THE DARK MAGIC RAN OUT
Congratulations to the Philadelphia Eagles, winner of Super Bowl LIX, or as I like to call it, Super Bowl Licks.
Well, I was right that the Eagles would win, but I was wrong about how. My guess was that the Chiefs would mostly keep the Eagles offense bottled up, holding Saquon down for the most part, forcing Hurts to throw it. I expected both teams to sort of slug it out for a while, but that the Eagles superior offense and stout defense would allow them to slowly pull away and the Chiefs simply wouldn’t be able to keep up. If you showed me the final score of 40-22, I’d guess I was completely correct in my guess. I wasn’t even wrong about the Chiefs bottling up Saquon, who had his most irrelevant game of the year. What I was wrong about, what I should have better anticipated, was the Eagles defense. The Eagles defense was great all year, but it wasn’t as if the Packers, or Rams, or Commanders didn’t put up some drives and performances. The Chiefs…did not.
That was a wholesale ass whuppin the likes of which we haven’t seen since Seattle/Denver. That was far worse than the previous Chiefs SB blowout to Tampa, where Mahomes played the game of his life only to have his team fail around him. This was an obliteration by the Chiefs offense the likes of which I don’t think we’ve ever seen during the Mahomes era. It took them to the 3rd quarter to even cross midfield. The Eagles defense simply destroyed the Chiefs in a way we have never seen happen. I wish I didn’t hate the Eagles so I could have enjoyed it more. Most of America got the catharsis they wanted last night.
As it is, I still enjoyed it.
After the Cooper DeJean pick-6 to put the Eagles up 17-0, I knew this one was over. Yes, the Chiefs are known for comebacks. Yes, even in the Super Bowl. Yes, the Eagles are prone to messing up with weird decisions at times to let teams back in the game. But this game felt different. The difference was that defensive line. Mahomes was under extreme pressure all game and he just didn’t seem to have the juice that he once was famous for. When the defense gets such exceptional pressure with just a basic front 4, letting everyone else work coverage, you’re fucked. That’s how the Giants beat Brady in SB42, and that’s how the Eagles won. It was clear from the earliest drives of the game the Chiefs could not stop the Eagles d-line. Mahomes made bad decisions and saw ghosts. The game immediately became one-dimensional, forcing Mahomes to keep throwing, and the situation only worsened. They had to figure out a counterattack, and they couldn’t. It didn’t help that Kelce played like an old fart who dropped 2 third downs and Nuk did jack shit. It was like the Chiefs simply anticipated that Mahomes magic would win out, but Mahomes was busy getting his ass kicked.
24-0 at halftime. By that point, I had already mentally become at peace with the now obvious outcome so I decided to settle in and just enjoy watching the Kansas City Chiefs get exposed for the frauds they always were. I wanted to put them in the fraud category all year. I almost did. I got sick of irritating Chiefs fans being snobbish about it all year. “HOW COULD THEY BE SUSPICIOUS THEY ONLY LOST 1 GAME DEFENDING CHAMPS BLAH BLAH BLAH” Fuck off. They scored 30 points one time all year. Mahomes became a check-down merchant. They won multiple games through fucking wild witchcraft bullshit, like a field goal that doinked in or the Raiders falling apart on their big chance. The defense was trustworthy, the offense was not. They were like a more competent version of the 2022 Vikings. They held onto the illusion as long as they could, and it failed in the final stretch. The game will go down as 40-22. The game actually felt like 40-0.
I’m glad we didn’t get much refball. It started badly for the refs, who made about 5 straight questionable calls that were mild penalties at worst, and it mostly hurt the Chiefs more. But that was it. The refs became invisible after the game got out of hand and no call was egregious, just some ticky-tack stuff that would have been better left alone. I am so sick of the “NFL IS RIGGED” shit so I’m glad we had a game that pretty much made it all irrelevant. By the way, if you are interested, Legal Eagle made a pretty good YouTube about the sorts of arguments the conspirators use. I’ve seen the “THE NFL IS LEGALLY CLASSIFIED AS SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT JUST LIKE WWE” argument thrown around by the conspiracy crowd, so it was nice to see an actual lawyer explain why those idiots are wrong because they don’t know how to interpret legalese.
This was the first time, maybe in my whole life, that I was more excited for a halftime show than the game. Kendrick delivered. I’m not even a rap fan or anything, I’m just a casual who got sucked in by the musical beef of the century like every other lame white boy my age because hating on Drake is fun. I loved the performance, it had the right amount of spectacle without losing focus. A lot of it felt like a fancy music video. Also lmao at Serena Williams showing up to crip walk. I an unfathomably white, but now even I want to walk into Subway and yell MUSTARRRRRRRD at the wage slave making my sandwich when he asks what sauce I want on my sub. This would not make me less white, to be honest. It took me the entire performance to get the joke of him wearing a lowercase A on his chain. (a minor)
Was that a good Super Bowl? No. It was a pretty disappointing end to get such a non-competitive bulldozing. But at least we all got to relish the spectacle of the Chiefs’ stepping on the landmine they had coyly dodged all year. Also Tom Brady went on a rant about how losing the Super Bowl haunts you. I’m so glad Super Bowl 42 will haunt him until he dies.
