Greetings, young fellow. Welcome to Glendale, Arizona, where the names in the building are hot and the temperature is even hotter. You’ve just witnessed one of the greatest Super Bowls of all time. But why did the losing team end up on the wrong side? Let’s hop into the metaphorical classroom for a moment and let me regale you on how Philadelphia blew a 10-point halftime lead in the Super Bowl to lose to a 1-legged quarterback.
The first part of the formula involves its offense humming along like a song. Apart from a fluke defensive touchdown by Kansas City (thank you, vaunted offensive line, for your expert protection on that play), everything went according to plan. 24 points were scored on that Swiss-cheese defense by halftime. Even better, the Eagles’ defense showed us the secret to their recent success by injuring the other team’s quarterback for roughly the 3rd time these playoffs.
Everything was roses and sunshine for Philly fans at halftime: up by 10, as Mahomes was injected with a black-market cocktail of painkillers and chucked to the wolves, where he scored a touchdown on the opening drive of the 2nd half, wait, what? This isn’t part of the script. So, we’ve got a game again, haven’t we? This is when the Birds’ offense continues its domination by marching into the red zone but stalls out and kicks a field goal. Injured Mahomes responds with another touchdown to take the lead.
Hey, defense? Are you gonna do something or what? Don’t just stand there and try to break his ankles again, Jesus! No, I didn’t mean your defense, Kansas City! Because of this misplaced encouragement, Philly did something that is all but verboten in a shootout like this; they punted. The penalties for punting are often severe in these games. In this case, it came in the form of a 60-yard return by Gettleman’s baby and an arduous 5-yard touchdown drive by Kermit the frog to extend KC’s lead to 8 points. This is where Sirianni probably threatened to put out a hit on the offense if they didn’t wake up, so cue a long touchdown drive with a 2-point conversion to tie the game up with 5 minutes left. Unfortunately, Sirianni failed to motivate his defense while making his sideline threats. They bend, bend, and bend as the Chiefs push into field goal range. However, with 1:48 left in regulation, the Eagles have KC on a 3rd and 9. Even better, Mahomes threw it incomplete! Now, what could ruin this?
A fringe holding penalty to give KC an automatic first down and let them burn the Eagles’ timeouts. Sure, the call itself may have been entirely valid, but the refs seriously chose this moment to interfere? When there was so much backlash after the ending of last year’s Super Bowl? Kansas City, predictably, boots the game-winning field goal, and Mahomes breaks the internet for no reason for approximately the 36th time this season. One of the most obnoxious fanbases in sports gets their laurels to lord it over the rest of us, while another obnoxious fanbase gets to loot and pillage their home city in their version of the Wells Fargo rage room. The only positive to come out of this is that I wasn’t wrong when I predicted the Chiefs to win in my Super Bowl preview. Eagles fans, this is called Karma. Now run off to Cancun with the rest of the fallen, you bums.
I have another pick-me-up under the mistletoe for you guys, too. The Eagles now join an illustrious group of teams to have a double-digit lead at halftime of the Super Bowl, and still lose. The other team to have earned this dubious honor. Yes, the architects of 28-3, and 2016 Atlanta Falcons. Now that’s some fine company. Eagles, you deserve this failure. Now go jump off a pier.