Every year, there are more and more ways to predict the Super Bowl. We have prop bets, game bets, squares, contests and more. In fact, so much pregame prediction is done that I accidentally concocted my entire projected box score for the Super Bowl LIX matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles (Sunday, 6 p.m. ET).
I sorted through the pass games, run games, receivers rooms, defensive units and even special teams for both the Chiefs and Eagles. Ultimately, I came up with predicted stat lines for every player involved, from Eagles running back Saquon Barkley to Chiefs returner Nikko Remigio.
But far more important than the actual stats are the ideas behind them. If tight end Travis Kelce has a bad game, who would benefit among the Chiefs' pass catchers? Which Eagles defender should have plenty of tackles if Kansas City executes its ideal game plan? Consider the stat projections as gateways into the analysis -- but don't doubt for one second that I won't be posting screenshot if I get any box score even remotely correct.
Let's jump in, starting with the passing attacks and ending with my final score prediction for the Super Bowl matchup.
Jump to:
Passing | Rushing | Receiving
Defense | Kicking | Returns
Final score prediction
Passing
Enjoyers of Super Bowl LVII will lament the collapse of these respective passing games: The Eagles never air the ball out like they once did, and the Chiefs don't sprint their way to 38 points anymore, either. But the passing games haven't completely vanished; they've just changed. (OK, one of them has definitely kind of vanished.)
It is nearly impossible to project Jalen Hurts' passing line for this game. Hurts has improved as a passer -- he has been better against the blitz, his largest criticism exiting 2023, and has generally become more accurate as a thrower. But the biggest improvement he made this season was stepping back and minimizing his role in the Saquon Barkley-era. His one great missive: Don't turn the ball over.
The Eagles played four games before their Week 5 bye. They went 2-2. Hurts threw four interceptions and three lost fumbles in that time frame. He also had at least 30 passing attempts in each game. And per NFL Next Gen Stats, the Eagles had a pass rate over expectation of minus-2.2% -- they were running the ball just over the expected rate for an average offense, given the downs and distances and score differentials they were facing.
But since Week 5, the Eagles have a pass rate over expectation of minus-12.3%. They are the league's most run-heavy team save for the Colts and Falcons, who very openly do not trust their quarterbacks (both were benched this season). Hurts, rather, earned Philadelphia's trust by stepping into more of a game-managing role and protecting the football at all costs. He has thrown 30-plus passes once since that bye week, but he has also thrown only one pick.
Hurts hasn't really trailed in the second half since that bye week, either -- that's how dominant the Eagles have been. Since Week 5, he has exactly 13 dropbacks while trailing in the second half: nine against the Commanders in Week 11 and four against the Panthers in Week 14. The next fewest is Josh Allen with 51 (and then Patrick Mahomes with 71).
This is why it's so hard to project Hurts' stat line. He might actually have to throw the Eagles back into this game, and we really don't know what that looks like these days. Don't get it twisted: He has played in plenty of high-octane shootouts over his career. But we don't know exactly how he might do that under offensive coordinator Kellen Moore. Will he look for A.J. Brown on vertical shots? Will he dink and dunk with Dallas Goedert and Barkley? I lean the latter, but I'm going off a small sample.
I expect Chiefs coordinator Steve Spagnuolo and his defense to present a ton of wild looks -- safety rotations, blitzers from depth, droppers off the line -- to take away quick-game options and encourage Hurts, one of the league leaders in time to throw (3.13 seconds), to hold onto the football. The longer the down, the more likely it is Hurts takes a bad sack by leaving a pocket that otherwise would have held up. If there's anything I feel good about on the Eagles' side of this box score, it's the sack number. (Speaking of which, I think Hurts will fumble on a sack before an Eagles offensive lineman recovers it.)
