The Super Bowl is set.
Back after their victory over San Francisco in Super Bowl LIV, the D-word started popping up around the Kansas City Chiefs: there was talk about them becoming the NFL’s next dynasty, following in the footsteps of the six-time champion New England Patriots.
What followed in the two seasons since that first championship of the Patrick Mahomes-Andy Reid era in Kansas City was playoff disappointment. The team was blown out the following year by Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, before a loss to the Cincinnati Bengals in the AFC title game last postseason.
The Chiefs did make it back to their fifth straight conference championship game in 2022, however, and thanks to a 23-20 victory over these very same Bengals have now advanced to their third Super Bowl in the last four years. Needless to say that Kansas City is the high-water mark in the AFC at the moment, but whether or not the team will add to the dynastic claims made back in 2020 remains to be seen.
They will at the very least get another shot to establish themselves as legitimate heirs to the dynasty-era Patriots. Of course, winning Super Bowl LVII will be anything but easy: the Philadelphia Eagles, who beat the San Francisco 49ers, will be anything but a pushover.
Super Bowl LVII
(1) Kansas City Chiefs vs. (1) Philadelphia Eagles: Super Bowl LVII in Glendale, AZ, will feature the top teams in the NFL’s two conferences go at each other. The AFC representative Chiefs and their NFC counterpart Eagles finished the regular season with identical 14-3 records, earning home-field advantage throughout the tournament.
Kansas City opened the playoffs with a 27-20 win over the fourth-seeded Jacksonville Jaguars, before beating the Bengals 23-20 on Sunday; the story between those two contests was Patrick Mahomes’ ankle, but the quarterback did not show any major limitations against Cincinnati despite having suffered a sprain the previous week. Of course, the team’s efforts extend beyond the QB, with the Chiefs defense holding the high-powered Bengals to only 20 points behind two turnovers and some steady pressure.
Philadelphia, meanwhile, took advantage of what was a generally weak season in the NFC. The team of head coach Nick Sirianni steamrolled the sixth-seeded New York Giants 38-7 in the divisional playoffs, setting up a title game meeting with the 49ers. San Francisco saw quarterback Brock Purdy suffer an early elbow injury, and then lost his backup — the team’s nominal fourth-stringer — Josh Johnson to a concussion; Purdy reentered the game but the team stood no chance against a stout Eagles defense. Meanwhile, the team’s offense did enough to come away with a victory.
And so, the two teams will now square off with a Super Bowl on the line. The Chiefs are playing for their third championship, the Eagles for their second. | Sunday, Feb. 12, 6:30 p.m. ET
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