The Chiefs and Eagles were undoubtedly two of the most dominant teams in the NFL all season. They deserve to play on this stage.
Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts are two of the most exciting quarterbacks around. Their respective supporting casts matchup exceptionally well. And the connections between the two teams run deep.
All that’s left to do is make your pick and cash the ticket.
The staff at For The Win just happens to have very different ideas on which bets you should place.
Can Mahomes catch Brady? It’d be really cool to find out!
This is the online version of our daily newsletter, The Morning Win. Subscribe to get irreverent and incisive sports stories, delivered to your mailbox every morning. Here’s Robert Zeglinski.
Anyone who knows me understands I respect history.
I would never dare look down upon those who came before. But at the same time, I wouldn’t put my head in the sand if I saw something remarkable and genuinely unprecedented — like, say, a quarterback we’ve never seen before. Sometimes you have to look forward and recognize when the game has grown.
This is where I am with Patrick Mahomes. If he can take the Kansas City Chiefs to their third Super Bowl title in franchise history this Sunday, he’s the second-best quarterback of all time. Full stop. That’s right, at age 27, I feel comfortable anointing Mahomes over everyone save for that retired elephant in the room — Tom Brady.
I know what you’re thinking. But what about guys like John Elway, Brett Favre, Dan Marino, or Peyton Manning? And to that, I say: what about them?
What Mahomes has accomplished before he even turns 28 is just silly to consider on paper. It makes everyone else pale in comparison.
He’s started just 80 games and has almost 200 career touchdown passes while maintaining a relative four-to-one TD-to-INT ratio. He’s the first quarterback with at least 10 playoff wins before he turned 27 (11th all-time), and with just 13 postseason starts to his name, is also 11th all-time in playoff passing yards.
Some of the guys he’s just ahead of, like Hall of Famers Jim Kelly and Troy Aikman, were making deep playoff runs almost every year. They basically owned the first half of the 1990s. Here’s Mahomes eclipsing them now, while it feels like he’s only getting started.
I know I’m counting my chickens before they hatch, but wouldn’t it be fun to watch Mahomes try and match Brady’s ultimate Super Bowl glory for the rest of his career? Wouldn’t it be great to see a young legend try and live up to an impossible example? Mahomes has said he wants to be like Brady, just that he understands it’s a long road ahead. I mean, yeah: Ten Super Bowl berths and seven wins is a lot to live up to. It took Brady two-plus decades to get there. But if there’s anyone that conceivably could, it’s the man in Kansas City’s red and gold No. 15.
I might be alone in this regard, but I watch football for greatness. I like to see the best players on the best teams accomplishing the ridiculous in January and February. I like when they get me to drop my jaw because I’m so stunned. That’s what Brady did, for the most part, and that’s what Mahomes does now. All the time.
Patrick Mahomes has started half a decade in the NFL.
On a pure talent level, I’d argue this magician stands alone. We’ve never seen anyone pull off his unique mix of creativity, poise, and rocket arm and do it successfully. I’m immediately suspicious of anyone who says otherwise because that might be someone who wants to live in the past.
Beating the Philadelphia Eagles for another title won’t be an easy task. Some of the veteran Eagles have also been there and done that. (While Mahomes is forgetting important romantic days in preparation for them!) In fact, I’d be hard-pressed to pick almost anyone else to topple what was probably the NFL’s most complete team in 2022.
But Mahomes isn’t like his peers now, nor is he like those that came before. He’s better, and I want to see him start his “GOAT” chase in earnest.
Quick hits: NBA trade deadline madness … What happened with Twitter? … and more.
Chris Jones and the Kansas City Chiefs might be playing in the Super Bowl, but it doesn’t look like they’ve forgotten who they beat to get there. This isn’t to say that Jones and Co. don’t have their eye on the prize — it’s just that they might enjoy beating some teams — and quarterbacks — more than others.
During a media appearance to start Super Bowl week, Chris Jones was asked which current NFL QB he likes to sack the most. Was it anyone in the AFC West, you know, a division rival? Might it have been someone like the Buffalo Bills’ Josh Allen?
Dearest Reader, you’re thinking of the wrong great QB. And that’s OK. I don’t blame you.
After the Chiefs dispatched Cincinnati in the AFC title game, they won’t have to think about them for a while. But it’s answers like this from Jones that make me believe this heavyweight conference rivalry is only just getting heated up.
During Super Bowl week media time, running back Christian McCaffrey appeared in an interview with NFL Network’s Andrew Siciliano. When asked if he agreed with Aiyuk’s sentiments, essentially asking him for Super Bowl analysis, McCaffrey skirted the question and couldn’t have been pettier:
Phew. That is the look and sound of a man who hasn’t gotten over the sting of a tough Championship Sunday defeat. I don’t necessarily blame McCaffrey for wearing his heart on his sleeve, but there’s nothing he can dolly change the 49ers’ unfortunate reality.
They fell just short of their Super Bowl dreams, and they can’t change that until next winter.
Yahoo Sports’ Charles McDonald (a FTW alum) caught up with a host of Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs, including Travis Kelce, JuJu Smith-Schuster and Jordan Mailata, to get their thoughts on Brady’s very silly “thirst trap” that had everyone laughing.
"Tom acting totally out of pocket!" @TomBrady's "thirst trap" post about his underwear line had the players at Super Bowl Opening night talking 😂 pic.twitter.com/tK4FIj8Yzc
As you can see, everyone who saw Brady’s post couldn’t help but poke fun at it. As much as you’ve gotta be true to your bet when you lose it, maybe you should reconsider making that bet in the first place when it requires you to pose in your underwear on Twitter.