I've seen a lot made of Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio's 0-8 career record against Mahomes. It strikes me as baloney. Against Fangio's defenses over his career, Mahomes has been slightly below his marks against non-Fangio units (0.19 EPA per dropback vs. 0.23, and 50.5% success rate vs. 52.4%). It's not a significant enough edge in either direction to claim Mahomes has the drop on Fangio, or that Fangio has some solution to Mahomes. There isn't even anything stylistically that stands out in the numbers or on the film -- no sharp increase in two-high or zone or blitz looks or anything. Fangio runs his stuff, and Mahomes does his own thing.
That's still bad news for the Eagles, though. When Mahomes knows what he's getting on any given play -- when the safety rotation is anticipatable given the formation, or the coverage check is anticipatable given the motion -- he rarely misses the tell or the throw. Coach Andy Reid and Mahomes know Fangio's DNA well now, and with two weeks to prepare, they'll be keyed in on tendencies.
The saving grace for Philadelphia is the talent in its back seven. Zack Baun, Cooper DeJean, Quinyon Mitchell and C.J. Gardner-Johnson all present unique difficulties, even if offenses have them beat on the chalkboard. I expect the Chiefs to be cautious with the ball -- a lot of throws under the zones to check the Eagles as tacklers and test them with the speed of receiver Xavier Worthy, who has become an excellent underneath threat in recent weeks.
NFL Next Gen Stats has an excellent note here: Mahomes has a time to throw of 2.5 seconds over his past four games, which is impossibly quick. And on quick throws this season, he had a success rate of 60.9%. Against quick throws, the Eagles allowed only 5.5 yards per attempt -- the best defense in football. Something's got to give.
Things might get tricky in the red zone, where all of a sudden there's no underneath space afforded because the field condenses. But remember, Reid cooked the Eagles in the red zone two Super Bowls ago with back-and-forth motions that caught the Philadelphia secondary in miscommunications. The Chiefs are one of the highest pass-rate-over-expectation teams in the red zone this (and every) season with Reid and Mahomes, and I expect they'll have a couple of designer throws to attack Philadelphia's coverage tendencies.
The only remarkable thing about Mahomes against Fangio defenses is the lack of interceptions: eight games, two picks in total. I'm willing to chalk that up to small-sample noise and predict a regression to the mean, especially with the lack of ball-winning size in Kansas City's receiving room (the remarkable Worthy reception on Cole Bishop against Buffalo notwithstanding).
The last bit of the box score is the Worthy pass. You're telling me this guy has 15 targets behind the line of scrimmage in his past five games, and Reid doesn't have a double pass lined up for him? Another 11 rushes in the same time span, and we're not going to see him uncork a throw after a quick change? Give me a break. I'm calling my shot: He takes a reverse, looks deep for Hollywood Brown and then eventually hits Justin Watson on the crosser for a key 17-yard gain in the second quarter.
Rushing
It will be a tale of two styles on the ground in this game. The Eagles run the ball to move the chains; the Chiefs run the ball to keep the defense just honest enough to pass the ball. The overlap in the Venn diagram will come down to time of possession. Whichever offense can string together those clock-eating drives in the second half can keep the opposing dangerous offense sidelined.
The easiest and most obvious thing to say about this game is that Barkley will probably run many times for many yards. Barkley and the Eagles' offensive line are so good that it's not worth looking at the opposing defensive metrics against the run, as those are largely meaningless in the face of such dominance.
Here's a great stat from Next Gen Stats: The Chiefs were one of the best run defenses in the NFL this season when they were at a disadvantage in the box count. On runs in which the offense had at least one blocker for every run defender, they allowed only 4.1 yards per carry, which settled into minus-112 rushing yards under expectation -- the lowest mark in the league. Now, equipped with that new information, do you really expect Barkley to have any worse of a performance?
My projection for Barkley is modest because I think the Eagles will have to pass more in the second half than they're accustomed to doing; more of his damage has come after halftime than before it. I don't have Barkley breaking any 50-plus-yard Superman runs, solely because the Chiefs' safeties are such a disciplined, well-tackling group. But that shouldn't be the goal in this game, anyway.
