Vibe check.
Super Bowl week is here!
As we count down the hours to the big game, we’re going to have a daily Question of the Day article here at Bleeding Green Nation.
Let’s kick things off with a vibe check: what’s your confidence level in the Philadelphia Eagles beating the Kansas City Chiefs?
We’ll get to our final predictions later in the week but I wanted to see where everyone’s headspace is at right now on Monday.
My answer: I’m in a bit of a weird spot mentally. I’ve got some serious cognitive dissonance going on.
On one hand, I’ve been saying for a long time that I feel like a Chiefs threepeat is inevitable.
I said the following on The SB Nation NFL Show (RIP) back on February 16, 2024:
“Right after the Chiefs win [Super Bowl 58] and Patrick Mahomes is talking in the postgame interview on the field, he’s talking about number three already. It wasn’t even like ‘We’re happy we won this one.’ It’s like ‘Hey, three, we’re doing it.’ And I know a lot of people who win the Super Bowl say that. ‘Oh, we’re going to do it again next year.’ But, I don’t know this, this seemed like an entirely different focus and energy on doing it yet again.”
[…]
“Does any of this matter? Do any of these other questions matter? Does anything in the NFL matter? Aren’t they actually just going to win it all again next year? We’re talking about a quarterback here who’s lost three times in the playoffs since [his debut in] the 2018 season. Two of them were to Tom Brady, one of them was in overtime. The other loss was in overtime to Joe Burrow, who’s been pretty incredible in the playoffs. So, does any of this actually matter? Fans are going to be like ‘We have to take this player in the first round!’ There’s going to be intense debate about who the Eagles should take at No. 22 overall. Or if the Cowboys should sign Derrick Henry. Or where Tee Higgins lands. Does any of this matter? Does any of it at all actually matter at all? I don’t think it does. I think the Chiefs are going to threepeat and we’re all just wasting our time acting like all this stuff matters, [re-arranging] deck chairs on the Titanic. It kind of feels futile.”
Holy nihilism, Batman!
All season long, I’ve struggled to move off this stance.
I regularly had the Chiefs at No. 1 in my weekly NFL power rankings despite them not even looking all that impressive in their wins. And then I’d get into arguments in the comments with people saying KC didn’t deserve to be in the top spot.
And yet here they are once again.
One win away from becoming the first team to lift the Vince Lombardi Trophy three years in a row.
On the other hand, the Birds are in the Super Bowl. And they’ve looked pretty awesome to get to this point! How can I possibly believe they don’t stand a chance?
Perhaps it’s actually the Eagles who should be viewed as the inevitable team.
Saquon Barkley is flat out unstoppable right now. How are the Chiefs going to defend him?
And for as awesome as Mahomes is, who else would you rather have trying to stop him than Vic Fangio and this defense?
So, I hardly think the Eagles are hopeless.
I just tend to think about things in terms of “Who deserves the most benefit of the doubt?” and I think it’s hard not to lean with the Chiefs. If it wasn’t already obvious, I hope it turns out I was wrong to feel this way.
On a scale of 1-10 with one being “the Eagles have no chance” and 10 being “the Eagles are an absolute lock to win,” I’d say I’m at a four.
For context, I was at a 10 ahead of Super Bowl LII. I wrote an article about how the Eagles were going to beat the New England Patriots on my flight from Philly to Minnesota that year. Ahead of Super Bowl LVII, I was around an eight.
What’s your confidence level right now? Scroll down and let us know how you’re feeling in the comment section.
