the Eagles offseason. We'll have tons and tons of offseason coverage across the Ringer NFL show feed, the Ringer.com all over the place from the Super Bowl. This has been the Ringer NFL Sunday recap show. Thank you so much to Stephen,

not just for tonight, but for an incredible season. To Isaiah Blakely for production on this episode and to Arjuna Ramgapal and Connor Nevins for additional production supervision.