It took more than a decade, but the Seattle Seahawks and their fans finally got their revenge Sunday for the famous Malcolm Butler play, defeating the New England Patriots 29-13 in Super Bowl LX in Santal Clara, California, to earn their second title in franchise history. In the process, they denied the Patriots what would have been a league-leading seventh Super Bowl.
NEW ORLEANS — While breaking down the huddle after warmups ahead of Super Bowl LIX, Jalen Hurts reminded the Eagles of their dominance all season long.
“We did this [expletive] all year,” Hurts said. “Don’t stop now.”
They didn’t. The Eagles pulled off a 40-22 beatdown of the Kansas City Chiefs in the Superdome, usurping the crown from the back-to-back Lombardi Trophy victors.
Hurts dazzled through the air and on the ground and was voted Super Bowl MVP. He went 17-of-22 for 221 yards, two touchdowns, and an interception for a 119.7 passer rating. Hurts also did record-setting damage on the ground. He finished the night with 72 rushing yards on 11 carries, breaking his own record for rushing yards in a Super Bowl by a quarterback (70 in Super Bowl LVII).
The Chiefs had answers to stop Saquon Barkley, limiting him to 57 yards on 25 carries, his second lowest single-game total of the season. But it didn’t matter. Not only did the Eagles’ passing game step up, but also the defense kept Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs offense at bay.
Kansas City racked up 225 yards of net offense, which would have been their third-lowest output of the season, before a garbage-time 50-yard touchdown reception by rookie receiver Xavier Worthy.
Here are our takeaways from the Eagles’ second Super Bowl title victory in franchise history:
Hurts handles business
All eyes were on Hurts and his matchup against Steve Spagnuolo’s defense, with a particular focus on how he would handle the defensive coordinator’s notorious blitz. Going into the game, the Chiefs had blitzed at the fifth-highest rate in the league in the regular season (34%), per Next Gen Stats. Hurts had fared better against the blitz this year compared to last, completing 64.2% of his passing attempts and throwing just one interception, per Pro Football Focus.
Hurts passed the test against the blitz with flying colors early in the contest. On the Eagles’ second possession of the night, the Chiefs rushed five on second-and-11 from the Kansas City 28. Thanks to a key blitz pickup from Barkley, Hurts had plenty of time to air the ball out down the right sideline to Jahan Dotson for a gain of 27 yards. Hurts punched the ball into the end zone on a Tush Push touchdown to put the Eagles up, 7-0.
The protection wasn’t always perfect, though. On the Eagles’ third possession at the Chiefs’ 30-yard line, Nick Bolton was the fifth man on a delayed rush up the A gap. No one picked him up, giving him a free shot at Hurts. With Bolton in his face, the fourth-year starter tossed the ball short of A.J. Brown, allowing safety Bryan Cook to swoop in and snare the interception. The pick marked Hurts’ first since Nov. 10 in Week 10 against the Dallas Cowboys.
Hurts rebounded quickly. After a 48-yard field goal from Jake Elliott and a pick-six from Cooper DeJean on his 22nd birthday, Hurts capitalized on a Zack Baun interception that brought the Eagles to the Chiefs’ 14-yard line after the two-minute warning in the first half. On second-and-8, Hurts hit Brown on a crossing route to put the Eagles up, 24-0.
The Slim Reaper carried a scythe and a dagger. DeVonta Smith beat Chiefs cornerback Jaylen Watson off the line of scrimmage and Hurts connected with him on a deep shot for a 46-yard touchdown reception. According to Next Gen Stats, the pass sailed 54.9 yards in the air, which marked Hurts’ second-longest completion of the season and sixth-longest of his career.
Four-man rush takes flight
Defenses win championships, evidently.
Vic Fangio and his unit put on a masterclass in how to limit Mahomes, who was making his fifth Super Bowl appearance in his eight career seasons. Unlike Spagnuolo, Fangio didn’t employ any exotic blitzes to get the job done. Instead, Fangio relied on a four-man rush and sticky coverage on the back end to put Mahomes under duress.
It worked. In the first half alone, the Eagles managed a 47% pressure rate without blitzing Mahomes once. The 29-year-old got a taste of the four-man rush on the Chiefs’ opening drive on third-and-9. Mahomes held onto the ball with his receivers well-covered, giving Nolan Smith and Milton Williams the opportunity to flush him from the pocket. Mahomes threw the ball incomplete.