Ideally, Barkley carries the ball 30-plus times and salts the game away with consistent 5-yard carries, as Mahomes wastes away on the sideline. Don't be surprised if the Chiefs start run blitzing early -- I'm talking the second or third drive -- if the Eagles initially look like they can string together eight-minute drives with Barkley as the engine.
What about Hurts? The biggest question for his rushing in this game has nothing to do with scrambles or designed keepers; rather, it's all about the tush push. The Chiefs beat the Bills in large part because of how well their defense was prepared for the tendencies of Josh Allen's left-leaning quarterback sneak; their three QB sneak stops tied for the most in a single game since 2016. Will they have a similar answer for the Eagles' far more famous tush push?
A few teams have tried the Frankie Luvu launch that didn't work too well for the Commanders on conference championship weekend. But watch the Packers against the tush push in Week 1 -- they didn't have to deal with a home Eagles crowd in Brazil, and they stopped the cheek sneak twice by leaping over the pile. If Spagnuolo and the defensive coaching staff can repeat their sneak-stopping performance from the AFC Championship Game, they'll have the advantage against Philadelphia that no opponent has had in years: the ability to make the Eagles play with just three downs, rather than all four.
Here's a sentence I cannot believe I'm writing in 2025: Kareem Hunt has successfully fended off Isiah Pacheco for the primary role in the Chiefs' backfield. When Pacheco first returned from his fibula injury in Week 13, he was either outsnapping Hunt or very nearly doing it (in Week 14, he had 14 carries to Hunt's 5). But to the Chiefs' coaching staff, it was quickly clear that Pacheco was not fully himself -- and as such, they left the door open for Hunt to keep a role in the backfield. He hasn't looked back.
Since Week 15, Hunt has outcarried Pacheco 58-38 and dramatically outpaced him in efficiency metrics; 12% of Hunt's rushes have gone for 10-plus yards, while Pacheco is at 2.6%. Hunt has a 46.6% success rate to Pacheco's 23.7%, and 33% of Hunt's rushes have gone for first downs as opposed to just 5.3% for Pacheco. There is no doubt who is actually running the ball well for Kansas City.
Now, "well" is relative. It's unreasonable to expect Hunt to rip off explosive plays against the Eagles, in that he hasn't cleared 15 mph this postseason, even despite his explosive run rate. Anyone watching knows Hunt isn't a fear-inducing back, and the Eagles are an above-average run defense by pretty much every metric. Every handoff that Mahomes turns and executes is a sigh of relief.
Every Mahomes scramble, on the other hand, is terrifying for opponents. He is coming off his best game ever as a runner: 11 carries (a single-game high for his career), 43 yards and two touchdowns (another single-game high for his career). His scramble rate in the postseason (15.2%) is nearly triple that of his regular-season rate (5.5%), and he has long had one of the best success rates on scrambles of any quarterback -- a direct measure of his mystical "get just enough to move the sticks" ability.
I'm projecting another active day for Mahomes as a runner, though a bit less effective. The Bills are a bad defense against the quarterback keeper, while the Eagles have a bit better pool of pursuit players. And I don't expect Fangio to deviate from his established approach to playing mobile quarterbacks. Watch for zone coverages on early downs and then some man coverage on late downs with an intentional flush-and-pursue plan along his defensive line.
One last item here: I also think Worthy will fumble on one of his two runs, and the ball will go out of bounds before anyone can hop on top of it. But this is an entirely random prediction, as fumbles are largely random events (though the Eagles have recovered six fumbles in just three postseason games, which is bonkers good).
Receiving
For one team, receiving is easy to project: A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith and Dallas Goedert (when healthy) represent as dominant of a target share as any team in the league. For the other team ... your guess is as good as mine.
While the consternation around Brown's receiving production in the postseason has largely abated after a six-catch, 96-yard, one-touchdown performance against the Commanders in the NFC Championship Game, I'm not sure the Chiefs are a great matchup for him. Brown, coincidentally, had exactly the same production (six catches, 96 yards and a score) in Super Bowl LVII -- and 45 yards and the score came on his astonishing catch over Trent McDuffie, whom he probably will get in coverage on a majority of his routes. McDuffie is a solid test for Brown, though he tends to struggle more with the bigger, more physical outside receivers. (McDuffie will get some safety help accordingly.)