None of the commercials were good. We are so long past the era of Super Bowl commercials mattering. That era is simply done.
Also here’s a thing I made when Josh Allen won MVP. Not making a comic about it, but here ya go.
Least worst outcome, then. I’d say I’ll take it, though once Detroit & Baltimore were knocked out I lost all interest.
After checking in at 34-0 all I wanted was a shutout, but even the final score felt fraudulent.
PS: would it be fair to say that might be too much mustard?
I joked that lesser evil triumphed over the forces of evil.
Honestly after Detroit and Washington were knocked out I started rooting for the threepeat just because of how threatened the Pats fans felt by it, but even that was just a marginal interest. The worst outcome is that the game wasn’t a fun, close game imo, and this is what this game was not
Thank you for that Moose picture! Viva Los Bills!
7 straight AFC championship appearances, 5 super bowl appearances, and 3 Lombardis. This definitely feels the the cap on this run (I’d be happy to be proven wrong), but if you’d have told me 10 years ago that this is the run the Chiefs would go on, I’d have laughed you out of the room.
Losing sucks, but 3 rings in 7 years is just unbelievable in the best way. I still remind myself it wasn’t that long ago I was just desperate to see them win a playoff game.
Congrats to the Eagles; the way they played their final 2 games of the year I don’t think anyone was beating them. If they can keep most of this roster together for a few years I think the NFC East is going to be hating life even more than they do right now (well, the Commies might be feeling ok overall, but the Giants and ‘Boys are just going to keep sucking).
maybe its just my cope talkin but that blowout *could* be a wake-up call for the whole team (if they were doing any laurel resting that is). I don’t think i’ve ever seen the chiefs sideline look that whooped-dog once during the mahomes era
Every year I say that KC’s dynasty is due for a break, but it hasn’t happened yet. KC is still excellent at winning close games, a key skill for getting into the playoffs.
That said, the AFCW is stacked with elite coaches and is likely to get more and more competitive. The Chiefs’ path to being division winners is getting a lot rougher.
I was rooting for the best case scenario, someone pulling a fire alarm in the stadium and the Super Bowl has to be postponed and later cancelled because the president decided that the stadium was going to be a newly converted internment camp because I dunno that’s what he would do I guess.
That Cooper Dejean pick 6 was just glorious. The grittiest of the gritty guys. The first guy in, last guy out. He’s like having a second coach on the field. The lunch pail guy. The sneaky athletic dude. It was beautful.
Deceptive speed, reminds me a lot of Ed McCaffery…
Looks like a guy I would let date my daughter
I think the Rice injury at the beginning of the season really hurt KC’s WR room
I can’t even say that this felt like it should have been the obvious result since you can never rely on a team getting absolutely blasted in the Super Bowl like that. Just an unreal performance by Philly’s defense.
Also, both times that Patrick Mahomes got absolutely demolished in the Super Bowl, Tom Brady was in the building. Even after his playing days are over, his Devil Magic is still undefeated.
“his Devil Magic is still undefeated”
Eli Manning would like a word
Should have clarified – Undefeated against KC Devil Magic.
I would also like to endorse that Legal Eagle video. That guy is so good at the breakdown and putting the information out in a plainly understandable way.
It felt like a throwback to 80’s (and some 90s) Super Bowls. A thorough curbstomping by an NFC team over a well regarded AFC team that just showed up small. Clearly over by Halftime, but some garbage points in the 2nd Half made it look like less of a blowout that it really was. Now I know that might also sound like the Seahawks/Broncos Super Bowl (as Dave mentions), but that just started going absurdly off the rails for Denver from the jump that it was still entertaining. Those 80’s Super Bowls became gradual slogs once you saw the AFC team wasn’t going to get their shit together.
And I hope this’ll retroactively make that Pats-Rams Super Bowl that everyone hated seem not so bad in comparison. While that was a slog in its own way as well, I found it a compelling slog since it was close almost to the end and both Defenses were good.
Rams/Pats 2 is still the most unwatchable SB I’ve ever watched. It being close the whole time was the only aspect of that game that wasn’t an unwatchable slog. At least this game and the Seattle/Denver game had the good sense to be entertaining. Seeing a great team get blown up is fun
A competitive bad game is usually better than a lopsided game, but Super Bowl 53 was such a unique case of bad football in the sense that there weren’t any memorable/explosive plays. The thing about blowouts is that you can still point to some highly memorable moments that at least made for a good laugh and/or good entertainment at some point in the game. People remember the opening snap sailing over Peyton’s head, Malcolm Smith’s Pick 6, and Percy Harvin’s kickoff return TD in Super Bowl 48. People will likely remember Cooper DeJean’s Pick 6 and Devonta Smith’s TD catch in Super Bowl 59.