The Eagles kept bringing the pressure and eventually began to get home. After defeating a block from Chiefs right tackle Jawaan Taylor, Nolan Smith tripped up Mahomes on third-and-3, forcing the Chiefs to go three-and-out.
Two possessions later, Josh Sweat made his case for a hefty payday on the free-agent market. On the Chiefs’ fourth possession of the night, Sweat sacked Mahomes on first down, then split a sack with Jalyx Hunt on the ensuing second down. On the first play after DeJean’s pick-six that followed the back-to-back sacks, Williams joined the party, bringing down Mahomes on third-and-9.
Sweat added another at the start of the third quarter to bring his final total on the day to 2½, his single-game career high. Williams strip-sacked Mahomes in the fourth and recovered his forced fumble at the Chiefs’ 18-yard line. Mahomes went 21-of-32 for 257 yards, three touchdowns, and two interceptions for a 95.4 passer rating. He took a total of six sacks.
Pick-ture perfect
With Mahomes out of sorts in the pocket, the Eagles’ back seven took advantage of his errant passes. After taking two consecutive sacks, Mahomes fled the pocket to his right prematurely, attempting to make a throw across his body to the middle of the field. None of the Chiefs receivers were in the vicinity.
DeJean, however, was running directly into the path of the ball. The rookie nickel cornerback snared the pass, then ran 38 yards to the end zone for his first career touchdown on his 22nd birthday, putting the Eagles up, 17-0.
The defense continued to force Mahomes into making poor decisions. With less than two minutes remaining in the first half, backed up at his own 6-yard line, Mahomes felt pressure in his face. Sweat put Chiefs left tackle Joe Thuney on skates, backing him up into Mahomes’ lap. The Chiefs quarterback unleashed a pass to the short middle of the field, which a diving Baun corralled for an interception.
The pick marked Baun’s first in the Superdome, where he regularly played for four seasons as a member of the New Orleans Saints.
GLENDALE, Ariz. -- Quarterback Patrick Mahomes was named MVP after the Kansas City Chiefs defeated the Philadelphia Eagles 38-35 for the franchise's second Super Bowl victory in four years.
"He's the MVP. The MVP," Chiefs coach Andy Reid said in his postgame on-field interview. "That's all that needs to be said: MVP."
Mahomes, hobbled with what appeared to be the same high ankle sprain suffered earlier in the postseason, keyed a second-half rally and finished the night 21-of-27 passing for 182 yards and three touchdowns. He was masterful on the game-winning drive, a 12-play, 66-yard series that churned out 5:07 of fourth-quarter clock and resulted in a 27-yard Harrison Butker field goal with 8 seconds to go.
"M-V-Pat, you know what I mean," Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce said in his postgame on-field interview. "You can't say how much he means to this team."
The Chiefs trailed 24-14 at the break but Mahomes guided the comeback by throwing two of his scoring passes after halftime. He also rushed for 44 yards in the win.
"I told you all this week there's nothing that's going to keep me off that football field," Mahomes said. "I just want a shoutout to my teammates -- we challenged each other, we needed everyone to win this football game -- so shoutout to my teammates. We're Super Bowl champs!"
Mahomes no doubt benefited from some extra treatment thanks to a longer halftime to allow for Rhianna's performance inside State Farm Stadium. And by the time the field was cleared of the stage, No. 15 was at the head of the pack, knowing the Chiefs would get the opening kickoff.
Mahomes suffered the sprain in the Chiefs' divisional round win over the Jacksonville Jaguars. He aggravated the injury late in the first half Sunday but remained in the game. His 14-yard scramble was the key play on a touchdown drive to begin the second half.
"The offensive line, Pat Mahomes and the rest of the offensive players -- they did a great job,'' Reid said.
Mahomes was also named MVP of the Super Bowl in 2020, when the Chiefs defeated the San Francisco 49ers 31-20. And he is now the 13th quarterback to win multiple Super Bowl championships.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Ain't nothin' but a #RamsHouse, baby.
Your Super Bowl Champs going crazy.
Stan Kroenke's the fella that pays them.
Unbeatable, so we gon get dem #HornsUp.
Hell yes.
Amid the blaring of blue and gold horns, on a super-sized Sunday fit for an ascension, the Los Angeles sports heavens just got a little more crowded.
Make room for the Rams.
Move over Lakers, back up Dodgers, everybody clear space for the oldest of friends, the newest of heroes, the prodigal sons turned Super Bowl champions.