It wouldn't be surprising to see the Eagles run more of the passing game through Smith and Goedert. The Chiefs were the worst defense against tight ends during the regular season, giving up 8.8 yards per target and 1.9 yards per route run. Those were both the highest numbers allowed from any team, and tight ends had a 22% target rate, which was the third highest. When the Eagles want to get Goedert the ball, they do so in their play-action series with him moving across the field. Watch for him in motion on quick-hitting run-pass options, or on longer under-center fakes in which he releases late and climbs to the second level.
Smith will also get a favorable matchup. When Brown is on the field, 60% of Smith's routes and 50% of his targets come from the slot, as the Eagles will pair their two star receivers on the same side of the field to exploit slot corners. Players lined up in the slot averaged 1.9 yards per route run against Kansas City, which is the highest number any defense gave up this season. A one-on-one matchup between Smith and slot corner Chamarri Conner is a huge opportunity for Philadelphia to look downfield.
The Chiefs are one of the best tackling teams at or near the line of scrimmage, and the Eagles' lineup of secondary and tertiary receiving options isn't much to write home about, save for Barkley. I think the Eagles will have plenty of success on the ground, but if the Chiefs have some run defense solutions, it will be interesting to see if Philadelphia has ideas in place to pop a big catch-and-run for Barkley.
I have 10 different Chiefs catching a pass Sunday, which ESPN Research tells me would be a record for a single team in the Super Bowl. It's not unreasonable, though: Eight Chiefs caught a pass in the AFC title game, and though only four caught passes against the Texans in the divisional round, nine were targeted. In each of the Chiefs' past two Super Bowls, nine players were targeted (eight and seven caught a pass, respectively). Because they run plenty of goofy red zone plays and deploy surprising formations, their potential for a highly diversified receiving game is high.
Figuring out a Travis Kelce projection is tough. Seven catches for 117 yards in the Chiefs' first playoff game marked only the ninth 100-yard game in league history for a tight end who was at least 35 years old. It felt like the old Kelce was back (buttressed by multiple weeks of rest). His next game: two catches for 19 yards.
The Eagles were the best defense in the league against tight ends in the regular season, giving up 5.7 yards per target (first) and 1.1 yards per route (second). But tight ends have been productive against the Eagles this postseason. Tyler Higbee (Rams) had 54 yards and a score on seven catches in the divisional round. Zach Ertz (Commanders) had 104 yards -- though it came on 16 targets and 11 catches on a largely garbage-time game script. Notably, these two performances came after the knee injury to linebacker Nakobe Dean, who is out again for this game.
I lean on the side of a (relatively) quiet Kelce game. Sure, it's the Super Bowl, which can feel like an auto-smash spot for Mahomes' favorite pass catcher -- but against the 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII a year ago, he had one catch in the first half, and only four through three quarters. In nine career games against Fangio's defenses, he has generally underperformed his career averages. If the Eagles spend two weeks game planning for anyone as a third-down or red zone receiver, it will be Kelce. If it's not a Kelce day, expect an uptick in usage for Noah Gray and JuJu Smith-Schuster, who operate in similar areas of the field.
The two receivers through whom the passing game run are Xavier Worthy and Hollywood Brown, but all of the air yards belong to Brown. Since Week 16, when Brown returned from his preseason shoulder injury, he leads the team with 32% of the Chiefs' total air yards (Worthy is about half that) and has 121 unrealized air yards (a substantial number for a four-game stretch). Brown had two near-misses on downfield routes against the Bills and another against the Texans. I'm banking on him finally getting the connection this weekend. If the Chiefs end up in a deficit against the Eagles, I wouldn't be surprised to see Brown become the primary target.