How many people outside of Foxboro are going to tell you about a huge play from SB53? Do they remember Jason McCourty’s pass breakup in the 3rd quarter? Or Brady’s late throw to Gronk to set up the game’s only TD in the 4th? I’m not inclined to believe that they do, and the only reason that I remember them is because I’m a Patriots fan. I could be wrong here, but it’s hard to see the perception of that game changing even with this recent result.
Years later the only play from that game I truly remember is Jared Goff missing Brandon Cooks in the endzone. I remember Gronk made a big catch, but I cant visualize it anymore.
The difference is SEA/DEN and PHI/KC were displays of incredible defense while NE/LAR was just horrible offense.
That was a depressing game. What a horrid super bowl. The game was a blowout, the ads sucked, the eagles won, and now we get to spend months listening to meta-analysis of swift getting booed.
Kendrick Lamar was the best part of the Superbowl.
The refs called two penalties on the Eagles long snapper on kicking plays…the officiating was atrocious.
Seeing Trump sitting with Benson and Goodell made me a little ill.
Definitely a depressing game as a Giants fan, especially since it wasn’t even fun to watch. The Eagles defense just dominated so well and KCs D was unable to get Hurtz. Pressure couldn’t get to him and they couldn’t maintain contain so he kept making first downs with his legs. I was expecting a lot more from Spags who normally has such a great defense.
Spags was fine. The Chiefs defense was fine. They bottled up the big threat and forced Hurts to win through the air, that’s exactly how to beat this team. The offense being unable to get a first down or score points was the problem. Defense is going to get gassed if they are always on the field
I wouldn’t even say Spags was fine, he got out-coached too. The Eagles were able pick up multiple of Spags usually unpredictable blitzes and have big plays. They forced the Eagles to throw the ball, but they couldn’t pressure or contain Jalen Hurts when it matter most. Yeah, the offense didn’t do them any favors at all, but the Chiefs got their butts kicked on all phases of the game.
Josh Allen heading into the season with fellow players considering him the most overrated, and coming out MVP is kind of funny, but not at all the irony some people like to think it is.
The Football Moose winning the Sportsmanship award the same year fellow players voted him the biggest trash-talker in the league? That’s priceless.
I really want to shit talk this but honestly, we won, we partied on Broad Street, and the future is hella bright. Thanks for Saquon is a played out trope, but I guess one that never gets mentioned is thanks to the Commanders for Jahan Dotson.
He’s not AJ Brown, he’s not Devonta Smith, but every team needs that 3rd guy who gets the big catch on a crucial play even if he doesn’t pick up 100 yard games and multiple tuddies. And honestly the price was pretty reasonable.
But that D. That D is gonna be a problem for years to come.
Yeah, as long as the Eagles have Vic Fangio, the defense is going to be scary.
I liked the ad that had the alien getting his neck snapped, my son and I couldn’t stop laughing at it.
But otherwise, yeah.
Past few weeks have been pretty dogshit as a Ravens fan but I can laugh at the fact that Zach Orr did a better job containing the Eagles offense than Spags
The Eagles did something no other team has ever done, they played the Chiefs almost perfectly. They found a way to contain Mahomes AND apply pressure to him. They used a heavy dose of Zone coverage to neutralize the Chiefs RPO-based offense, which primarily feasts on the blitz or man to man coverage. They prevented the Chiefs from getting 3rd and short. Even on Offense, they picked up Spags blitzes and targeted their weakness, despite not even running the ball effectively. The Eagles won every schematic matchup. They out-coached and outplayed the Chiefs.
Other Things to note:
– For once, the refs weren´t on the Chiefs side
– The Chiefs D-Line failed horribly against the Eagles O-Line
– AJ Brown and Devonte Smith easily beat Christian Watson and Trent Mcduffie
– Andy Reids old weakness of not running the ball showed up
– Speaking of which, the Chiefs and Eagles both had One Dimensional offences, but the Eagles WRs were actually able to get open, and Jalen Hurts was able to scramble
– Overall bad play-calling by KC
– Josh Sweat had a hell of a game
– Eagles Star Power destroyed the KC Dark Magic
This SB was mainly only entertaining because we finally saw KC fall apart for once (the TB SB feels like a long time ago). It felt like they kept getting lucky all year, where every coin flip close game would fall their way. To see a game where they got the snot beaten out of them for a change was pretty satisfying. If it was any other AFC team, it would’ve been pretty disappointing.
The Eagles often felt like frauds this year, and I kept waiting for them to get exposed. But credit to them, they got better as it got deeper into the playoffs and became a proper behemoth. I do feel they got a bit lucky — the NFCN (particularly the Lions) collapsed in the playoffs and gave PHI an easier path to the SB. A healthy Lions team against the Eagles would’ve been a great matchup. I also feel like the Bills and Ravens would’ve put up a much better fight in the SB than the Chiefs, who again basically ran out of luck and magic and got exposed.
The issue with Super Bowl commercials nowadays is that most of them are either trying to be hokey and sentimental, sell you on some AI garbage, or are thinly veiled skits where celebs are trying to be funny.