On the Sunday before mid-semester break, with St. Lawrence University students ready to get through their last three days of classes before the long weekend, another three – a Super Bowl threepeat – was up for grabs in New Orleans. The unbeatable Kansas City Chiefs, who hadn’t lost a playoff game since Jan. 30, 2022, during the freshman year of college for seniors like me, had the chance to make NFL history by becoming the first team in league history to win three consecutive Super Bowls.
The only team left in their way was the Philadelphia Eagles, who had won their first-ever Super Bowl in 2017, but were out for revenge after losing to the Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII. This game was a back-and-forth battle that ended with a Chiefs game-winning field goal and a 38-35 win, with a controversial holding call setting it up. This game looked to be another close one, with pessimistic Chiefs haters like myself predicting they would get all the 50/50 calls and complete the threepeat.
In the end, this game was anything but close. The Eagles left no doubt, romping the Chiefs 40-22 in a game that wasn’t nearly as close as the score sounds. The evil empire was thwarted in a convincing fashion. I couldn’t tell what was better on Super Bowl Sunday: the awesome boneless wings, pretzel bites and buffalo chicken pizza at Super Bowl Dana or watching Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, and the rest of the Chiefs offense get absolutely decimated by the Eagles’s defense. Mahomes took six sacks in the game and threw two costly interceptions, both in the second quarter, that put the game basically out of reach by the time Kendrick Lamar took the stage at halftime. The first interception, with the score 10-0, was a pick-six by Eagles rookie Cooper Dejean, who celebrated his 22nd birthday by being the first Eagles player with a Super Bowl interception and Super Bowl defensive touchdown, as well as being the first player in NFL history to score a touchdown on their birthday in the Super Bowl. This made the score 17-0, and two drives later, Mahomes threw another pick, this one deep in his own territory, to set up another Eagles touchdown and make the halftime score 24-0.
After the halftime show finished up and the players retook the field, Philadelphia made sure there would be no 28-3-esque comeback from Mahomes and company. Late in the third quarter, with the score now 27-0 after a Jake Elliot field goal, the Eagles hit the proverbial dagger to clinch the win. On the Chiefs 46-yard line, Jalen Hurts threw a perfect pass to DeVonta Smith in stride, which he caught in the endzone to score the touchdown and make it 34-0.
The rest of the game was a foregone conclusion. Even though the Chiefs scored three garbage-time touchdowns and the Eagles added two field goals, Philadelphia head coach Nick Sirianni was still doused with an early Gatorade bath with three minutes left as the game was not at all in doubt. As the final seconds ticked off the clock and the Eagles players rushed the field, it was clear who the best team in the NFL was in 2024-25.