The Master vs. The Student: Andy Reid vs. Nick Sirianni
It’s a Super Bowl rematch between Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni and Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid. Along with three Super Bowls, Reid has 273 regular season wins and 28 wins in the postseason. Sirianni has 48 regular season wins and five wins in the postseason. They have faced each other three times, with Reid winning two of them. In this matchup, Reid has the best player, Patrick Mahomes while Sirianni has the better overall roster. It’s going to be a chess match as the biggest challenge for Sirianni is how to slow down Mahomes. The tricky part to defending Mahomes is pressuring him while also keeping him in the pocket. It’s rare to actively try to keep a quarterback in the pocket because most quarterbacks face more duress going outside of the pocket. Mahomes becomes even better as a playmaker outside of the pocket.
The biggest key to this will be the coin toss. In 20 playoff games of the Mahomes era, the Chiefs got the ball to start the second half 16 times. The advantage here is that they tend to score towards the end of the first half and make adjustments at halftime. Then, they start with the ball to start the second half and score. In fact, in eight of 20 playoff games, Mahomes has faced Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson, and Jalen Hurts. All eight times, Mahomes has started the second half with the ball. Sirianni will need to keep his composure this time around because it’s not a good look when his starting quarterback tells him he needs to calm down. With Saquon Barkley in this year’s Super Bowl, Sirianni has the advantage with the league’s leading rusher. He has the opportunity to run the football and chew up the clock with Barkley and Hurts. The key for the Eagles is to get into third and shorts to move the sticks, finish drives with seven points, and keep the Chiefs off the field. They will have to shorten the game where Mahomes gets about five to six possessions and keep the score opportunities to 20-25 points.
Siranni will have to coach his team with discipline. As soon as Mahomes starts to run out of the pocket and get toward the boundary, the Eagles cannot afford to pick up a late-hit penalty. That is also a momentum shift. If Reid can come up with trick plays to keep the Eagles’ defense guessing, it’s going to be a runaway for the Chiefs. In their Super Bowl matchup two years ago, the Chiefs scored two touchdowns running the same play and it left the Eagles confused. This time around, the Eagles have Barkley and a much more disciplined team.
