By Blake McQueary
Medill Reports
If there was a singular moment that encapsulated the pure domination Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio brought into Caesars Superdome, it was on a first-and-10 strip sack by Philadelphia.
Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes lined up in shotgun. The Eagles’ defensive front filled with Josh Sweat, Milton Williams, Jalen Carter and Nolan Smith Jr. lined up on the opposing line. As Mahomes dropped back to launch a deep one, Williams drove Chiefs guard Mike Caliendo back six yards, reached his hand out and caught Mahomes’ throwing arm as he wound up.
As the ball hit the ground, Carter, with the palms of both hands, crushed Mahomes’ face mask, forcing him to fall to the turf. After Williams recovered the football, he dunked it through the uprights with the whole Eagles defense trailing him, while Mahomes knelt on the red L of the Super Bowl LIX turf emblem.
That’s the kind of night it was — aggression by the Eagles and horror for the Chiefs. The dominance had worn out the Chiefs. The Eagles had outcoached and outplayed them.
“Vic does a nice job with that defense,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said. “They played well. They have a good scheme, and they executed better than what we did. They coached better.”
The game plan wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, nothing the Eagles hadn’t done before. It was simple: Four-man rush, the rest in coverage and don’t blitz.
“Honestly we just followed the game plan and did what we’ve been doing all year,” defensive end Sweat said. “We always say let’s just play our game, and somebody’s going to make the play for sure.”
Sweat made his presence known early and got after it. He finished the day with six total tackles, three quarterback hits and 2.5 sacks.
“I was just in the right place,” Sweat said. “I was just running around. Let me go crazy.”
Across 42 dropbacks in Super Bowl LIX, the Eagles did not blitz once. It’s the fourth defense to not blitz in a game, according to Next Gen Stats, which has been tracking data since 2014.
The Eagles generated 16 pressures, which encompasses when a quarterback is sacked, hurried or knocked down, from the four-man front and sacked Mahomes six times. It’s the most sacks he’s taken in a game in his career. They also held him to his second-worst performance by expected points added (EPA) in a game in his career (-19.3).
“I was just in coverage, and I was looking at the pocket just shrink onto him,” Eagles linebacker Zack Baun said. “Guys were eating up front for sure.”
As they produced pressure on Mahomes all game, the three-time Super Bowl champion seemed uncomfortable. The pressure produced turnovers, and two of them ultimately led to 14 points for the Eagles.
On a third-and-16 on their own 24-yard line, Mahomes rolled out to the right and intended to hit a crossing DeAndre Hopkins. The rookie defensive back, Cooper DeJean, stepped in front of the throw like a seasoned veteran, picked it off and returned it to the house.
Then, backed up onto their own six-yard line on first-and-10, Mahomes dropped back, scanned the field quickly and threw an un-Mahomes-like pass. Baun dove out for Mahomes’ second interception of the night, which then led to an A.J. Brown touchdown.
“Obviously, the turnovers hurt, and I mean, I just gotta, I take all the blame for that,” Mahomes said. “That’s 14 points that I kinda gave them, and it’s hard to come back from that in the Super Bowl, and so, I just didn’t play to my standard and I have to be better next time.”
The Eagles had 25 total pressures, 11 quarterback hits, six sacks and three takeaways. Fangio had control all day. It was like he had a PlayStation controller in his hands with the difficulty set to rookie.
“Vic gives us a call, and we don’t question it,” Sweat said. “It puts us in a position to make plays. I don’t know how he does it. We just run it, and all we got to do is play with great effort.”
From the opening kickoff until the clock hit zero and the confetti fell down, it was pure domination.
There was even domination from the Philly faithful. A sea of green covered one side of the Caesars Superdome seats, with scattered blobs of green whenever there was a section of red. Fans donning green and white screamed “E-A-G-L-E-S, EAGLES!” at Chiefs fans throughout the hallways, and even late in the fourth quarter, everyone with an Eagles logo on their body stole the Chiefs’ famous “tomahawk chop.”
A dominating performance from the defense led to a dominating performance in the bleachers. Just as much as the fans needed the team and the players, the players and the team needed them.
“We travel. It was loud,” Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said. “You could tell that at the very beginning and see a lot of green out there … our fans have a tendency to take over the stadium. You can’t be great without the greatness of others, and that applies to our fans as well.”
Blake McQueary is a sports media graduate student at Medill. You can follow him on X at @b_mcqueary6.
