How Does Philadelphia Win It?

I guess it is time for the long pants.

A lot of money is on the Chiefs to win the Super Bowl. The "public" favors Kansas City. If you routinely bet against the public, and I'm not offering financial advice, the pick to win the Super Bowl is the Philadelphia Eagles. 

How does Philadelphia win it? Kansas City sticks to its passing game and plays strength against strength. Mahomes is injured but the Chiefs put everything on him and abandon the run. That's a trap. That's a media mentality. The Media want the Flash Gordon. The New Quarterback Messiah. They want Mahomes to pump up 500 yards and 8 TDS. 

I'm not sure the league doesn't favor Mahomes performing that way. He's the NFL's new Tom Brady. They have to have a linchpin superstar QB in the league to make money. But a pass only Chiefs offense could end up costing Kansas City Mahomes' services.

Yeah. In that scenario, Philadelphia wins.

The Chiefs have to play the Eagles the way they did last year. They ran for 200 yards. Which means again that the EAGLES HAVE TO STOP THE RUN. They have a right to claim a mastery of the passing game but their run defense is an inviting target. If the Chiefs refuse to run the ball it will make it easier on the Eagles Defense. I don't know why Andy Reid would shoot himself in the foot when his QB has a bad ankle. 

If that lobotomy happens and Reid loses his mind, listens to the media, and forgets what he did last year, yeah, Philadelphia wins.

Last year's game also showed the Chiefs holding the Eagles to 103 yards rushing. The EAGLES HAVE TO RUN THE BALL. But hang on. The Chiefs are much better against the run than the Eagles are. It is more likely the Chiefs stop the Eagle running game than the reverse happening. But if the Philadelphia offensive line is as superhuman as the media contends, they blow the Chiefs off the ball.

Yeah. Philadelphia wins.

The key to beating the Eagles is running against them and stopping the run. You see that in both the previous Kansas City game and in the Commanders game. The Commanders didn't have the greatest offensive line this year. The Chiefs have a better line. The same monsters you hear about in the media playing for the Eagle Defense played in games, this year, where they were absolutely pancaked.

The Eagles have played better against the run recently. You could make the case they are surging. They are also 10-3 against teams who topped 100 yards rushing against them. They struggle when their own running game is stuffed. 

The Eagles know this stuff. Their saving grace has been Sirianni and his staff. They usually are well prepared and know pretty well how teams are going to play them.

How healthy is Jalen Hurts? I guess we are going to find out. I can see the Chiefs taking the run game away and forcing the Eagles to beat them in the pass. Is Hurts healthy enough to do that? And by the way, the Chiefs have a pretty good pass rush too. 

This is not a game to bet on. If you insist, I say diversify and look into proposition betting. Research. Research. Research.

I want Philadelphia to win. It's to our advantage in Washington to play the Super Bowl Champion twice if not three times. But I tend to look at where denial rears its ugly head. Nobody is talking about Kansas City running the ball.

So I'm thinking Pacheco is Super Bowl MVP.

Yeah. Kansas City wins. 32-21.

 

 

Why Pay Attention to the Super Bowl?

I was wondering what possible interest the Super Bowl might hold for Washington Commanders fans. 

Really, I think, if your team doesn't make the big game, it is time to go over team lore. Make sure the oral tradition continues. Have your own Super Bowl festival. Make your Christmas List for the draft. Make sure that even though the nickname vanishes memories of the players and their accomplishments do not. Do what you can to restore the once great atmosphere that existed in Washington. Resurrect the spirit of the "Sons of Washington".

But this Super Bowl is interesting because Eric Bieniemy is reportedly an Offensive Coordinator Candidate for Washington. He coached running backs for the longest kind of time. Why is this important?

If the Philadelphia Eagles have a weakness, it is defending the run. The Chiefs know it. The Eagles know it. The Birds have been good in the playoffs. San Francisco had a great run attack. The Eagles kept them under 100 yards.

 

If you want to crown them then crown them.

