It wasn’t the Kansas City Chiefs’ night in New Orleans as the Philadelphia Eagles rolled to a 40-22 victory, ending the three-peat dream on February 9.
After the game, Chiefs head coach Andy Reid addressed the media as he always does, and he had a message for KC fans across the nation, relayed via Arrowhead Pride beat reporter Pete Sweeney.
“We’ll learn from this,” Reid promised, following the heartbreaking conclusion to a magical three-year run.
The Chiefs HC also took full accountability, voicing that “we didn’t really play well in any of the phases, [and] we didn’t coach good enough.”
Expanding on that, Reid noted that there were “too many turnovers [and] too many penalties.” Adding: “Against a good football team, you just can’t do that.”
From the top down, the Chiefs were thoroughly dominated on both sides of the football on Sunday night, in a game reminiscent of the Super Bowl loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers following the 2020 campaign.
The Kansas City offensive line allowed a total of 6 sacks and 11 quarterback hits according to ESPN, as Patrick Mahomes looked uncomfortable for the large majority of the game. He was also intercepted twice and finished with a miserable QBR rating of 11.4 out of 100.
Needless to say, it was not the two-time NFL MVP’s best performance, but he wasn’t alone.
There were dropped passes, missed assignments, a nonexistent run game and costly penalties — and it all added up to bad football, plain and simple.
Rest assured; the Chiefs understand that better than anyone, as does Coach Reid. And when he says Kansas City will “learn from this,” there’s strong track record of proof that they will make good on that promise.
Andy Reid Reiterates That ‘It Starts With Me’ as Chiefs Fall to Eagles in Super Bowl LIX
As usual, Reid was not shy about taking the blame after the defeat.
“Vic [Fangio] does a nice job with that [Eagles] defense,” the Chiefs HC told a reporter. “They played well, they’ve got good players and [a] good scheme, and they executed better than what we did. They coached better — it starts with me — and they played better.”
He also reiterated that this Super Bowl didn’t necessarily mean more to Kansas City than their other recent championship game appearances despite the media’s heavy focus on the three-peat bid.
“Listen, they all hurt,” Reid said. “You get this far — you battled your tail off to get this far — it’s very, very hard to do and we spent a lot of time doing this. It’s not a hobby. So, we’re in it the whole way and we spent a lot of hours doing it as players, as coaches, so it’s going to hurt.”
“They all hurt when you get to this level and these things happen,” the future Hall of Fame coach continued. “Three-peat aside, or any of that stuff. You get this far, and you don’t play as well as you want to, it hurts.”
Chiefs Must Use Super Bowl Loss as Fuel for 2025 Campaign
Some NFL franchises tailspin after a Super Bowl loss, but the Chiefs have been here once before under the Reid-Mahomes era. Last time, they actually missed the Super Bowl the following winter, losing to the Cincinnati Bengals in the AFC Championship game.
While that’s a solid season for most teams, it was actually an outlier when you look at Mahomes’ career. Since taking over as the full-time starter in 2018, Mahomes has missed out on the Super Bowl twice — in seven years.
He’s never led the Chiefs to anything less than an AFC title game.
With that in mind, those who know Reid, Mahomes and Kansas City know that they’ll use this defeat as rocket fuel in 2025. The next year-long journey begins tomorrow.
