GLENDALE, Ariz. — Jeffrey and Julian Lurie remained in a corner of the losing team’s locker room late Sunday night, father and son representing the Eagles’ leadership and the franchise’s eventual succession plan, each with a wistful smile that betrayed grief at one missed Super Bowl win. A low murmur could be heard from the rest of the room, of clothes being shoved into duffel bags and socked feet stomping across a carpeted floor, polite mediums asking questions in hushed tones, and players whispering back in reply.
It had been perhaps the greatest Super Bowl of all, a game of toughness and comebacks and thrills and magic, a game of two quarterbacks – one with a bad ankle that got worse when tackled, one with a bad shoulder, he descended on is making his way into the end zone to even the score – who played with so much guts and shrewdness and skill that none deserved to lose, a game that will require several weeks and a federal commission of inquiry , before anyone can begin to make sense of it.
It could have been, maybe it should have been, a glorious night to cap off a glorious season for the Eagles. They had a legitimate claim to being the best team in the NFL, and they’d crossed into Super Bowl LVII on the wind of two dominant postseason performances, and with another win, they could call themselves the best Eagles team of all, and who would have argued with them? And there they were, with a 10-point lead at halftime, 30 minutes from their second World Cup in five years, all that history and majesty there, right there, in their hands.
And they dropped it.
The final score said the Kansas City Chiefs defeated the Eagles 38-35 at State Farm Stadium after a 27-yard field goal by Harrison Butker with eight seconds left. Those are Sunday’s coldest, most basic facts, and the Chiefs should be given credit for doing what the Eagles couldn’t: On the biggest stages, in the most important situations, they didn’t fight. You didn’t turn the ball over. The penalties they committed were not so costly. They came and came and came, and the Eagles missed the measure of the moment too often, in too many ways.
Jalen Hurts, wonderful as he was, lost the football on a fumble and kicked it away, turning that error into a 36-yard fumble return from Chiefs linebacker Nick Bolton and a crucial — and game-changing — touchdown in the second quarter. Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes Bobby Fischer fought Jonathan Gannon and his defense for most of the night and, more importantly, in the second half with three touchdowns and a 44-yard rush against Jonathan Gannon despite a high ankle sprain. Their game reputation and the way they ran those games left the Eagles so confused that Eagles secondary school members yelled at each other on the field after leaving a few receivers wide open in Kansas City.
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Kadarius Toney ripped off a 65-yard punt return to set up a Chiefs touchdown, the kind of special teams glitch the Eagles seemed to have walked past in the past two months. And finally, in the Eagles’ final and most consequential error, James Bradberry grabbed JuJu Smith-Schuster for a holding penalty with 1 minute and 54 seconds left. The breach allowed the Chiefs to melt the game clock for another 106 seconds — 106 seconds the Eagles would have had to drive to tie the game.
“I thought we deserved to win the game in the last few minutes,” said Lurie in an offhand reference to Bradberry’s penalty. This frustration was understandable. No one wants a call like this to be included in the score of a game, a call that is technically correct but close enough for an official to ignore. It was understandable but out of place.
This will be one that all Eagles — Hurts, head coach Nick Sirianni, Gannon and his defensemen and players, everyone — will rue and rue for a length of time imaginable. There will be a natural impulse among fans, and maybe even the Eagles themselves, to blame the officiating crew for some questionable calls — “It was a hold,” said Bradberry, who wasn’t one of the questioners — or the stadium’s slippery grass that caused players to fall and tiptoe as if they were on an icy city street. But make no mistake: The team that was the best in the NFL wasn’t the better one on the field Sunday night.
“We just did uncharacteristic things, man,” said defensive end Josh Sweat. “We didn’t play together. I don’t know man. I don’t know. We must be on the same side. Whatever we call it, we must be on the same page. We can’t get out of gaps. Just stuff like that. We have to… it’s a lot of stuff. I can’t just name the little things. We made way too many mistakes.”
The Eagles’ mission was simple enough: Play a clean game and we’ll probably win the Super Bowl. They didn’t. Not when it mattered most. Can’t beat a coach as good as Reid and a quarterback as great as Mahomes.
“I don’t think this game is defined by one play, one play throughout the game, or one call or whatever,” said Hurts, who threw for 304 yards and a touchdown, rushed for 70 yards and three touchdowns. and could have been named MVP of the game even if they lost. “I really value self-reflection and thinking about the things I could have done better, so I think I’ll challenge everyone — and I’ve challenged everyone — to think about those things because it’s the same process we do.” walk around. Look at yourself in the mirror and learn from everything. Like I said, you either win or you learn.”
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The Eagles also learned a lot while winning. They learned that Hurts is in fact a franchise quarterback, however one defines the term, and that player hiring manager Howie Roseman is able to lead the team through the upheaval that has meant the loss of a previous franchise quarterback and head coaches entails. If one had said in 2018, shortly after the Eagles won Super Bowl LII, that they would be back in another Super Bowl five years later, the assumption would have been that Carson Wentz would be under center and Doug Pederson on the sideline. Instead, it was Hurts and Sirianni. It was one hell of a ride and in the end a missed opportunity.
In that gloomy dressing room, Jeffrey Lurie was asked to wrap up the season. “Great young quarterback; great coaching; Howie, great – basically anything I would have said on stage,” he said, forcing a laugh. He had to force it because he had to know: This game will go down as an all-time game between two great teams, but it will linger in Philadelphia too, and any mention will be met with head-shakes and wannabes. you had it The eagles had it. And they allowed it.
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