 

Now, teams have run on the Eagles and were still beaten. They won that Lions game. And to ask the Chiefs to run goes against their style of play. Teams tend to stick with their strengths. Trouble is, the Chiefs' strength on offense will ram into the Eagles' strength on defense. Patrick Mahomes is not 100 percent. The Eagles' pass rush is no joke. These are birds of prey. They defend the pass like Eagles picking off Herons in the sky. It's disgusting but it is how they roll.

If the Chiefs are damned and determined to pass the ball no matter what as a demonstration of their manhood, it won't be pretty. This is the idea that Patrick Mahomes is all they got. If the Chiefs win, it is because Mahomes went nuts.

Mahomes is not all the Chiefs have. They can run. I'd be surprised if they won the Super Bowl and didn't post at least a hundred if not one-fifty on the ground. 

The old ways are still good ways. You face monsters in the pass rush. You run right at the monsters. You smack them in the mouth. You back them off. You tucker them out. This is Bieniemy territory. His model may as well be the Commanders' second game against the Eagles. And the Chiefs are far superior to the Commanders in the RPO/Play Pass department. At least right now.

This isn't new to the Chiefs. They ran on the Eagles last year and won. The mental task is not to be so dazzled by the Pass that you forget the other tools you have.

The Chiefs would have to defend the run, which they do reasonably well, better than the Eagles, and seduce Jalen Hurts into thinking he has to win the game all by himself. He won't fall for that later in his career. He may at this point.

The Super Bowl does things to the Jedi Mind that some consider to be unnatural.

We have to beat the Eagles in Washington. It is of interest to us how Eric Bieniemy and the Chiefs get the vic in the Super Bowl.

If I were the Chiefs (insert laughter here), I would run the ball down the Eagles throat on the first drive. No passes. Bull it into the end zone. Let them know they are in for a day. 

Lately, the Press has been gushing. The Eagles Defense is impregnable!

Show me.

Super Bowl Advice for Both Teams: Don't Let Mahomes Beat You

It is a frosty day today and I was a bit chilled by some Super Bowl cogitations.

What is your bias going in? I want the Eagles to win because of the beneficial residuals for the NFC East. Preferably, the division is stocked with winning teams from top to bottom with each particular team a threat to take it all. But picking one of these teams is problematic. 

They love their defense in Philly but they can be run on. The Chiefs love their defense but they don't matchup well with the Eagles in the Red Zone.

Here was a perhaps contraversial thought: Kansas City should run the football and Philadelphia should make Patrick Mahomes beat them.

To be brutally honest, I am disturbed by high ankle sprains. Especially against pass rushing virtuosos. It is a bad combination for Mahomes. The Eagles say they are focusing on getting him on the ground. The Chiefs don't want to have that high ankle sprain transform into a break. I saw Mahomes in the Bengals game. He looked OK. But what was he doing to himself for that to happen?

Fortunately for the Chiefs, I think they can beat the Eagles running the football. They have already done that. They slashed the Eagles in the running game last year. 

If the Eagles are to be Champions they will have to prove they can stop the run. If they can't, all Mahomes has to do is the short game. If the game turns into a trial balloon on what an older Patrick Mahomes pocket-passer might look like, the Eagles rush will get home. 

Now I'm going to mention something that haunts old school Skins fans: The Body Bag Game. Like Kyle Shanahan, Joe Jackson Gibbs got torn down to a running back running the offense. Washington lost the game, but the legendary B-Mitch manned the hell up and drove the offense for a touchdown.

This Eagles team is different attitudinally to that brash Buddy Ryan team that had its narcissistic supply drained in the playoffs by the same Washington team they had earlier put into the hospital. The Eagles today are smarter.

It is all strengths and weaknesses. Get strong in your weak area, the Tony Robbinses of the world all say. I know the Chiefs love the passing game truly, madly, deeply, but they have to run the ball and the Eagles have to stop it. The Chiefs have to stop the Birds in the Red Zone.

What this means is both Super Bowl teams should carry three Quarterbacks.