ESPN - Complete and utter dominance. On the biggest stage, with the Chiefs dominating the headlines in their attempt to win a third consecutive title, the Eagles comprehensively manhandled them in New Orleans.

The 40-22 final score in Super Bowl LIX seems unfair both to a Philadelphia defense that shut down Kansas City until a couple of garbage-time touchdowns in the fourth quarter and to a Kansas City defense that battled gamely before finally getting overwhelmed by short fields and the sheer volume of snaps it had to play.

The Chiefs did the best job any team has done all season against Saquon Barkley, who ran 25 times for 57 yards. The Eagles went 3-for-12 on third downs, failed to convert their only fourth down, turned the ball over in the red zone and averaged 5.1 yards per play -- fewer than the Chiefs. All of that sounds like the sort of game the Chiefs would expect to win given what they’re capable of doing on offense.

All of that is true and the Chiefs still fell behind 34-0 during the third quarter, precisely because of what they couldn’t do on offense. This was the worst possible time for Patrick Mahomes to have what will likely go down as his worst big game as a pro. Before saving his numbers with those late fourth-quarter scores, he looked as flummoxed as we’ve ever seen him.

If you had told that same Chiefs fan that Mahomes was about to go 6-of-14 for 33 yards with two interceptions in the first half of the Super Bowl, that fan could have done more productive things with a free Sunday. Those 33 yards were the fewest Mahomes has ever posted in the first half of any NFL game. His 10.9 passer rating was the third worst from any quarterback in the first half of a game this season. By expected points added (EPA) per dropback, his minus-1.36 mark was the 10th worst by any quarterback in the first half of any game since the start of the 2018 season.

Even with his late scoring drives, Mahomes finished with a Total QBR of 11.4, his second-worst performance in 133 career starts. Let’s assign credit appropriately: The Eagles did that. More specifically, the same Philadelphia defensive line that was tormented and torched so badly by Mahomes in Super Bowl LVII two years ago took over this game. While defensive coordinator Vic Fangio and his secondary will rightfully earn credit for a dominant performance, the front seven is the key to understanding why Mahomes & Co. were ground into dust.

How the Eagles took down Patrick Mahomes

On Sunday, the Eagles didn’t blitz once on Mahomes’ 42 dropbacks. (They had a couple of plays that would technically qualify as blitzes when the Eagles sent Zack Baun, but they dropped a lineman off into coverage as part of the snap.) Fangio rushed four players 39 times and three players three times. The Eagles still managed to pressure Mahomes on nearly 45% of his dropbacks through three quarters before Fangio gave his backups some run in the fourth. They sacked Mahomes six times with a four-man rush, something that has never happened to the future Hall of Famer in his career. He had never been sacked more than four times by a three- or four-man rush in a single game.

The Chiefs never had answers for dealing with the pass rush besides hoping the offensive line played better. They spent most of the game blocking with five linemen before mixing in chips from tight ends and running backs, which didn’t necessarily help; a Travis Kelce chip prevented the future Hall of Fame tight end from getting into his route quickly on a play that ended with a Mahomes sack, while a chip from Isiah Pacheco disengaged Sweat from Taylor and allowed him to take down a scrambling Mahomes. They tried moving the launch point for Mahomes by using built-in scrambles, but one of those plays led to the pick-six by Cooper DeJean.

Jalen Hurts, Super Bowl MVP, and how the Eagles got here

With Barkley quieted for the first time in months, this was the sort of game skeptics of the Eagles (like myself) would have seen as a real concern. While Hurts was excellent in the NFC Championship Game and threw just five interceptions all season, there was a two-month span in which the passing attack wasn’t much more than an afterthought. While acknowledging there’s no easy way to beat a team that was two drops away from winning 20 of its 21 games this season, the best way seemed to be putting more of the load on Hurts’ shoulders and seeing if the 26-year-old was up to the task.

While Hurts was only 2-of-5 for 36 yards and that pick on the blitz, I wouldn’t put that on him. There was no sight adjustment by Brown on the interception, even though the corner on his side (McDuffie) blitzed from the field, which would typically convert his route to a hitch or something easier than the go route he ran. When the Chiefs ran Cover 0 later in the game and the Eagles had again dialed up four vertical routes, Hurts threw a back-shoulder route to Brown, clearly expecting his star wideout to turn around and break off his route. But Brown continued downfield and the pass fell incomplete, leading to some mild discontent on the sideline for a few moments after the series.

While Mahomes’ scrambling in big moments has become legendary, Hurts was the one who made a difference there. He set up a fourth-and-2 (and the big play to Brown that was wiped off) by scrambling for 9 yards on third-and-11 on the opening drive. In the second half, he had scrambles of 14, 16 and 17 yards, all for first downs. The Chiefs tried spying him at times with Leo Chenal, but against four-man rushes and the blitz, Hurts was able to break Kansas City’s spirit with his legs.

Sirianni’s Eagles have won 18 of their 21 games. They’ve lost one game in four months, and that required a drop from Smith and a last-minute touchdown drive from Jayden Daniels. They have routinely been the better-prepared and better-coached team week in and week out, and there are veterans on both sides of the ball who have leveled up and massively improved upon the players they were in prior stops. Roseman, Moore and Fangio all deserve credit for their efforts in making that happen, but it seems impossible and unrealistic to deny Sirianni his fair share of those plaudits.

Sirianni is now 54-23 in his career as an NFL coach. He has more playoff wins (six) than any coach in franchise history besides Reid. And now, he has the one thing on his mantle that Reid failed to achieve during the legendary coach’s 14-season run in Philadelphia: the Lombardi Trophy.