Super Bowl Takeaways

The Philadelphia Eagles are Super Bowl champions, beating the Kansas City Chiefs 40-22 in the big game.

CommRadio’s Darian Capobianco and Alex Harkins give their takeaways from the outcome of the game, as the Lombardi trophy heads back to Philly for the second time in eight years.

Darian: “Jalen Hurts Deserves His Flowers”

All season long Hurts has been nagged by critics doubting his passing ability, debating if he’s a top ten quarterback.

Some thought that Jalen Hurts would hold the team back. Leading up to the Super Bowl, many said the best gameplan for the Chiefs was to stop Saquon, keep the ball in Hurts’ hands and force him to pass.

Well the Chiefs did exactly that and Jalen Hurts delivered.

Hurts completed 17 out of 21 passes for 221 yards and two touchdowns, and added 72 yards and another touchdown on the ground. With his performance, Hurts proved his status both as a leader and a winner.

His 72 rushing yards set the record for most in a Super Bowl by a quarterback, breaking his own record of 70 set in Super Bowl LVII.

Additionally, Hurts was the first quarterback since John Elway to lose his first Super Bowl and win the next one.

Winning the Super Bowl and being crowned Super Bowl MVP, Jalen Hurts silenced the critics. After his performance, he definitely deserves his flowers.

Alex: “Defense wins championships”.

The old cliche “defense wins championships” proved to be true once again. The Eagles sacked Patrick Mahomes six times, the most he has ever been sacked in a single game.

This number was also one shy of the record for most sacks by a team in a Super Bowl. Additionally, the Eagles did not blitz once, making this statistic even more impressive.

It was the dominance of Philadelphia’s front four that frustrated Mahomes all night.

The Chiefs quarterback turned the ball over three times and spent most of the game running away from pressure. For someone who’s heart tends to beat slower in big games, Mahomes looked rushed and uncomfortable all night long.

Historically, when a great offense and defense square off, the defensive typically prevails. For example, in the 2013 season, Peyton Manning won both MVP and Offensive Player of the Year.

He threw for 55 touchdowns and well over five-thousand yards. With all that said, the Seattle Seahawks dismantled Manning 43-8 in the big game. A key factor was the Seahawks’ Legion of Boom defense.

Another recent example was when MVP Cam Newton took the 15-1 Carolina Panthers to the Super Bowl in the 2015 season. Carolina only managed to score ten points, losing 24-10 to Von Miller and the Denver Broncos.

The point is, while Mahomes and the Chiefs have seemed invincible over the last few seasons, a great, top-tier defense can beat anybody.

Darian: “The Eagles Set the Precedent for Building a Championship Team”.

General manager Howie Roseman has done a fantastic job building this Super Bowl-winning Eagles roster. But how he did it should be what other GMs try to emulate.

A good majority of the Eagles contributors are players who were drafted and developed by Philadelphia. Even their top three picks from the 2024 draft, Quinyon Mitchell, Cooper DeJean and Jalyx Hunt all played pivotal roles this season.

Philadelphia drafted seven of their offensive starters (including four out of their five offensive lineman) and eight of their defensive starters (which would have jumped to nine if Nakobe Dean wasn’t hurt).

Not only was the team built from the draft, but there are multiple instances where players took lesser contracts to benefit the team. Take a look at Jalen Hurts’ contract.

At first glance his $255 million contract looks humongous, but in 2024 he only had a cap hit of $13M million, accounting for only 5.2% of the team’s total cap space.

This is because Howie Roseman backloads hefty contracts. This way the team can afford to bring in yearly reinforcements while keeping the Eagles core intact.

Players like AJ Brown, DeVonta Smith, Cam Jurgens and Landon Dickerson are all examples of those who took backloaded contract extensions. Others like Lane Johnson constantly rework their contract to benefit the team.

That is how a championship team should work, each player buying in to the larger success of the organization as their look to achieve their end goal.

As Jalen Hurts said as he signed his extension two years ago, “Money is nice, championships are better”.

Alex “Andy Reid is overrated”.

To be clear, I’m not saying Andy Reid is a bad coach. As a three-time Super Bowl champion, and fourth winningest coach in NFL history, there’s no denying Andy Reid is a good coach.

With that being said, Andy Reid is not the greatest of all time and shouldn’t be in that conversation. For one, Reid could never get over the hump for nearly 20 years of head coaching.

It wasn’t until a generational talent in Patrick Mahomes fell into his lap that he was able to win his first Super Bowl. As for the game last Sunday, the Chiefs were horrible and it doesn’t take a superfan to recognize that.

Kansas City had two weeks to become prepared and looked anything but that when the game actually began. That falls on Reid. The Chiefs never even attempted to establish a run-game as their running-backs combined for only seven carries.

This pass-heavy approach failed from the start, and the Chiefs never changed the game plan. It continued to not work throughout the game with zero adjustments. In my opinion, you have to look at the coach when this happens.

There was clearly no plan-B so when plan-A failed, the game was effectively over. Andy Reid needed to be better and the Chiefs were no match for the Eagles physically, mentally, and preparation-wise.

Darian Capobianco is a fourth-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email dpc5734@psu.edu.

Alex Harkins is a second-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email arh6278@psu.edu.