This is the Eagles’ Super Bowl to lose

Potential of a Kansas City three-peat ignores that the Eagled are simply the better team.

There’s been a collective belief in the NFL this season that whoever wins the AFC will go on to win the Super Bowl. The strength of the Chiefs, Ravens, and Bills stoked regular season flames that nobody was going to be able to contend with the AFC’s big three — but now the Super Bowl between Chiefs and the Eagles is set it’s right to wonder why the Eagles aren’t the favorite.

They should be.

This is a lesson in skewed perception, distorted reality, and the ever-increasing falsehood that quarterbacks still run the game. If you step back from the obvious, that Patrick Mahomes is a much better quarterback than Jalen Hurts, then literally nothing else breaks in favor of the Chiefs when it comes to on-field talent.

Philadelphia’s domination of the Commanders in the NFC Championship is the canary in the coal mine for just how dangerous this team can be. With time, preparation, and a full head of steam, the Eagles are the most fearsome complete offensive team in football — with a defense so profoundly talented and aggressive that they can erase their opponents from contention with a Thanos snap.

The Eagles are a black hole of joy for their opponents. The Commanders walked into The Linc on Sunday afternoon, riding high after their domination of the Lions. Fans had a belief in their heart that anything was possible, and this was a year of destiny. Throwing off the shackles of Dan Snyder, moving forward with Jayden Daniels, fans conjuring images in their heads of glory — and the Eagles stole them away.

At no point was the normally unflappable Daniels able to deal with the pervasive pass rush of the Eagles’ front. He was dragged into deep water, and while the stat sheet only shows three sacks, he was under incredible pressure for much of the afternoon. When he was able to take a shot downfield there was nobody to consistently get open other than Zach Ertz, which took away explosive plays from the big gain focused offense.

Flip the script to the other side of the ball and the NFC Championship was an exercise in the Eagles finally putting it all together on offense. Obviously it was the Saquon Barkley show once again, as the phenom running back finished with 118 yards rushing at a stunning 7.9 yards-per-carry, adding three touchdowns for good measure. However, what was different is that Barkley didn’t need to mitigate mistakes from Jalen Hurts under center.

Hurts did exactly what the Eagles needed him to do, which was mitigate risk. Not only did he play mistake-free football against Washington, but he excelled in the passing game with ruthless efficiency. Deadly with his arm, an incredible dual-threat pairing with Barkley. When you couple these factors with the best offensive line in football it makes for an absolutely fearsome combination.

As we look ahead to the Super Bowl why is it so safe to have faith in Philadelphia being able to hoist the Lombardi Trophy once more? Look at the head-to-head edge in the major factors of this game.

Quarterback: Chiefs

Running back: Eagles

Receivers: Eagles

Offensive line: Eagles

Defensive line: Eagles

Linebackers: Eagles

Secondary: Push

Coaching: Chiefs

There’s little doubt that coaching is the single most important factor in whether or not a team can win it all, but it’s difficult to look past what a tremendous talent edge the Eagles have in most phases. This is a Chiefs’ team running on moxie and the unflappability of Mahomes — but the one thing the Eagles excel at is taking their opponents out of their comfort zone.

Is this the game we all wanted? No. Truth be told, it’s the least exciting of the potential matchups we had this season. That said, Super Bowl LIX is shaping up to be an incredible game, particularly for fans of hard-nosed football and defense. Chiefs vs. Eagles 2.0 is very different than the past meeting, with both teams now boasting top-tier defenses and reformed offenses.

Let’s jump around the winners and losers from the NFC and AFC Championship games

Losers: Sean McDermott and Joe Brady

The pain is still fresh, but there needs to be serious talk on whether the Bills can ever progress further than where they’re at right now. There are only so many times you can run into the Chiefs, so many times you can come up short against the same opponent, so many times you can keep getting out-coached in the most critical game of the year.

Reaching the AFC Championship is cold comfort for this franchise now. An unappealing consolation prize. When we get down to brass tacks the Bills were not prepared, allowing the Chiefs to score a season-high in points against a defense that should have been able to stop Patrick Mahomes.

Meanwhile, the offensive play calling on the Bills’ final drive was abysmal, and that’s on Joe Brady, who has been given so much credit this season he deserves to take some licks when it all falls apart. Nothing positive during this passage of play was because of Brady’s play calling.

It’s too easy to blame the loss on Dalton Kinkaid dropping the fourth down pass, and sure, he should have caught it — but play calling did not help this team when it mattered the most. If anything, it ensured the team had nothing left but Josh Allen heroics to lean on, and that’s a strategy that runs out more often than not.

The Bills have some soul-searching, because this status quo isn’t working.

Winner: Jayden Daniels

It was not a good day for Jayden Daniels, but this is about the totality of the moment. Despite the Commanders not being ready for the Eagles, Daniels never caved — competing until the end.

We’ve seen Daniels handle himself better these playoffs than quarterbacks with a decade in the league. His performance is proof-positive that Washington made the correct pick to lead their team, and the future is brighter than at any point in the last two decades.

Commanders fans should be proud, even if it hurts right now.

Winner: The city of New Orleans

On the plus side, even if we didn’t get the game we wanted, New Orleans won’t need to host Bills fans AND Eagles fans in the same city at the same time. That’s a win for the sanity of the city.