Chris Berman is back to make his pick for Super Bowl LIX between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles.
Berman has picked the winner in five of the past six years, and in each of the past three Super Bowls, he has correctly picked the winner AND the exact margin of victory.
Odds courtesy of ESPN BET.
Kansas City Chiefs (-1, 48.5) vs. Philadelphia Eagles
Sunday, Feb. 9, 6:30 p.m. ET, Caesars Superdome, New Orleans
Fifty-nine Super Bowls! Plenty of history. This game, however, might have a richer history going into it than most.
As most of you know, the Kansas City Chiefs are trying to be the first team to win three straight Lombardi Trophies in the Super Bowl era. What you might not know is that since they started playing NFL championship games in 1933, only one team — Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers — has won three straight championships (1965 to 1967).
When it came time for the Pack to win three straight Super Bowls, however, they fell short. As did the Miami Dolphins, Pittsburgh Steelers (twice), San Francisco 49ers, Dallas Cowboys, Denver Broncos and New England Patriots. Give the Chiefs plenty of credit already. They are the only ones trying to three-peat that made it back to the Super Bowl.
Here’s the Philadelphia Eagles’ side of history. Saquon Barkley is the ninth player to rush for 2,000 yards in a single season. Of the other eight players to do so, only Terrell Davis of the Broncos in 1998 reached the Super Bowl in that season.
This truly is a “Super” Super Bowl. The Chiefs have lost only one real game since Christmas Day in 2023. After all, they sat most of their starters in the Week 18 loss to the Broncos.
Some question how they won this season. They pulled out victories by a toenail against Baltimore, a blocked field goal at the end of the game against Denver, a Raiders fumble in the final seconds and a doink on a game-winning field goal attempt facing the Chargers, just to name some. However, when you’ve won 17 straight one-score games, most recently the AFC Championship Game against the Buffalo Bills, those questions should have stopped long ago. It’s not an accident.
Not to be outdone, the Eagles have only one loss since the start of October. Head coach Nick Sirianni has said several times, “We don’t care how we win.” Again, wins aren’t always associated with style points. The bottom line is the two teams with the fewest question marks on their roster made it to the Super Bowl and, looking back, that’s no surprise. One other interesting note: These teams won the first two games of the season — the Chiefs in the Thursday night opener and the Eagles on Friday night in Brazil — and now they’re playing in the last one.
Two years ago, they played in a fabulous Super Bowl LVII in Arizona, a game I called “The Roaster in the Toaster” (I call the Cardinals’ home stadium “The Big Toaster”). Kansas City won 38-35 in the final seconds, naturally by one score. I don’t think this game will be quite as high-scoring. However, I expect both teams to score in the neighborhood of the upper 20s.
What can we take from that game two years later? For the Eagles, obviously Barkley is now the running back. The offensive line has undergone a couple of changes — Jason Kelce now works for ESPN — but they are still outstanding. The tush push is alive and well. Interestingly, the Eagles have changed both coordinators twice since then, with Kellen Moore calling the offense and Vic Fangio calling the defense. A quick look back at that Super Bowl shows that QB Jalen Hurts, who played brilliantly that day, hit DeVonta Smith seven times and connected with A.J. Brown and Dallas Goedert six times each. They’re all still there. General manager Howie Roseman deserves huge kudos for making a strong defense even stronger, and younger. His first-round picks from 2023, Jalen Carter and Nolan Smith Jr., have excelled up front, and the top two picks last year, Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean, have stood out in the defensive backfield. He also traded for Zack Baun, adding him to an already top-notch unit. The result: The Eagles are plus-10 in turnover differential in their three playoff wins alone.
On the other sideline, Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes have already written their names into NFL lore as one of the great coach/QB duos of all time. So, too, has TE Travis Kelce, who had six receptions and a touchdown in Super Bowl LVII. Kelce caught 97 passes during the 2024 regular season, an “off” year for him. In the receiving department, aside from Kelce, the Chiefs have taken an “everybody eats” approach, mainly because of injuries as far back as the summer, forcing Reid and Mahomes to ad-lib quite a bit. The Chiefs now are as healthy as they have been all season, which means Hollywood Brown is back at wide receiver and Isiah Pacheco is back at running back (even though Kareem Hunt might get more carries in this game). The biggest change has been on the O-line, where Pro Bowl guard Joe Thuney has been playing left tackle down the stretch out of necessity. Clearly, that has gone just fine.
Last season, the Chiefs won the Super Bowl on the strength of Steve Spagnuolo’s defense. This season has followed a similar formula, as Chris Jones, Nick Bolton and Trent McDuffie give K.C. a stalwart at every level. True shutdown corner L’Jarius Sneed went to Tennessee in the offseason, but Spagnuolo’s timely blitzes have once again worked wonders. That was apparent in the final minutes of the AFC Championship Game against the Bills when McDuffie’s blitz altered Josh Allen’s fourth-down throw, just as a similar McDuffie blitz in the final minutes of regulation in last year’s Super Bowl affected Brock Purdy’s third-down pass.
So … who wins on Sunday? The biggest matchup I’ll be watching is what the Chiefs’ defense will do to keep Barkley from another standout performance. Remember, he ran for 205 yards against the Rams and over 100 in the Eagles’ other two playoff wins. This is so intriguing because we haven’t seen a season for running backs like we saw with Barkley and Derrick Henry in about a decade, when Adrian Peterson was running this strong for the Minnesota Vikings. I’m sure Spags didn’t forget how to defend great running backs, it’s just that we haven’t seen this for a while, especially in the Super Bowl. For the Eagles, if Barkley runs for, let’s just say 115 yards, will that be enough to spring everything else?
Then there’s the ball carrier whom very few people talk about, but one who continues to confound opposing defensive coordinators. His name is Patrick Mahomes. I call him the “electric eel,” because he will slither for a key third-down run in the biggest moments of the game. His arm and his ability to find Kelce, or the right receiver at the right time, remains something to behold. I’ve wondered all season whether the Chiefs could carry their quest for three straight Super Bowl titles from start to finish. If so, understand that we might never see this again. I’m a sucker for history — I majored in it at Brown — and I certainly don’t mind seeing it every now and then.
Kansas City 27, Philadelphia 24
P.S. Maybe I’m also a softie for a three-peat, which somehow I’ve done in this column. If the Swami can do it, I figured the Chiefs can, too.
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