The Kansas City Chiefs lost the Super Bowl to the Philadelphia Eagles in ugly fashion. The final score of 40-22 made it seem more respectable, which Patrick Mahomes commended his guys for. But anyone watching would say the game was over before halftime. Afterward, Mahomes took ownership of the loss in true leader fashion. This led former Patriot Julian Edelman to sympathize with him, as he knows all too well what it feels like to lose the Big Game.
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Mahomes didn’t hold back in his postgame remarks, admitting the deficit was too steep to overcome. So, all he could do was “go out there and take it play-by-play.” But clearly, that wasn’t enough.
Reflecting on the team’s performance, Mahomes acknowledged, “We weren’t playing great football,” before taking full ownership of the loss: “I will take full ownership of that.” He also assured that he would learn from his mistakes and keep grinding his way to the top.
Mahomes sounded surprisingly okay with the outcome, almost as though he had already come to terms with the loss. His face, though, told a different story. The lights glimmered off his eyes—it looked as though he was holding back tears. Still, he stood firm, took responsibility for the loss, and Edelman sympathized with that.
Edelman went to four Super Bowls and only ever lost one of them. He was also a part of the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history. He knows the mental toll a loss like this has on a player and a team.
“I feel terrible for him,” Edelman stated on FOX NFL Kickoff. “Look, the team has only lost two games this season with their starters. That last week (of the regular season) doesn’t really count. And, as I emphasized earlier, it’s so hard to have these long successful seasons. You have a shorter offseason, everyone is America’s most wanted, and they came out today and played flat. They didn’t play their best game, and it caught up to them.”
Edelman makes some solid points. The Chiefs have been a wildly successful team for the past three years, and it seemed like they were finally out of gas last night. Not only that, but they also ran into a buzzsaw.
Their offensive line was banged up, with injuries to four different players, so the Eagles’ defensive line had a field day. Mahomes was sacked six times and faced 16 pressures—38% of his dropbacks—without the Eagles blitzing once. They simply rushed four and overpowered the Chiefs.
Edelman naturally didn’t shy away from calling the O-line out for their abysmal performance on the grandest stage:
“A lot of holding calls, and they couldn’t block them up front. The line finally caught up to them. Having [Joe] Thuney out at that left guard, like he played a hell of a game last week. But you can’t go against that defense that was playing like a bunch of bats out of hell and think you’re going to have a rotation offensive line to protect Patrick Mahomes.”
Thuney has been a mainstay for the Chiefs in their recent Super Bowl runs, but he has taken on different roles. In 2022 against the Eagles, he played left guard. This season, he shifted to left tackle near the end of the year and was tasked with protecting Mahomes’ blind side. It was a lot to ask of the 32-year-old, and as Edelman pointed out, these small things caught up to them in a big way last night.
Edelman on Chiefs’ Future
After Edelman was done sympathizing with the Chiefs, Charles Woodson professed his take on the game. He was also a part of a Super Bowl that got out of hand in 2003 when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers walloped the Oakland Raiders 48-21. He said that the game last night felt similar. Yet, he ended by saying that the Chiefs will regroup and be back here soon.
It forced Edelman to say what everyone was thinking.
“Charles, the third in a row, though?” Edelman asked his co-host facetiously. “They’ll never be able to get back to this point potentially ever in the history of the game.”
Woodson later clarified that he meant they would get back to the Super Bowl again in the future, but not a chance at a three-peat. And while he may be right, so is Edelman. The Chiefs fumbled a chance at history last night. They could have been immortalized as the greatest dynasty of all time. Now, we’re once again defending Tom Brady as the real GOAT and wondering if the Chiefs’ window is closing.
It could have been so much different for KC. But they finally faltered and lost on the big stage. It was unexpected, to say the least. At one point, it took Brady 10 years between Super Bowl appearances. Sometimes, even the greatest go through a rough stretch. How Mahomes responds and plays in his 30s will ultimately shape his legacy in the GOAT debate.
