It is clear that Kansas City Chiefs Could have played better. Maybe the offense is missing big plays Made by JuJu Smith-Schuster To help lift them beyond Philadelphia Eagles In the Super Bowl last season. Referees could also have been better at their jobs.
Who was at their game Monday night? the Eagles. They trailed by 10 at halftime and continued to shut out the Chiefs in the second half while scoring 11 points of their own. The Eagles ended up winning the match 21-17. This was only the third defeat suffered by the leaders at home in the past two seasons. The Eagles’ wins may not be pretty, but they have more of them than any team in the league in 2023.
Those who watch the NFL will always find a reason to criticize the Chiefs. Weeks where Patrick Mahomes doesn’t throw three touchdown passes in a 30-plus point performance will raise questions about what’s wrong with his offense. Watching it for five seasons and counting, I’m sure we’re spoiled by its greatness.
These new-look Chiefs who have become a defensive juggernaut will be sent through a meat grinder all day Tuesday for all the mistakes their pass catchers make. Mahomes even deserves some blame for an ill-advised red zone interception in the first half.
Marquez, Valdes-Scantling, Justin Watson, and even Travis Kelce deserve the blame, but what’s been made clear is Monday Night Football In Week 11, the Eagles had a better football team than the Chiefs. Howie Roseman, you deserved a celebratory drink after the final whistle.
To be clear, I do not support the “organizations win championships” doctrine that torpedoed the reputation of the late Jerry Krause in Chicago, along with his current reputation. Second City sports villain Jerry Reinsdorf. Regardless of how the message was supposed to go across all those years ago, the fact that my ears warm up at the thought of it nearly 25 years later is a problem. Negotiations and signings don’t win championships. Only great players can achieve this.
While the players are the most important part of the equation, employees in the front office of professional sports franchises get paid for a reason. They have a role within the organization that they are expected to perform well.
In any business, too many bad hires will lead to poor results. It is much easier to make personal mistakes when evaluating footballers than a group of novice accountants.
The Eagles front office appears to be having a higher completion rate than Jalen Hurts. That Roseman and his staff are excellent at their jobs allows players to do the heavy lifting of playing NFL football with confidence that the man next to him is a competent professional.
Over the offseason, the Eagles lost Javon Hargrave, TJ Edwards, Marcus Epps, and Kizer White in free agency. Each of these defensive players received a multi-year, seven-figure contract. They also lost their best running back of the previous four seasons, Miles Sanders.
D’Andre Swift is more talented than Sanders. The Eagles signed him to a four-year deal worth less than half the guaranteed money Sanders received from Carolina Panthers. To be fair, if the Eagles are the gold standard in roster construction, the Panthers are the ones in last place in the playoffs. However, with Week 11 completed, both running backs have played in nine games, and Swift has doubled Sanders’ rushing yardage total and also caught nine more passes.
The loss of so much defensive talent, coupled with injuries, has left the Eagles’ defense weak. Even with their secondary issues, they have only lost one game as their front seven is still a monster. No Hargrave, no Edwards, no problem. Entering Week 11, the Eagles had the third-most pressures in the entire league. Their best pass rusher, Josh Sweat, made his presence felt against the Chiefs when he forced Mahomes into an intentional punt on that final drive.
On the interior of their defensive line, the Eagles traded Hargrave for 2023 top-15 draft pick Jalen Carter, and 2022 top-15 draft pick Jordan Davis – both to the Georgia Bulldogs. At the trade deadline, the Eagles knew they needed help in the secondary, so they traded Terrell Edmunds and two late draft picks to Tennessee Titans to two-time first-team All-Pro safety Kevin Byard. He spent most of Monday night in Travis Kelce’s chest.
The Chiefs made a lot of mistakes against the Eagles but their biggest mistake happened long before kickoff. On offense, they didn’t properly surround the best player in NFL history with enough support on that side of the ball.
AJ Brown is one of the best wide receivers in the league, and certainly the Eagles’ top pass-catching option, but he was held to one reception in Week 11. Even with drops and a fumble Kelce outgained him, but when the Eagles needed a big play late in the quarter Fourth, they had DeVonta Smith to turn to in place of Valdes Scantling.
This loss to the Eagles is an indictment against the Chiefs’ roster construction, but it’s also no reason to count out the defending champions’ chances of repeating. Thank God they lost to Indianapolis Colts Last season and he still won the Super Bowl. After defeating Kansas City, later that season, the Colts went on to hire a coach with no direct collegiate or professional experience from ESPN I wake up hiring.
With Mahomes and a decent team surrounding him, the Chiefs will always be championship contenders. In defeat, they still played as a championship contender even while committing numerous mistakes. What the Eagles have shown is that they have done a better job of assembling talent on both sides of the ball, while also having an expensive quarterback.
If these two teams meet again in the Super Bowl, it will be a great rubber match for Patrick Mahomes along with his very good team, against the Philadelphia Eagles who are great on both sides of the ball.
