NEW ORLEANS — One advantage of being the designated home team in the Super Bowl is that you typically get to enjoy better facilities than your opponent. Given the game is played in an NFL city, the designated away team gets to practice at a local college while the “home” team utilizes the host NFL team’s facilities.
After spending all week among the Saints’ facilities, the Eagles got to utilize one more when they gathered Saturday for their team picture in the Caesars Superdome where Super Bowl LIX would be contested the next day.
The group was loose, tossing the football around the field. There was no nervous energy, sources said. Some within the Eagles organization believed this state of mind would be an advantage against the Chiefs.
All week, the Eagles expressed a quiet confidence despite being 60 minutes away from residing on the wrong end of a potential trivia question: What team gave up the first three-peat in NFL history?
In Philadelphia’s 40-22 thrashing of a proud Kansas City team, the Eagles showed they were the more talented group by handling business exactly as they always knew they would.
Patrick Mahomes, the best young quarterback in NFL history, had arguably the worst game of his career. Yes, he got stalked by the Buccaneers four years ago, but he was injured and immobile in that game — unable to help his weakened offensive line. On Sunday, there was no excuse.
Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio did not Mahomes even once in the game, according to NFL’s Next Gen Stats. He didn’t need to — the Eagles generated pressure on 38.1% of snaps anyway.
“We just adjusted with coverages,” said Fangio in the postgame having finally won a Super Bowl for the first time in his 66 years. “We didn’t pressure much. He showed good against pressure that I was hoping we could play the game without having to pressure much, and that happened.
“I thought several times [about blitzing], but our guys were playing so good with what we were doing mixing the coverages that I wasn’t going to risk it.”
Take away the fourth quarter — when the premade three-peat shirts and hats had likely been loaded on a truck never to be seen again (in this country) — and Mahomes compiled just 148 yards passing while completing 50% of his throws with two interceptions, including a costly pick six to Cooper DeJean.
The Eagles were never afraid of Mahomes despite what he did to them two years ago: coming back from double digits in the second half to win in Arizona. Part of that reason? Many of the guys on this Eagles team weren’t on the roster two years ago.
DeJean was at Iowa when Mahomes led the comeback in the desert. The last two weeks, he and the rest of the young defensive backs studied the Chiefs’ tendencies. They knew, when Mahomes scrambled, they needed to find the receivers’ routes and hover in their landmarks.
Joe Kasper, the Eagles safeties coach in both Super Bowls against the Chiefs, worked this week with his group on a route concept they saw in the second quarter. Down 10-0 — usually the exact situation in which Mahomes thrives against opponents in the playoffs, (trailing by double digits) — the Chiefs quarterback took the shotgun snap, moved to his right and threw what was certain to be an incomplete pass to DeAndre Hopkins. Instead, the rookie, DeJean, stepped in front of it for his first career interception.
Thirty-eight yards later, the 22-year-old birthday boy had the first pick six in a Super Bowl since 2017.
“Cooper’s got really good feel in our zone coverages. He had a great feel for how to play that technique,” Kasper said. “He plays so well in space, and it’s tough to find nickels who can play well in space. We’re fortunate to have two with him and Avonte [Maddox]. There are few defensive backs at his age — a 22-year-old rookie — who can seize an opportunity like that, and he did. That’s one of the things that makes him special.”
LOOK: Eagles rookie Cooper DeJean gets first career INT for pick six vs. Chiefs in 2025 Super Bowl
Cody Benjamin
The Eagles defensive backs started a new celebration this season where they would put their hands up and wave them down. It is known as chill chill. Up 24-0 at halftime, those same defensive backs did that motion to each other coming out for the second half.
“It was like, ‘Chill chill, we’ve got more left,'” Kasper said. “No moment is too big for us. We know we’re young. We leaned on the vets, and they instilled in us that chill chill mindset.”
Coming into New Orleans, Fangio told his defense that the playing surface would give them an advantage. In the Super Bowl two years ago, the Eagles pass rush struggled to find its footing on the wet field. That wasn’t the case in the Superdome.
In five games on turf this season heading into Sunday’s game, the Eagles had — by far — the best defense in the NFL. They averaged season-lows in points allowed (11.6), yards allowed (211), yards passing allowed (128) and sack rate (10.3%) on synthetic surfaces.
Sacking Mahomes six times wasn’t exactly a surprise to Fangio. Well … not entirely.
“Now … they exceeded my hopes and expectations,” he admitted, “but I did believe we could have a good pass rush game.”
From team pictures at the Superdome to the Hilton Riverside on Saturday evening, that quiet confidence could be felt throughout the Eagles organization. Jeremiah Washburn, the team’s defensive ends and outside linebackers coach, believed the result two years ago was a leading factor.
“Even the speeches last night were very non-emotional,” Washburn said. “It was just like, ‘This is what we have to do, so let’s get it done.’ It was a little different than it was two years ago. The sting of two years ago was always in the recess of everybody’s [mind], and they treated it like that.”
Nobody on the team — check that, no one in the NFL — embodies quiet confidence quite like Jalen Hurts. The Eagles star quarterback played Sunday night like he knew he’d win. When the Chiefs sold out to take away Saquon Barkley, he decided to put on an MVP performance.
Hurts was the last player to join the Eagles’ postgame locker room. The cigar smoke hit him as soon as he crossed the threshold, and he immediately went to his locker to get his lighter. He understood the moment, as media huddled around, would go viral.
Hurts flicked his lighter quickly … nothing.
A dozen more flicks … still nothing. He shook it a few times to get the fluid going, certain his lighter would finally work. Eventually, he borrowed one from a teammate.
The lighter would be the only instrument that failed Hurts on Sunday night.