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00:00Out here on Radio Row in New Orleans, Kevin Walsh with Jason Fitz of Yahoo Sports and NFL Analyst over there.
00:06We're out here getting ready for Eagles-Chiefs.
00:09We've seen the game before, two years ago in the Super Bowl.
00:13They played the year following actually at Arrowhead.
00:16Both teams were off of a bye. The Eagles win that game.
00:20I don't think calling it 1-1 is fair though because winning the Super Bowl matters a lot more.
00:24I'm curious, when you started to get into this game here, the Chiefs' favorite in the matchup,
00:30how much did you look back at the performances from the two teams in the first Super Bowl meeting that we saw two years ago?
00:36Very little, honestly, because if you're looking at the Eagles,
00:39I mean, you're talking about a complete transformation, offensive coordinator, defense coordinator, like it's a different team.
00:44So what's difficult here is that as much as we want to look at,
00:48hey, Philly was up in that game at the half and they had every opportunity to win.
00:51I don't know how that plays into this situation, if we're being honest.
00:55And that's one of the hardest things, like all of us that love sports or cover sports,
00:58spend so much time talking about the history of matchups.
01:01And the history really is so meaningless to what's actually going to happen in this game.
01:06The history that I look at that matters in this game is,
01:09look at Andy Reid and his record off of bye weeks.
01:11Look at the success that Steve Spagnuolo, their defensive coordinator, has had in the NFL playoffs.
01:15Those are the things that I think, those are palpable stats and information that you can take with you moving forward.
01:20But the matchup before, I think Philly is just a wildly different football team and they didn't have Saquon then either.
01:25Yeah, they absolutely are, I think, on both sides of the ball.
01:29I could argue maybe more even defensively because the defense going into the game
01:33two years ago was led by a great SAC unit.
01:37Everyone knew the secondary was vulnerable.
01:39The line couldn't get there for the reasons that they couldn't get there.
01:43Mahomes lit them up.
01:44I'm fascinated to see and I'm curious what you're expecting out of Pat specifically in the game
01:49going up against what I think is pretty confidently the best defense in the National Football League.
01:54Yeah, you're a thousand percent right.
01:56And by the way, home run of an offseason to be able to get Quinion Mitchell and Cooper Dejean,
02:01two guys that, you know, I've been lucky enough to cover the draft at this point for the last eight years.
02:05And they were both can't-miss prospects that somehow were still sitting there.
02:09You know, it's just the way the board falls sometimes.
02:12You're right.
02:12I think what's going to have to happen here though is Mahomes is going to have to get the ball out of his hands incredibly quickly,
02:17which he's been doing anyway,
02:18but especially when you apply the pressure up the middle that we expect that they will be able to apply.
02:23Joe Tooney moving out to tackle has helped solidify the offensive line for the Chiefs,
02:28but I would argue that that makes them vulnerable right up the center.
02:30We all know if you can get to a quarterback up the gut.
02:32So I'd expect that Andy Reid's going to be moving the pocket around a lot of it,
02:36trying to find ways to get Mahomes moving a little bit
02:39and then he's going to have to get rid of the ball in lightning speed over and over in it.
02:43And you pair that, the rush attack has really struggled,
02:46though I found their ability to run the football in the red area against Buffalo
02:51to be the complete difference in that game where quarterback runs from Mahomes that they never call.
02:58Kareem Hunt had a big run early on.
03:01I do think that is one of the maybe fascinating swings of this game is if Kansas City can run it with some effectiveness,
03:08stay balanced and on time.
03:11I wonder if that presents some challenges that Philly maybe isn't necessarily prepping for.
03:16Yeah, and look, the Chiefs aren't a great run team,
03:18but they're an efficient run team.
03:20When they need to be able to run the ball, they do.
03:22And that's an interesting element in this game
03:24because the aggressiveness of the Eagles defense is something that Kansas City is going to try and take advantage of.
03:29So even if it's not flat-out normal lineup,
03:33we have this concept of what the run game looks like based on what it looked like 20 years ago.
03:36Now there's so many creative ways to run.
03:38I would expect also a lot of jet sweep sort of stuff,
03:41like how can they try and keep movement and motion
03:44and try and just slow down the interior of that defensive line for Philly,
03:47at least for a second, to see if they can get some space.