The NFL did the Super Bowl a major disservice with the terrible playing surface at the State Farm Stadium on Sunday, but the Philadelphia Eagles and their fans were the only ones really affected by the slippery field.
That Patrick Mahomes was unbothered by the Eagles’ defense all game was pretty interesting. Philadelphia had the best pass rush win rate in the NFL in 2022/23, tied with the Dallas Cowboys. Yet they couldn’t manage a single sack and Mahomes pretty much had his way on the night.
It’s also interesting when you consider that the groundsman, George Toma, is an aggressive Chiefs fan, so much so, Roger Goodell had to ask him to tone it down. The Commissioner appears to be a Chiefs fan himself given the hugs he shared with Chris Jones after the game, but that’s for another story.
One might argue that both teams played on the same crappy surface, which would make a good point, except the Chiefs were significantly worse off. Some analysis from Ollie Connolly of The Guardian revealed that Eagles players slipped on 38 percent of Mahomes dropbacks and had multiple players slip five times while the Chiefs defense slipped on just 14 percent of Jalen Hurts’ dropbacks and had zero multiple-player slippages.
Another interesting fact lies in the gear changes; the Chiefs didn’t make any. The Eagles, on the other hand, changed cleats several times.
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Now, why is that? Did the Chiefs know something the Eagles didn’t? That they never bothered to make changes suggests that they knew exactly what they were going into.
Might be that they just did their homework. They had their fair share of complaints when they beat the Arizona Cardinals at home back in September so they probably kept that in mind. But the fact that the NFL allowed the biggest game of the season to be played on such a poor surface is fishy, to say the least.