Six years after returning to Los Angeles with helmet in hand, the Rams raised those helmets to the sky Sunday with a 23-20 victory over Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl LVI at SoFi Stadium.
They won it after blowing an early 10-point lead and stumbling into a 10-point deficit. They won by coming back in the fourth quarter on a 79-yard, game-winning touchdown drive featuring the two stars who have carried them all season — quarterback Matthew Stafford and receiver Cooper Kupp.
The winning blow, after the desperate Bengals were assessed two penalties for holding Kupp, came on a one-yard toss from Stafford to Kupp with 1:25 remaining.
The Rams defense then held the Bengals in the final minute to win it when mighty Aaron Donald threw Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow to the ground with 39 seconds remaining, forcing a game-ending incompletion on fourth down.
Boom. Done. Won. The exhausted Rams stalked triumphantly off their sidelines as the air filled with confetti and strains of, “I Love L.A.”
They won it not only with the final comeback, but with two other comebacks. They won despite a missed face mask call that led to the Bengals’ go-ahead touchdown on the first play of the second half, and they won despite losing receiver Odell Beckham Jr. to a knee injury in the second quarter.
They won it with trademark resilience and toughness, just as they vowed they would win it, an overdue repayment of an ancient debt owed.
They were this city’s first NFL team in 1946. They left for St. Louis after the 1994 season. They returned in 2016 with a promise to make up for lost time and a mission to win back a city’s heart.
Promise kept. Mission complete.
All this, after a sequence of plays just after halftime that made it seemed these Rams were doomed.
On the first play of second half, with the Rams leading 13-10 Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow lofted the ball down the left sideline to Tee Higgins just as Higgins pulled defender Jalen Ramsey’s face mask and twisted him toward the ground. Ramsey fell and Higgins caught the pass on the 36-yard line, then carried it in untouched for a 75-yard touchdown pass that eventually gave the Bengals a 17-13 lead.
No, the face mask grab was not penalized and, no, the play was not reviewable for instant replay.
On the first play of the Rams’ ensuing drive, a Stafford pass bounced off the hands of Ben Skowronek and into the hands of Chidobe Awuzie for Stafford’s second interception. Moments later, that led to a 38-yard field goal to give the Bengals a 20-13 lead.
When they finally found their footing, the Rams didn’t get mad, they got even, roaring back not only with a potent offense, but a defense that eventually stopped Burrow, who was compromised with a fourth-quarter knee injury.
In winning their first Super Bowl championship and second NFL title during their 54 years of inhabiting Los Angeles, the Rams also secured their spot among the local sports landscape’s elite.
In a city of champions, they needed a title to be considered legitimate citizens. Today, they belong.
In a city where sports fans demand excellence for their dollars, they needed a title to attract a larger share of the attention. Today, everybody is watching.
It is the first Los Angeles championship in the four major sports since both the Lakers and Dodgers won titles in the fall of 2020. And, like the Lakers and Dodgers, the Rams spared no expense in making that it happen.
When they returned here after an absence of more than two decades, owner Stan Kroenke committed everything to a ring.
He spent $5 billion to construct the palace that is SoFi Stadium with the hopes that his team would one day win a championship there. He then dispatched team president Kevin Demoff and general manager Les Snead to leave no expensive stone unturned in realizing those hopes.
They had the foresight to hire McVay when he was the youngest coach in NFL history — he was 30 then, he’s 36 now — and then in recent years surrounded him with the game’s best talent.
They made Donald the league’s highest paid defensive player at the time. They traded for the game’s best cornerback in Jalen Ramsey. Then 13 months ago they really got serious when they traded for quarterback Matthew Stafford. Since then, they have also traded for Super Bowl 50 MVP linebacker hero Von Miller and signed receiver Odell Beckham Jr.
After coming close with a Super Bowl loss three years ago, they finally peaked at the right time this year, riding playoff wins against the Arizona Cardinals, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and San Francisco 49ers into Sunday’s Super Bowl finale.
Which they finished with a flourish, in the style of all serious Los Angeles champions, winning as they expected to win, dominating as they promised to dominate.
The heavens no longer have to wait. Make room for the Rams.
Amid the sound and fury of the Brian Flores lawsuit, you may have forgotten that the Super Bowl kicks off on Sunday at Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium. As challenging as it is to pick a winner between the Cincinnati Bengals and the hometown Rams – barely a field-goal favourite, by Vegas’ reckoning – one team has already lost: the Chargers.
