Yahoo Sports AM: Fly Eagles Fly
In today's edition: Philly demolishes Kansas City, Eagles catch the A's, Hubie's farewell, Luka's debut, Baker's Dozen, and more.
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🚨 Headlines
🏈 NFL offseason: Eagles OC Kellen Moore is expected to be hired as the Saints' next head coach; the Jets are moving on from Aaron Rodgers and Davante Adams; the 49ers gave Deebo Samuel permission to seek a trade.
🏀 Down goes Davis: Anthony Davis is expected to miss multiple weeks after suffering a left adductor strain in his Dallas debut. He was sensational (26 points, 16 rebounds, 7 assists, 3 blocks) before exiting with the injury. Mavs fans are in hell.
🏀 Top teams fall: No. 6 Florida upset No. 1 Auburn (men) on the road, Clemson upset No. 2 Duke (men) to snap their 16-game winning streak, and No. 4 Texas upset No. 2 South Carolina (women) to snap their 57-game SEC winning streak.
🎾 Alcaraz makes history: Carlos Alcaraz won the Rotterdam Open to clinch his first indoor championship and become the youngest man to win titles on all tennis surfaces (indoor hard, outdoor hard, grass, clay).
⚽️ FA Cup stunner: Liverpool (first place in the Premier League) was knocked out of the FA Cup after losing 1-0 to Plymouth Argyle (last place in England's second division).
🏆 Dynasty demolished: Eagles dethrone Chiefs
Fly Eagles Fly. Two years after an agonizing loss in Super Bowl LVII, Philadelphia got sweet revenge by blowing out the mighty Chiefs to end their three-peat dreams.
Eagles 40, Chiefs 22: That final score belies just how lopsided this game was. Kansas City had 23 total yards in the first half and went into the locker room down 24-0. Philly led 40-6 with three minutes left before a couple garbage-time scores narrowed the gap.
A season to remember: The Eagles entered their bye week at 2-2 and looked out of sorts, prompting fans to call for head coach Nick Sirianni's job. He and his team responded by going 16-1 the rest of the way with nine double-digit wins and a 17-point average margin of victory in the playoffs.
The MVP: Jalen Hurts was famously benched during halftime of the 2018 CFP title game. Seven years later, he's a Super Bowl MVP after accounting for 292 total yards and 3 TD while breaking his own record for most rushing yards by a QB in a Super Bowl (72).
The other MVPs: Philly's defensive line. The Eagles did not blitz on a single one of Patrick Mahomes' 42 dropbacks, which is incredibly rare. Instead, Vic Fangio's unit relied on its front four, who generated 16 pressures and recorded six sacks, one shy of the Super Bowl record and the most Mahomes has ever taken.
Game notes:
Birthday boys: Saquon Barkley broke the single-season rushing record on his 28th birthday, and rookie Cooper DeJean (22) became the first player to score a birthday TD in the Super Bowl.
Going west is best: This was the ninth time this century that one team traveled west to the Super Bowl and one team traveled east. And for the ninth straight time, the team that traveled west won.
Roll Tide: Hurts is the fourth Alabama QB to win a Super Bowl as a starter (Bart Starr, Joe Namath, Ken Stabler). That breaks a tie with Purdue (Len Dawson, Bob Griese, Drew Brees) for the most of any school.
Breaking the curse: For the first time in four Super Bowl rematches between QBs and five between head coaches, the loser of the first game won the second.
Beasts of the East: The NFC East was already the only division to have all four teams win the Super Bowl. Now, all four have won multiple Super Bowls.
Quick links:
Read: Recap
Watch: Highlights
Listen: Analysis
Run it back? The Eagles are early favorites to win next year's Super Bowl (+650 at BetMGM), followed by the Ravens (+700), Bills (+750), Chiefs (+750) and Lions (+800).
NFL snapshot: Offseason power rankings (Frank Schwab, Yahoo Sports)
📸 In photos: Scenes from Sunday
Halftime Show: Kendrick Lamar, the first solo hip-hop artist to headline the Super Bowl, made his Grammy Award-winning song (and Drake diss track) "Not Like Us" the centerpiece of a set that featured appearances from Samuel L. Jackson, SZA and Serena Williams.
The Philly Special: Eagles fans were never going to win a Super Bowl and just, like, go to bed. They swarmed downtown Philadelphia and celebrated late into the evening, climbing light poles, setting off fireworks, and taking over a garbage truck. Naturally.
POTUS: Donald Trump became the first sitting U.S. President to attend the Super Bowl after spending his morning golfing with Tiger Woods. He reportedly left during halftime.
🐐 Big winner: Tom Brady's legacy
Philly was the biggest winner on Sunday. The second-biggest winner? The legacy of Tom Brady, who watched from the broadcast booth as the phenom chasing him struggled mightily and suffered the kind of loss he never did.
From Yahoo Sports' Dan Wetzel:
With Mahomes, fair or not, almost everything is framed in his pursuit of Brady and the title of Greatest of All Time. This was supposed to be another step in that direction.
