When the Eagles and Chiefs meet Sunday in Kansas City, they won’t be the exact same squads that met in Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans about seven months earlier, a memorable night for the Eagles as they pounded the two-time reigning champions by a 40-22 score that wasn’t even that close.
The Eagles are trying to rebuild a top-ranked defense that lost about half its starters in the offseason to free agency or trades. The Chiefs are trying to repair the left side of an offensive line so decimated by injuries come playoffs that coach Andy Reid had moved his All Pro left guard to left tackle and filled the left guard spot with a third-stringer.
Amazingly, the Chiefs still made it to the Super Bowl despite their offensive line issues, but the short-armed Joe Thuney was no match for the length of Eagles EDGEs Josh Sweat, Jalyx Hunt and the team’s other pass rushers who teed off on Patrick Mahomes.
Pressures like this were common throughout the game:
And like this..
The Chiefs remade their o-line this offseason, trading Thuney to the Bears and moving 2024 second-round pick Kingsley Suamataia to guard after the former BYU lineman struggled as a rookie and couldn’t get on the field past Week 1. They also used a first-round pick on Ohio State OT Josh Simmons, who was a big-time recruit out of California and one of the most athletic linemen in his class. Simmons suffered a knee injury in October and missed the rest of the season, including Ohio State’s run to a national title.
Simmons won the starting LT job and lined up alongside Suamataia last Friday when the Chiefs opened their season in Sao Paolo against the Chargers, a game they’d lose 27-21.
How improved are the Chiefs on the left side compared to February? It’s a complicated answer. At very least, they have a left tackle who’s actually a left tackle. At left guard, though, Suamataia is nowhere near Thuney’s level.
The film from Week 1 showed that both young linemen have some progress to make, and the Eagles are probably happy they get to face them earlier in the season.
The Chiefs showed some communication breakdowns – especially against some stunts and line games, which the Eagles do occasionally – and some technique breakdowns for both linemen.
Pressure on Mahomes came early for the Chargers – like the first third-down sceanario, a 3rd-and-6 that saw Simmons driven back into the pocket, forcing Mahomes to throw off his back foot with a lot of traffic in his face.
Both Simmons and Suamataia were driven back to collapse the pocket, making Mahomes release quickly and off the mark at the first-down marker.
Here’s a schemed pressure with the Chargers overloaded on the left side of the line.
The Chargers executed a T/E stunt and delayed LB blitz but the real pressure simply came from the DT getting inside Suamataia and then riding him back into Mahomes, who was hit while he threw incomplete.
Side note: This is also the play where Chiefs WR Xavier Worthy and TE Travis Kelce collided on a mesh concept leading to Worthy’s exit from the game with a dislocated shoulder. He’s listed as doubtful to play Sunday.
Here’s a pressure from just a three-man rush – a three-man rush!
Simmons gets beat badly off the snap by the edge rusher, forcing Mahomes to step up and then scramble to his left. Naturally, the LB who looked like a blitzer but was actually a dropper and spy saw Mahomes the whole way and was able to outflank Mahomes to make the QB stop dead in his tracks and try to reverse course before getting sacked.
Every so often, the Chiefs like to go under center and run play-action bootlegs, getting Mahomes out of the pocket, where he’s a sensei with his ability to hurt defenses with a pass or run. There were two instances where the under-center play action did nothing to help Mahomes avoid pressure from the left side.
Here’s one:
Simmons badly missed his punch on the EDGE defender, who beat him with a hand swipe and then went into QB pursuit mode. Sure, Mahomes picked up the first down, but he took a major knock at the end of the run.
The Eagles don’t have Sweat anymore but Jalyx Hunt and Josh Uche took turns last week lining up over Cowboys LT Tyler Guyton while Jordan Davis lined up over LG Tyler Smith and had one of the best games of his career, although his best rushes came against Cowboys C Cooper Beebe.
Andy Reid is notorious for not helping out his offensive tackles so he can make the most of his five outlets on every pass play. We’ll see if he makes any adjustments Sunday afternoon or if the Eagles once again dominate the left side of KC’s offensive line.
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