You remember the Chargers. They’re the other NFL team that calls Los Angeles home, the one with the cute yellow lightning bolt on the sides of their helmets. Of course for 55 years they were the San Diego Chargers, the pro sports standard bearer for a sleepy SoCal idyll famous for sun and fun (they actually started life in LA before heading south in 1961 after a single season). In San Diego, they were one of the league’s heritage teams, in that group of pioneering AFL franchises with the Raiders and the Chiefs. Among other things, the Chargers were the team where Al Davis got started in pro football and where the vertical passing game was laboratory tested and perfected. They played at Jack Murphy Stadium, an architectural marvel that played host to three Super Bowls and two World Series – handling one of each in 1998.
For a time they seemed an ideally situated franchise – beloved by locals, nationally respected and synonymous with a town any football fan would kill to visit in December or January – and opposing fans from Chicago or Cleveland were famous for taking over the Murph. As someone who mainly attended games there as a member of the working press, the real treat was being able to watch the action from a lower bowl, outdoor press box. I can think of few better ways to spend a 72-degree fall Sunday.
Of course the picture in San Diego was not all sunny. The Chargers fanbase could be fickle (I was too when I lived in San Diego). The city, while nationally renowned, was a small market relative to California’s other NFL towns. And after the turn of the century the Murph was a dilapidated relic that couldn’t compete with JerryWorld, University of Phoenix Stadium and other football Taj Mahals. Seeing the writing crumbling from his stadium walls Dean Spanos, the Chargers’ longtime steward, did that thing all bajillionaires sports owners do when they feel the market has dealt them a bad hand; he threatened to move to Las Vegas or Oakland or Timbuktu unless the city built him a new stadium. And when his corporate welfare stickup was rebuffed, because San Diegans are awesome, Spanos took his ball and went north on I-5 to LA, leaving the town with a giant hole where a civic institution used to be.
Talk about a copycat league. The Chargers didn’t just follow the Rams (formerly of St Louis) to the City of Angels; they’re little better than dollar-per-year subletters at SoFi Stadium, the pet project of Walmart consort and Rams owner Stan Kroenke. Before moving into SoFi in 2020, the Chargers played inside a black box MLS stadium in Carson, which – culturally and sometimes with traffic – is about as far from Hollywood as Dubuque. And while they’re not the only NFL teams to share a stadium – New York’s teams share one in New Jersey – the Giants and Jets at least are an unbroken tradition in the TriState. The Rams and Chargers – who started in LA in 1946 and 1960, respectively – had been gone too long for locals to remember why they should care about them in the first place. In the interregnum the Raiders, Dallas Cowboys and the USC Trojans became LA’s football teams.
If there’s anything LA respects, it’s a winner. So it figures that now that the Rams are playing in their second Super Bowl in three years, and on their home field to boot, the Chargers barely register. In a recent survey designed to weed out the “saddest” NFL fans, or those “most emotionally upset” by wins and losses, the Chargers ranked dead last – which provides some sense of the depth of apathy here. Attendance is another quality indicator, and before the move to SoFi – again, the Rams’ house – the Chargers came in dead last through the turnstiles, too. And while LA Chargers crowds have picked up since they moved into SoFi, the vaccines rolled out and the superb young quarterback Justin Herbert came to town, at the end of the day, most of that lucre flows to Kroenke’s Rams.
It didn’t have to be this way. Besides the best town and loyal fans, the San Diego Chargers had another thing going for them. They were less than 20 miles away from Mexico, the closest NFL team besides the Detroit Lions and the Buffalo Bills to an international border. Had Spanos been thinking ahead, he could’ve owned the Mexican market decades before the Cowboys, Raiders and 49ers set up shop. While the league was establishing games in London as a thing, it was also drawing similarly sized crowds for kickoffs in Mexico City. Spanos could have expanded his market to include an entire country, encroached deeper into Latin America and used those riches to build the stadium of his dreams. Given the NFL’s world-conquering ambitions and its efforts to ingratiate itself with the Latin community, leave no doubt: this is a massive fail.
The Chargers could have been exemplars – first to take off outside the US, leading the NFL’s foreign expansion, a more valuable franchise than perhaps even the Cowboys. Instead, they’re a second-class team in an A-list town. Only a bajillionaire detached from reality could see this as winning.
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