Super Bowl LIX was supposed to be a highly competitive battle between a physically dominant Eagles team and a Chiefs squad that was seeking a third consecutive championship.
In the second quarter, it began veering into blowout territory as the Eagles offense moved it into plus-territory on just about every possession, while the defense had Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs offense in hell on the other side of the ball. Philadelphia’s advantage in the trenches on defense was extremely noticeable, as they were able to bottle up Kansas City’s run game and get pressure on Mahomes without having to send any blitzers. That is a recipe for disaster, and while the Chiefs defense did their best to keep Kansas City in the game with a red zone interception and forced field goal, they needed their offense to figure something out.
While a slow start is nothing new to the Chiefs in the Super Bowl, this year felt different, as Mahomes was under pressure constantly and started to make some poor decisions. In the second quarter he made the costliest mistake of his entire playoff career, throwing his first postseason pick-six to Cooper DeJean, who undercut a pass as Mahomes scrambled to his right.
That pick-six made it 17-0 Eagles, as they finally cashed in on another TD after the offense came up with just three points on back-to-back trips inside the KC 30. While there was some hope for the Chiefs that their defense could keep them in the game until the offense got it going again, the pick-six felt like an early dagger — with the Chiefs, at the time, having more plays run than yards gained.
Two drives later, Mahomes would get picked off again, this time by Zack Baun, and while it wasn’t a pick-six it did give the Eagles the ball on the Kansas City 14. They’d cash in a couple plays late on a touchdown pass from Jalen Hurts to AJ Brown to go up 24-0 in what was quickly becoming an absolute blowout.
