After a season of one-score wins, questionable, controversial calls, and ensuing entitlement, the Super Bowl defending champion Kansas City Chiefs were dismissed grandly in Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans on Sunday. The Philadelphia Eagles did not doubt which team was the best in the NFL for the 2024-25 season. A 40-22 blowout humbled the reigning Super Bowl champions, whose hopes for a third consecutive title faded into hopes for an in-game comeback that never came back. Instead, the Eagles turned up the volume with a suffocating defense that landed Patrick Mahomes on the turf multiple times, complete with back-to-back sacks.

Meanwhile, the Eagles closed out the season in spectacular style, posting 95 points in the NFC Championship Game and the Super Bowl combined, the most in NFL history. Quarterback Jalen Hurts rose to the occasion, winning his first title and the MVP Award for Super Bowl LIX. He set the record for most rushing yards for a quarterback in a Super Bowl with 72 yards, breaking his record in 2023. Hurts also became the first quarterback to beat an opposing team in a rematch in Super Bowl history.

While the game lost its appeal the further the score was distanced, Eagles fans enjoyed the numerous records and milestones set in Super Bowl LIX while avenging the loss two years ago. Included in the drubbing of the Chiefs, the NFL’s all-time season rushing record was broken. Saquon Barkley set the all-time rushing record, surpassing the Denver Broncos Terrell Davis (2476) for most rushing yards in an NFL season, finishing with 57 yards in the game and 2504 yards for the season. He also led the team with six receptions in the win.

With Hurts and Barkley both setting rushing records, the entire team made impressive gains in other facets of the game, solidifying the Eagles as a team to be reckoned with in this current era of football. Kicker Jake Elliott had four field goals and four extra points, giving him 16 total, the most kicking points in Super Bowl history. The defense sacked Patrick Mahomes six times, the most in his career, in one game.

Hurts finished with 17 of 22 passes for 293 combined yards and three touchdowns and was sacked twice in his second Super Bowl appearance. His 72 yards and a touchdown on the ground led all rushers, earning him the Super Bowl MVP honors. Records and milestones for Hurts included most total touchdowns in a quarterback’s first two Super Bowl starts (seven), sixth player all-time with 3+ total touchdowns in multiple Super Bowls, a second quarterback with a 70% completion rate and 3+ total touchdowns in multiple Super Bowls (Tom Brady was the other).

Hurts has the two highest single-game rushing yardage totals by a quarterback in Super Bowl history and is the fourth quarterback to win the Super Bowl after losing his first Super Bowl start, joining Len Dawson, Bob Griese, and John Elway.

“God is good,” Jalen said after the game. “Personally, myself, I’ve just been able to use every experience and learn from it … using it as fuel to pursue my own greatness. And I think I couldn’t do any of these things without the guys around me.”

Sunday’s game on Fox between the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs saw an estimated 127.7 million viewers across linear and streaming, according to Nielsen, making it not only the largest big-game audience in TV history but also the largest audience for a single-network telecast in TV history. This year’s matchup managed to squeak by the record set by the Chiefs and 49ers during last year’s Super Bowl LVIII CBS broadcast. And that broadcast beat the previous year’s record-setting Super Bowl (also between the Eagles and Chiefs) by 7%.

The halftime show by rapper Kendrick Lamar also set a new record. Lamar became the first rapper named a solo rap artist to perform at the Super Bowl. The Pulitzer Prize-winning artist (2018) was a polarizing figure in Super Bowl halftime history, drawing critics from both sides, who called it the best to the worst halftime performance in Super Bowl history.

Fresh off of his Grammy Awards sweep, Lamar spent his second consecutive Sunday at the height of his career. After winning five Grammys, Lamar performed the most watched halftime performance in Super Bowl history, according to Nielsen fast national figures and Tubi/NFL first-party analytics. The game, which saw the Philadelphia Eagles rout the Kansas City Chiefs, drew an estimated 126 million viewers and peaked at 137.7 million just before the halftime show, headlined by Kendrick Lamar.

Bowing out as the previous Super Bowl MVP, Patrick Mahomes of the Chiefs faced the cameras and defended his team in the loss. It was his second loss in a Super Bowl, but he took it the hardest after the humiliating loss, which had them losing by as much as 34-0 in the third quarter.

“That’s why I take ownership of this loss more than probably any loss in my entire career, because I put us in a bad spot there,” an emotional Mahomes said after the game. “Even though we put up some stats at the end of the game, those stats didn’t really matter because we kind of lost the momentum for this entire team, and so I have to be better at not turning over. Whenever it’s not going my way, trust in my defense, trust in the rest of my team to get those stops until I can figure out what we need to do as an offense.”  

Mahomes finished with 21 completions on 31 attempts for 257 yards, with three touchdowns, six sacks, and a passer rating of 95.4. One of his two interceptions was returned 38 yards for a touchdown by Cooper DeJean, and the second set up the Eagles deep in Chiefs territory for another touchdown by A.J. Brown.

The NFL season has concluded, and the next order of business is the incoming college players at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis in two weeks.

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