The Kansas City Chiefs’ 2024-25 Super Bowl loss to the Philadelphia Eagles will no doubt act as a motivator this season.
Quarterback Patrick Mahomes said as much at OTAs, reminding media and fans that for some of this KC roster, it was the first time they’d experienced true defeat.
Recent free agency departure and 2024 team leader Justin Reid shared a very honest and telling message on the Super Bowl loss during a June 7 appearance with “The Ross Tucker Podcast.”
https://x.com/RossTuckerPod/status/1931342630593413259
“I think that the Eagles, overall, were just dominant,” Reid admitted to Tucker. “They’re just the more dominant team. I don’t think that we had our best day overall as a team.”
“I think that the Eagles being able to create pressure with the four-man rush and drop seven every time and cloud up all the zones and still create all that pressure on Patrick [Mahomes] was just really, really difficult,” the veteran safety explained. “You ask any defensive coordinator that says — hey, I can rush four and drop seven every single time — [and they’ll tell you that] you’re probably going to have a really strong defensive performance.”
“[The Eagles] came in firing, and they stepped on the gas early in the game, and they never took it off,” Reid finally concluded. “You can only respect the team that puts up a performance as dominant as what they did. We just didn’t show up the way that we needed to that day.”
Reid left KC in free agency, choosing to sign with the New Orleans Saints.
Ex-Chiefs Safety Justin Reid’s Super Bowl Words Are Fair
Although you’d probably prefer to hear them from a player who’s still on the roster, Reid’s words are fair.
The Chiefs got their doors blown off by the Eagles, and head coach Andy Reid or Mahomes would tell you exactly that, too.
Oddly enough, it’s the second time KC was blown out in a Super Bowl under Reid and Mahomes. And those are their only two championship game losses, winning their other three appearances together.
But then again, history tends to repeat itself. And the Eagles won using the same formula that Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers attacked the Chiefs with in 2020.
It wasn’t an offensive shootout that defeated Kansas City. Philly tried that the first time a few years ago, and the San Francisco 49ers have tried that method too, as have the Buffalo Bills and Baltimore Ravens.
Instead, it was defense — and more specifically, a ferocious four-man pass rush — that bested Mahomes and the Chiefs.
Have Chiefs Solved Their Offensive Tackle Issue?
KC general manager Brett Veach attacked the offensive tackle issue this offseason, paying big money for Jaylon Moore, and then spending his first-round pick on Josh Simmons.
Similarly, after the Chiefs’ Super Bowl loss to the Bucs, Veach targeted the offensive tackle position with urgency once again.
That time, he traded a first-rounder for left tackle Orlando Brown Jr., and Veach also signed Joe Thuney and drafted Creed Humphrey and Trey Smith that same 2021 offseason. In no time, KC had revitalized their offensive line, and although it didn’t pay off in year one, the end result was two more Super Bowl rings.
Has Veach done it again in 2025? Time will tell, but the key piece will undoubtedly be Simmons if all this is going to turn into more championship banners.
Moore profiled as an overpay in free agency, and was likely a stopgap at best, but Simmons has the talent to develop into a franchise left tackle — if he can just stay healthy.
The other integral piece will be 2024 draft pick Kingsley Suamataia, who will be transitioning to left guard this summer.
If Simmons and Suamataia can turn into a new, reliable force on the lefthand side, there’s no telling what Kansas City can accomplish with Humphrey and Smith fortifying the the rest of the interior and Jawaan Taylor still under contract, too.