However, since Brady owns the underwear line that he was modeling, he probably wins in the end with all this free advertising. Dang you, TB12!
With the newly retired Brady saying that he’ll join the Fox broadcasting team in 2024, his delay gives Olsen more time to call games with play-by-play announcer Kevin Burkhardt on Fox’s A-team for NFL Sundays. People have responded incredibly well to Olsen’s work, and many fans want him to keep his job with Burkhardt even with Brady joining the network.
While the odds suggest that Brady’s astronomical contract with Fox means the top color commentary gig is his for the taking, Olsen welcomed the challenge as he talked at Super Bowl media week on Tuesday.
"Every year they're trying to replace you… if you're afraid for people to come for your job, you're not going to do very well in any competitive environment."
With Olsen set to call Super Bowl 57 with Burkhardt on Fox this Sunday, NFL fans all over the world will get a chance to hear why Olsen has been getting so much love all season for his work.
While he’s deeply humble regarding the possibility of competition, he doesn’t sound intimidated either. It’ll be fascinating to see what happens between Olsen and Brady once Fall 2024 rolls around.
By now, you’ve probably digested everything there is to know about the “Kelce Bowl.” But there’s one person, really one man, who we haven’t heard from much yet. I’m talking about Ed Kelce, the father of the two First-Team All-Pros on the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles, respectively.
Thankfully, we’re in luck, as the brothers invited their dad, Ed Kelce, on the latest episode of their podcast New Heights. (Don’t overlook that he wore a Cincinnati jersey, where both of his sons went to college!) When Travis and Jason told their father he was going to lose Sunday because one of his sons would be a Super Bowl loser, he responded perfectly:
(NSFW language in the video below)
"I'm on the most popular podcast in sports, I've already f—ing won!" 🥺🥺🥺
Join @JasonKelce & @tkelce for one of our funniest, and most wholesome episodes yet
Awww. Ed Kelce definitely understands how to keep perspective. He knows his sons are two of the most famous athletes in America, whose podcast also happens to be the No. 1 sports podcast around, per Chartable. And he’s just reveling in it! As he should!
Even if this proud dad plans to morph into immediate comfort mode for the son that loses Super Bowl 57, that reality doesn’t seem to faze him. He’s enjoying his boys being the talk of the sports world. Quite frankly, it’s heartwarming to see.
The Philadelphia Eagles are going to defeat the Kansas City Chiefs by the score of 37-34 to win Super Bowl LVII. At least, that’s what far too many bettors are counting on.
But why? Because that’s what the “script” says.
For those unfamiliar with the script, former NFL running back Arian Foster recently joked that the NFL is rigged, and that during training camp before each season, a script is provided to league members that explains how that NFL season must play out.
The sports world has run with it and turned the “script” into the gift that keeps on giving.
[betwidget_tipico]
[betwidget_gambbetmgm]
[betwidget_gambfanduel]
Well, a tweet from a since-suspended Twitter account tweeted “Nah someone just leaked the Super Bowl script” with a graphic that showed the Eagles defeating the Chiefs 37-34.
Darren Rovell of Action Network wrote that the tweet was viewed more than 12 million times. Enough of those viewers were bettors who quickly acted on the info that the prop has become BetMGM’s most-bet Super Bowl score.
Last year bettors rushed to wager on the Bengals winning the Super Bowl by an exact score of 34-31 because of an altered screenshot from The Simpsons. That is obviously not how the game played out.
We’ll see if Andy Reid and the Chiefs stick to the script this year.
Yet the annual office party game can kind of feel a bit underwhelming given how many other things there are to wager on these days. So BetFTW came up with a solution: Prop Bet Bingo.
The game is simple. Before the Super Bowl broadcast begins, print off the Bingo card below and circle an option for each prop bet square. From there you’re just playing straightforward Bingo rules. If your answer hits, you get the square. First player to get Bingo wins. And since everyone will fill out their card differently, there’s no need to randomize the squares.
“There’s a reason that he’s so far ahead of everyone else.”
Most consider Patrick Mahomes to be the NFL’s best active quarterback. Taken a step further, some believe him (and his unique voice) to be one of the greatest ever to play, if not the most talented. But as the Kansas City Chiefs talisman gets set to play in his third career Super Bowl this Sunday, he’s still working on chasing Tom Brady, a.k.a. the “GOAT.”
Even if Mahomes and the Chiefs were to beat the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl 57, he’d still be five rings short of the legendary Brady’s career seven titles. In his iconic career, Brady, of course, also played in 10 Super Bowls overall.
While Mahomes knows there’s a long way to go to match Brady, he maintained he’d take it one Super Bowl at a time on Monday:
Now there’s an apt answer from someone vying to be the GOAT in his own right. Mahomes definitely understands the comparisons he gets to Brady. But they probably can’t be justifiable until he has at least a few more Super Bowl wins. For now, all he can do is show respect for the achievements of an all-timer.
If it’s any consolation, Mahomes is only 27. He still has plenty of time to catch Brady in the long run.
![Ed Kelce hilariously explained how he ‘[expletive] won’ as his sons Travis and Jason prep for Super Bowl](https://feeds.usatodaysports.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Screenshot-2023-02-07-at-3.52.46-PM-e1675810468600-1200x696.png)