A final note on DeAndre Hopkins, whom the Chiefs acquired before the trade deadline this season in their perennial "let's get ready for the Super Bowl" spending spree. Hopkins has 16 and 12 snaps in the Chiefs' two playoff games -- easily behind Worthy and Brown, and even behind Smith-Schuster (21 and 38 snaps, respectively). He's still an option in the toolbox for Reid on late downs and in the red zone, and a big conversion on a third-down slant or an above-the-rim win in the end zone Sunday would make the trade worth it. But he has been relegated to WR4 on the depth chart, and I'm projecting a low-volume game accordingly.
Defense
Without question, this is the more interesting side of the ball for both teams. The Eagles were arguably the best defense in the NFL this season, but they win by forcing teams to take checkdowns and play mistake-free football -- exactly what the Chiefs do best. Will they switch things up? And on the flip side, the Chiefs weren't one of the best defenses in football this season, but Spagnuolo's units are always stronger in the postseason, and he's facing a familiar opponent. What new tricks will he draw up?
The Eagles use fewer subpackages than the Chiefs, so their production is going to be a little more concentrated. I have Oren Burks down for eight tackles, but the Chiefs would like for him to have 15. That would mean they're successfully getting beyond the first level in the running game and targeting Burks plenty in the passing game, which will be a big part of their pregame approach. Watch for spread formations that clarify Burks' coverage role and put him in space, where his open-field tackling will be tested. Many of the Eagles' second-level defenders (Cooper DeJean, Zack Baun and C.J. Gardner-Johnson) have been among the league's best in open-field tackling this season, but Burks is the potential weak link.
Because the Chiefs are so reliant on passes at or behind the line of scrimmage, I think DeJean is in for an enormous outing. With two weeks to prepare, I wouldn't be surprised to see him jumping screens and anticipating quick throws to the boundary. He'll be the Eagles' first line of defense against much of the Xavier Worthy playbook, and he has the quickness and physical traits to answer the call.
With 13 QB hits and three sacks, I'm predicting a high pressure but average sack day for the Eagles as they face one of the best sack-avoiding quarterbacks in Mahomes. Jalen Carter is the name with the biggest draw, but the Eagles have two excellent secondary rushers in emergent second-year pro Nolan Smith Jr. and upcoming free agent defensive tackle Milton Williams. Smith is the exact sort of rusher who can give Chiefs right tackle Jawaan Taylor fits (a speedy snap jumper off the edge). And since Week 10, Williams is 16th in the league in pressure rate among all defensive linemen. For perspective: Chris Jones is at 13.7% pressure rate, and Williams is at 12.7%. I expect one of Williams or Smith to have a big performance.
On passing downs, watch for Fangio to line up Carter over right guard Trey Smith and Williams over left guard Mike Caliendo, who has been inserted into the starting lineup so Joe Thuney can move over to left tackle. This forces a difficult choice, as the Chiefs want to slide the center over to help against Carter -- but Williams would punish them in one-on-one situations against Caliendo.
I predicted only one interception in the game, and it's in favor of the Eagles. The ball just tends to find safety Reed Blankenship, who always seems to be in the right spot. Here, I could see him sitting on top of a Kelce corner route that Mahomes sails ever so slightly after a quick pressure from Carter. Let's say Kelce gets a paw on it, but it bounces up into the air and into Blankenship's waiting mitts for a huge first-quarter swing. (But I have the Eagles getting only three points on the ensuing drive.)
The biggest challenge with a Chiefs defensive box score is figuring out the snap counts. Take the cornerback position, where Jaylen Watson and Nazeeh Johnson were fairly split in snap rate in the divisional round (40-34, respectively) before Watson hugely pulled away in the conference championship (52-19). Was that a product of the particular opponents they faced, or a reflection of Watson's return to fighting form after a long absence because of an ankle injury? Linebacker Leo Chenal has not been a big part of the postseason plan this season (40% and 34% snap rate in two games) but has typically seen an uptick in snaps against run-heavy teams. Do the Eagles qualify as a Chenal team?
I expect the Chiefs to rely heavily on three-safety packages to get size in the box against the Eagles' base offense, which is why I'm projecting decent production for Justin Reid, Jaden Hicks and Bryan Cook. I also like Chenal to see a fair number of snaps at the line of scrimmage in short-yardage situations.
