By: Josh Bennett
Whether you watch the Super Bowl for the high-energy halftime performance, multi-million dollar commercials, or simply the love of the great American game of football, the draws to a close the nearly five month-long NFL season. Some years, we get historic, defining cultural moments like the Tom Brady comeback from 28–3 against Atlanta. In other years we get surprise teams that figure it all out by the end of the season and seemingly come out of nowhere to complete playoff runs, as we did with the Bengals and the Rams in Super Bowl LVI. Then, in years like this, we get quite a poetic ending to a rather interesting NFL season.
This season saw many different narratives throughout the year, many of which seemed to come to an epic conclusion in the big game. For example, Saquon Barkley, the Eagles star running back and most recent offensive player of the year, has definitely been a player to follow. Drafted by the New York Giants in 2018, the dynamic back quickly took the league by storm for the next few seasons. Unfortunately for him, his career has been limited by the fact that he played for the Giants, a team that has struggled with consistency since the departure of Eli Manning in 2020.
Amidst contract negotiations with Barkley over the summer and facing the possibility of losing him to another team willing to fork over his well-deserved pay raise, Giants owner John Mara was caught in 4K on the HBO show “Hard Knocks.” He was quoted as saying he would “have a hard time sleeping if Saquon goes to Philadelphia.” Ultimately, General Manager Joe Shoen decided to let Saquon sign with the division rival, in a move seemingly made to justify spending 40 million dollars per year on quarterback Daniel Jones, who was recovering from an ACL tear.
At the time, I contended that this was one of the worst staffing moves in the history of the National Football League, a take that quickly gained traction as the season played out. Not only did they let a fan-favorite player and team leader go to a tremendous rival like the Eagles, but the front office even went on to cut Daniel Jones, the man they chose instead of Barkley, after less than three months. Giants fans then were forced to watch as Saquon led the Eagles with historic levels of offense. He ran for over 2000 yards (a club that only eight other players in history are a part of), scored 15 touchdowns, put wild highlights like his famous “reverse hurdle” on tape, and of course carried them to a Super Bowl with the third most rushing yards ever in a postseason stretch. Needless to say, the Giants may have made a mistake by letting Saquon walk, and watching him play in the Super Bowl was a hilarious narrative that Giants haters can appreciate.
The Super Bowl also put the Kansas City Chiefs’ history (somewhat questionable) playoff win streak to a glorious end. With 11 of their regular season wins this year being one-possession games, and nearly half of those coming down to the final play, it became evident to NFL fans that this dynasty has devolved from the offensive dominance of four years ago to somehow scraping by every week in close games. Further, in their 12 playoff games since 2021, they have had fewer penalties than their opponents 10 times, fewer penalty yards 10 times, and 30 fewer penalties than their opponents over this span. Pair this with some questionable roughing-the-passer calls that we saw Mahomes receive this postseason, and the strange pass interference calls that we seemingly always find his receivers on the plus side of, and it is easy to see why fans thought that we would receive another referee-facilitated, or otherwise narrow win in the big game this year.
Anyone who watched the game knows this is not what happened (thankfully). Mahomes completed just six passes for 33 yards and two interceptions by halftime as they dropped to 24 points behind the Eagles in a first-half shutout. While he did add on a few garbage-time touchdowns late in the game, this level of defensive dominance by the Eagles was just what Chiefs haters needed to fuel their “Chiefs are mid” narrative. Needless to say, watching Mahomes and the team struggle was likely therapeutic for many NFL fans across the country.
The Super Bowl finished off another amazing NFL season filled with stories of the triumphs and tribulations of America’s favorite players. Fans like me will however have to wait until September for next season to start to see if their team can make it to the biggest stage in football. As fans of every team that didn’t win it all this year will say, “Next year is our year,” and in my case, “Go Bills!”
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