The Big Game Really Lived Up to Its Name

Tony Mongeluzi Contributing Writer

This NFL season has been one of the most exciting in a long time. That excitement has now carried to the Super Bowl. Here’s how conference champions the Eagles and the Chiefs found themselves in the big game.

The stage was set for the two top seeds in the NFC to meet up in the NFC Championship. In the battle between the one-seed Eagles versus the two-seeded 49ers, the league-ranked number one offense versus the league-ranked number one defense. These narratives weren’t the only ones. A big narrative was how the 49ers would play with Mr. Irrelevant, Brock Purdy, at the helm fair against a very good Eagles defense. In Purdy’s starts up to this point, he was anything but irrelevant. When Jimmy Garoppolo got hurt, Purdy came in as a rookie who was the last pick in the NFL draft and seemed to orchestrate the offense even better than Garoppolo did. Purdy went 5-0 as the starter. In the Wild Card Round of the playoffs, he threw for 332 yards and 4 total touchdowns in the 49ers 41-23 route of the Seahawks. In the Divisional Round Purdy didn’t play spectacularly, but he did enough to help the 49ers get a hardfought victory against the Cowboys. The sensational Mr. Irrelevant found himself up against an extremely good Eagles team. Before we get into the game though, let’s talk about the Eagles.

The Eagles throughout the entire year have dominated. A big surprise for this team was the superstar jump from quarterback Jalen Hurts. He has become one of the better passers in the NFL, along with becoming one of the better rushers in the NFL despite being a QB. Now not only has Hurts gotten better, but the Eagles are loaded all around as well. In the offseason, they traded for star wideout

Aj Brown, who had the best season of his career this past season. The Eagles also signed ex-allpro cornerback James Bradberry, stud pass rusher Hassan Reddick from the Panthers, and Saints safety Chauncey Gardner Johnson who has really come into his own this season. In the draft, they also had a homerun pick in Jordan Davis who when healthy was a game changer. Other additions they made during the season like Linval Joseph, Robert Quinn, and Ndamukong Suh just further add to the insane amount of depth this team has. These are just additions; the Eagles still were able to keep all their best guys from last season. They find themselves still with the best o line to go with the best ground game in all the NFL. Devonta Smith is a wide receiver one., Dallas Goedert is a sure-fire top-five tight end in the NFL, and their defensive line is extremely scary.

Many people believed the game would be hard fought because the 49ers’ defense would cancel out the Eagles’ offense and the Eagles’ defense would cancel out the 49ers’ offense. Well, it was like this up to a certain point. The Eagles found themselves up 7-0 in the first quarter after a bad no-call on a catch by

Devonta Smith on a 4th down. This would set up a six-yard touchdown run from Miles Sanders. On the 49ers’ first drive though, the game would get flipped upside down. On a 2nd and 6 play, Brock Purdy got strip-sacked by Hassan Reddick. Not only did they lose the fumble, but Purdy got hurt. The 49ers’ defense would try to keep them in the game, and the backup Josh Johnson came in and led the 49ers on a touchdown drive. There was still hope for 49ers fans, but it would go away quickly. Johnson would leave with a concussion, which made Brock Purdy return. Purdy was unable to throw the ball at all, though after the game an MRI showed that he tore his UCL in his elbow. With no passing threat, the 49ers’ defense was gassed and couldn’t do much to save the game. They steamrolled the 49ers En route to a 31-7 victory. The Eagles would now be heading back to the big game.

Out in the AFC, the stage was set for the Bengals to head to Arrowhead and matchup with the Chiefs. Let’s start off with the Bengals. The Bengals came into this season off a super bowl loss. Many people had them as favorites to make it back to the Super Bowl this year because of Joe Burrow. It didn’t start off great as they dropped their first two games of the season to the Steelers and the Cowboys. After that, they returned to being the Bengals (except for an outlier 32-13 loss to the Browns). Burrow had another great year. The defense came back into form later in the year, and all their receivers in Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, and Tyler Boyd were fantastic when they were healthy. Their running back Joe Mixon had a down year, but that goes hand and hand with the new and retooled offensive line underperforming. Besides that, the Bengals looked great and won big games in the regular season against both the Bills and the Chiefs. When the playoffs came around, they found themselves against the Bills in the Divisional Round in Buffalo. The Bills were outmatched from the start. The Bills could neither stop the Bengals’ offense nor muster up enough offense to get them back in the game. The Bengals found themselves now in the AFC Championship against the Kansas City Chiefs

The Kansas City Chiefs at the beginning of the year were not Super Bowl favorites at all. They lost Patrick Mahomes’ number one wide receiver in Tyreek Hill and replaced him with no real stars. Yes, Juju Smith Schuster is a great possession receiver and Marquez Valdez Scantling is a deep threat like Hill, but neither are on the level of Hill. Not having Hill was no problem for the Chiefs. They looked like their dominant selves still, just a little less explosive. Mahomes still showed why he is the best quarterback in the NFL with another season where he won MVP. Travis Kelce had a monster season as well. Even a rookie like Isaiah Pacheco found himself now as the lead back in the rotation. All this regular season momentum would carry over to the playoffs where they’d win a close game against the Jaguars. In this game, Pat Mahomes did suffer a high ankle sprain that would hamper him throughout the rest of the playoffs.

This game had a lot riding on it for both quarterbacks but more for Patrick Mahomes. In headto-head matchups up to this point, Burrow was 3-0 against Mahomes. Because of this, they started to call Arrowhead Burrowhead. In the AFC Championship Mahomes and the Chiefs would keep doubters quiet getting off to an early 6-0 lead. The Bengals would make a field goal of their own, but Mahomes would come right back the...next

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