The key matchups of Super Bowl LVII
What's going to make the difference on the field when the Chiefs and Eagles square off for the Super Bowl?
A week and a half after the Championship games the line for this game is still Philly -1.5. To me this is a rather remarkable line because at a perhaps overly simplified yet still fundamental level…this game pits Jalen Hurts against Patrick Mahomes.
Perhaps I’m increasingly alone in thinking this, but that feels like a wild mismatch.
Here’s the history of Super Bowl quarterback matchups over the last decade….
If you were to isolate the quarterbacks who weren’t particularly good as progression passers in their Super Bowl seasons you’d have a list like Russell Wilson, Colin Kaepernick, Jimmy Garoppolo, and Jared Goff. Those guys went 1-4. If you want to throw in Nick Foles it’s 2-4, but he was actually very good in their mesh concepts that season.
If the matchup is truly as lopsided as I think between the two quarterbacks, the Eagles seem like a really bad bet.
What’s more, the teams get two weeks off to prepare. Which style of offense is more vulnerable to two weeks of careful prep? The zone-option approach by the Eagles or the Patrick Mahomes passing game? I think that question has an obvious answer as well.
But it’s still a game of 11-on-11 and thus possible that the overall team matchups will end up weighting the scale more heavily than which of these two quarterbacks you trust in say, a two-minute drill with the game on the line.
Here’s how I see the other factors playing out.
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