Jalen Hurts was named the MVP of the Philadelphia Eagles' Super Bowl LIX blowout of the Kansas City Chiefs because the real MVP was not eligible.
That's not a shot at the Philadelphia quarterback, who completed 17-of-22 passes for 221 yards with two touchdowns (plus an interception) while rushing 11 times for a game-high 72 yards plus an additional touchdown, but the catalyst for the Eagles' 40-22 win was defensive coordinator Vic Fangio.
Fangio's unit sacked Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes six times without having to devote extra rushers, which allowed the Eagles' back seven to feast on shaky Mahomes passes. His final stat line (21-of-32 for 257 yards with 3 TDs and 2 INTs) doesn't tell the full story, since Kansas City didn't crack the scoreboard until the final minute of the third quarter with the Eagles leading 34-0, and Mahomes's final two touchdown passes coming in the final three minutes after Philadelphia led 40-6.
Mahomes's 11.3 QBR was his lowest since a 27-3 loss to Tennessee on Oct. 24, 2021, and his lowest in a playoff game by far. In fact, in the only other playoff clunker Kansas City has offered in the Mahomes era, the 31-9 loss to Tampa Bay in Super Bowl LV, Mahomes's QBR was 42.2, despite not throwing a touchdown pass at all in that game.
Kansas City did not cross midfield until the 2:03 mark of the third quarter, their 10th possession of the game. Of the previous nine, the longest Chiefs drive traveled 17 yards, and six were three-and-outs. In the first half, Mahomes was 6-of-14 for 33 yards and two interceptions, including a pick-six to Cooper DeJean that all but ended the game with 7:03 to play in the second quarter.
The Eagles' defensive performance was one other Super Bowl demolitions will be compared against, and a crowning achievement for the man who orchestrated it.
Or is it?
“I heard a quote that Dean Smith many years ago, if you guys remember, he went to a bunch of Final Fours before he finally won one, and they asked him the next day, ‘How does it feel you got a monkey [off your back]?’ He said, ‘I’m the same coach today as I was yesterday. We just got a championship,'" Fangio said Sunday night, via Jeff McLane.
“So I don’t look at it as it validates me or anything. It’s just a great accomplishment.”
Smith won his first national championship after 30 seasons in coaching, and in his 21st season as North Carolina's head coach. The Tar Heels had been to the Final Four six times previously under Smith, and had lost in the title game three times previously.
Likewise, Fangio's first Super Bowl comes at the end of his 38th season in the NFL. He'd been to the Big Game only once before, as Jim Harbaugh's defensive coordinator in San Francisco, and lost. He was the Denver Broncos head coach, and fired after three sub-.500 seasons. Last season, Fangio coordinated the NFL's 10th-ranked defense in Miami. This season, he led the NFL's top defense and authored one of the best individual games by a defensive unit in NFL history.
In a profession that casts its practitioners to the lowest of lows and also exalts them to the highest of highs, Fangio's perspective after reaching the pinnacle was an interesting reminder for coaches still striving to reach their own summit. Win or lose, the sun's still going to rise the next morning.