Super Bowl week has arrived. The Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles have descended on New Orleans, and will hit the practice fields Tuesday to begin preparing for Sunday’s clash.
Super Bowl LIX will offer no shortage of action, and the days leading up to the big game will offer all kinds of developments and stories from both teams and from the NFL as a whole.
Here are seven of the top storylines to follow this week.
New Orleans has rolled out the red carpet as the Super Bowl arrives for the 11th time. The Big Easy has hosted some of the most memorable Super Bowls in league history.
From a young Tom Brady and the Patriots upsetting the Rams’ “Greatest Show on Turf” for the first of their six titles together in Super Bowl XXXVI, to Ray Lewis, Joe Flacco and the Ravens holding off the fierce second-half charge of Colin Kaepernick and the 49ers in Super Bowl XLVII, to Desmond Howard’s 99-yard kickoff return for a touchdown and Brett Favre’s 81-yard pass to Antonio Freeman in the Packers’ victory over the Patriots in Super Bowl XXXI … the list goes on.
What theatrics will highlight this year’s showdown?
No place throws a party like New Orleans, so the week will be filled with festivities. The NFL is planning for a robust pregame ceremony to celebrate the host city and Kendrick Lamar headlines the halftime show.
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Roger Goodell’s annual Super Bowl week news conference is Monday afternoon. Here, the commissioner will discuss the league’s wins in revenue, viewership records and expanded reach.
He’ll also offer updates on upcoming international games, potential rule changes the league will consider this offseason, his assessment of the latest hiring cycle, health and safety findings, a potential 18-game season — and everyone’s favorite topic: the state of officiating.
Two years after they met in Arizona for Super Bowl LVII, the Eagles and Chiefs face each other again.
Philadelphia’s Jalen Hurts delivered a dazzling performance in his Super Bowl debut, passing for 304 yards and a touchdown while rushing for 70 yards and three more touchdowns. His Eagles held a 27-21 lead entering the fourth quarter before the Chiefs scored back-to-back touchdowns to take a 35-27 lead with 9:22 left to play. Hurts and the Eagles responded with another touchdown drive, but in the final five minutes of action, Patrick Mahomes marched his team downfield for a 27-yard Harrison Butker field goal with eight seconds left for the 38-35 victory.
Mahomes finished with 182 passing yards and three touchdowns en route to his second Super Bowl victory.
How will things play out this time around? Given the high-octane potential of the teams’ offenses and the dominance of their defenses, fireworks are sure to ensue. But who comes out on top?
In a league driven by star quarterbacks and record-breaking passing performances, could a running back wind up being the X factor in the biggest game of the year?
Saquon Barkley is on a historic tear, rushing for 2,005 yards and 13 touchdowns during the regular season and another 442 yards and five touchdowns in the postseason. He’d like nothing more than to put the Eagles on his back and carry them to a Super Bowl victory.
In Super Bowl LVII, a lack of a consistent rushing threat meant Hurts had to do it all. Kenneth Gainwell, Boston Scott and Miles Sanders combined for 45 yards on 17 carries for the Eagles. But now, the Eagles have a legit game-changing rusher and ever-present home run threat in Barkley.
If the Eagles managed to execute with balance while utilizing a running-back-by-committee approach two years ago, how much more effective will an offense that also boasts talented pass catchers A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith and Dallas Goedert wind up being this time around?
Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo is regarded as the best at his craft. He’ll certainly have to cook up his best game plan of the year to neutralize Barkley.
Barkley has the chance to play a huge role in the Eagles’ quest for a Super Bowl title. However, there’s plenty of pressure on coach Nick Sirianni and Hurts. Despite the 48-20 record they have amassed during their four regular seasons together, and that they are the first head coach and quarterback in Eagles history to reach two Super Bowls, Sirianni and Hurts still have much to prove.
Sirianni has been criticized for the way he wears his emotions on his sleeve. He also has been knocked for the inconsistencies of the Eagles offense — particularly the passing attack — and some of the gambles he takes in games. Hurts, meanwhile, has his share of critics because of a lack of game-changing plays with his arm and overall pedestrian passing performances this past season, a year of individual statistical regression.
Yet in four years together they have won NFC East titles, consistently made the playoffs and reached the Super Bowl twice. Sirianni and Hurts are unapologetically themselves and care not what outsiders think of them. They go about their jobs their way, even if it doesn’t look the way some believe it should. A Super Bowl victory would silence their critics and cement them as the greatest coach-QB duo in Eagles history.
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With three Super Bowl victories in five years, the Chiefs already have achieved dynasty status. But they’re not done yet. They have their sights set on additional historic feats.
A victory Sunday would make the Chiefs the first team to win three Super Bowls in a row. Kansas City also would join the Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers as teams with five Lombardi Trophies, trailing only the New England Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers, who have six.
Mahomes has a personal legacy to add to. If he wins Sunday, he’ll tie Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana for the second-most Super Bowl victories by a quarterback, with four. Tom Brady leads the list with seven rings.
Meanwhile, Andy Reid is coaching in his sixth Super Bowl and already belongs to an elite club of 13 NFL head coaches with multiple rings. Reid has a chance to join Bill Belichick (six) and Chuck Noll (four) as the only coaches with more than three Super Bowl victories.
The Super Bowl officiating crew led by referee Ron Torbert will do its best to remain invisible. Torbert is working his third Super Bowl. His crew includes side judge Boris Cheek, who is working his fourth Super Bowl. But the rest are Super Bowl officiating rookies: umpire Mike Morton (who won Super Bowl XXXIV as a linebacker for the St. Louis Rams), down judge Max Causey, line judge Mark Stewart, field judge Mearl Robinson and back judge Jonah Monroe. Kevin Brown is the replay official.
Torbert has a couple of impactful postseason calls to his resume. He was officiating the AFC Championship Game two years ago when Cincinnati Bengals defensive end Joseph Ossai was called for a hit out of bounds on Mahomes. That unnecessary roughness call with 17 seconds left in the game moved the ball 15 yards to the Cincinnati 27 and set the Chiefs up for the field goal that sent them to the Super Bowl.
Torbert also had a memorable call in Super Bowl LVI, where Bengals linebacker Logan Wilson was called for holding on Rams wide receiver Cooper Kupp on a third-and-goal play. That penalty set up the Rams for a touchdown scored by Kupp. Wilson argued during and after the game that Kupp had pushed off and that he did not hold the receiver.
Officiating came under scrutiny again in this year’s AFC Championship Game because of two controversial plays. On one, Chiefs receiver Xavier Worthy was awarded a catch even though Bills safety Cole Bishop also appeared to possess the ball, which also seemed to hit the ground (but didn’t move). On another, the Chiefs were deemed to have stopped Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen on a fourth-and-1 sneak attempt, even though some camera angles appeared to show Allen crossing the line to gain a first down. Replay review upheld both calls, but that hasn’t quieted skeptics, who believe the Chiefs receive favorable treatment from game officials.
The Chiefs, Eagles, their fans and the NFL as a whole can only hope this Super Bowl isn’t decided by any controversial calls.
(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; photos: Michael Owens, Ryan Kang, Perry Knotts / Getty Images)