It wouldn't be surprising to see Chamarri Conner, the Chiefs' starting nickel, lose snaps in this game. He has been shaky as a tackler and cannot go punch for punch with the Eagles' running game when he's asked to fit into the box. This would be an excellent game -- given the additional week of prep and the matchup -- to experiment with getting Trent McDuffie back in the slot in certain subpackages. Put McDuffie on Smith, then press and cloud A.J. Brown on the outside (and don't worry about Jahan Dotson). It feels too easy.
The best pass rush against the Eagles is one that forces Hurts to his left, and Spagnuolo can create that by blitzing Hurts' right side. From NFL Next Gen Stats: Spagnuolo sent an off-ball blitzer on 26.7% of opposing dropbacks, which was the fourth-highest rate this season. A majority of those blitzers came from the offense's left, which makes sense since it's blitzing the blindside of right-handed quarterbacks. But in three games against Hurts, Spagnuolo has sent a blitzer from the offense's right on 18.3% of dropbacks (his rate is 12.3% against all other quarterbacks). On late downs, watch for second-level defenders to intentionally overload Hurts' right-hand side to force him running left and take advantage of his difficulties throwing on the move.
One last key matchup to watch: Chris Jones against banged-up Philadelphia interior offensive linemen Landon Dickerson (knee) and Cam Jurgens (back). Lingering injuries are always a bigger Super Bowl storyline than we remember, and the Eagles can't afford to be anything less than 100 perce nt against Jones.
Kicking
Unfortunately, I didn't make any spectacular kicking predictions (even if projecting Jake Elliott to hit five of six kicks feels spectacular these days). Three field goal attempts might feel a little big on a day in which the Eagles probably will go for many fourth downs, but Hurts and the offense have been taking field goal attempts off the board in recent weeks with bad sacks in fringe range. On fourth downs of 1-3 yards, the Eagles feel great. Any farther, and I think they'll be more willing to kick.
I have only five combined punts in this game. There were only 69 games this regular season with five or fewer combined punts, but a low punt total feels right here. There shouldn't be many total drives, and there should be plenty of fourth-down attempts (either the drive continues and probably ends in a score, or it ends without a punt). And both offenses are methodical drivers that get into field goal range easily.
The fewest punts in a Super Bowl is exactly one, which happened in Super Bowl LII between the Patriots and ... Eagles. One lone punt isn't likely this year, but it's possible.
Returning
Here's something nifty. In the regular season, the kickoff return rate was 32.8% -- up significantly from the 21.8% from last season, reflective of the new low-impact kickoff rules. But was it a huge leap? Not really. Maybe the league needs to revisit the rules again.
Not so fast, my friend. There has been another leap. Kickoffs are being returned 45.1% of the time in the postseason -- more than twice as often as last season's playoffs. There's a little bit of noise, as onside kicks occupy a bigger part of the sample in the postseason, but generally, it looks as if teams have either developed new kickoff strategies over the course of the season or had good designs squirreled away for playoff football. That's very cool to see.
It might not affect my projections too much -- I went for average performances from both returners -- but it does increase the likelihood that a key special teams play does happen. More returns equal more opportunities for meaningful plays, like Nikko Remigio's 63-yard return to open the game against the Texans in the divisional round, or Cooper DeJean's forced fumble against the Commanders in the NFC Championship Game. When the Eagles and Chiefs met in Super Bowl LVII, Kadarius Toney's 65-yard punt return in the fourth quarter added 17.5% win probability to the Chiefs' side, the second-biggest play of the game by that metric. The third phase matters.
Final score prediction
You can't really do a full box score prediction without also doing a final score prediction, so here it is: Chiefs 31, Eagles 27.
This game can go a bunch of different ways and should be close and exciting. I trust these offenses to finish drives, so I like points -- and I trust the Chiefs' passing game a little more in a close fourth-quarter contest than I do the Eagles' unit.