Instead Mahomes stayed stalled on three – albeit at just 29 years old. Worse though, he was part of a nightmare of a game for the Chiefs, the kind of blowout Super Bowl loss that Brady never experienced.
Brady's three defeats came by a combined 15 points. In one of them he threw for 505 yards. When Brady did have his own first-half meltdown against Atlanta, he rallied New England from a 28-3 hole for the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history. For the Chiefs on Sunday, it just kept getting worse.
This is how the GOAT debate gets settled and it is a credit to Mahomes that he is dead in the middle of it. It reminds of Tiger Woods trying to chase down Jack Nicklaus — the true greats play against the generations. Especially on this stage, where each mistake is magnified.
Mahomes has been brilliant in getting Kansas City here; this is his fifth Super Bowl in six seasons. Yet some of the team's core is aging and while the Chiefs have made it look easy, it isn't.
Brady won three titles in his first four seasons as a starter. Then he didn’t get another for a decade. Mahomes knows how precious the chances are, and how small the window is.
Postgame comments: "Any time you lose the Super Bowl, it's the worst feeling in the world," said Mahomes. "It will stick with you for the rest of your career. You need to capitalize on these … Now it's how do you respond? Hopefully we can learn from this like the last loss [to Brady's Bucs] and continue to get better … to make hopefully another run."
Bottom line: Mahomes will almost certainly be back on football's biggest stage. But for now, after this, the argument for Brady is still intact, and actually a bit wider than before.
Related: Grading Brady's performance in the booth (Jay Busbee, Yahoo Sports)
🦅 The Eagles finally catch the A's
For the past 71 years, the Philadelphia sports franchise with the most major championships was a team that no longer played there.
Wait, what? The Athletics won five World Series in Philly under legendary manager and owner Connie Mack before moving to Kansas City in 1954. Now the A's have company, with Sunday's victory giving the Eagles five championships of their own.
Philly's trophy case:
⚾️ Athletics: 5 (1910-11, 1913, 1929-30)
🏈 Eagles: 5 (1948-49, 1960, 2017, 2024)
🏀 76ers: 2 (1967, 1983)
⚾️ Phillies: 2* (1980, 2008)
🏒 Flyers: 2 (1974-75)
🏀 Warriors: 2 (1947, 1956)
*Just 2? The Phillies' two World Series titles are the fewest among the eight still-active MLB teams founded in the 19th century. The Cardinals (11), Dodgers (8), Giants (8), Pirates (5), Reds (5), Braves (4) and Cubs (3) all have more.
✍️ Extra points
👋 Hubie signs off: Hubie Brown called his final NBA game on Sunday in Milwaukee, bringing his storied broadcasting career to a close. Fittingly, Brown's 50-year NBA journey ended where it started: His first pro coaching job was with the Bucks, way back in 1972.
🤯 My new favorite stat: Tony Gwynn had more assists in four seasons on the San Diego State basketball team (590) than strikeouts in his 20-year MLB career (434). Insane!!!
❤️ Emotional returns: Dick Vitale returned to the booth after nearly two years of battling cancer, and Randy Moss returned to "NFL Countdown" after undergoing successful surgery to remove cancerous cells.
⚾️ Guess who's back, back again? Kiké's back, tell a friend. The Dodgers are re-signing utility player Enrique "Kiké" Hernández, who has now returned to the team four times during his 11-year career: twice via trade and twice via free agency.
⏱️ Must-see race: American distance runner Grant Fisher (two bronze medals in Paris) smashed the 3,000-meter indoor world record on Saturday at the Millrose Games, finishing in 7:22:91. Right behind him was Cole Hocker (one gold in Paris), whose 7:23:14 time also would have broken the record.
📺 Watchlist: Luka's debut
Luka Dončić will make his Lakers debut tonight (10:30pm ET, ESPN) at home against the Jazz as the Purple and Gold look to win their sixth straight game.
Trade nixed: The Lakers were hoping to pair Dončić with 7-foot-2 center Mark Williams, but they backed out of their trade with the Hornets due to "multiple issues" with Williams' physical.
More to watch:
🏀 NBA: Warriors at Bucks (8pm, NBA) … Giannis Antetokounmpo (calf strain) is out tonight and will miss the All-Star Game.
🏀 NCAAM: UNC at Clemson (7pm, ESPN); Baylor at No. 5 Houston (9pm, ESPN) … The fifth-ranked Cougars have the nation's top-ranked defense (57.0 points allowed).
🏒 NCAA Hockey: No. 1 BC vs. No. 8 BU (7:30pm, NHL) … The Golden Eagles and Terriers meet in the 72nd Men's Beanpot Championship.
🏀 Unrivaled: 1-on-1 Tournament (7pm, TNT) … 23 players from the new 3-on-3 women's basketball league compete in a single-elimination bracket for $350,000.*
*Prize pool: The winner of the tournament will receive $200,000, and their five teammates (each Unrivaled team has six players) will receive $10,000 each. The runner-up gets $50,000 and the semifinalists get $25,000.
🏆 Super Bowl trivia
The Eagles are the seventh NFL team to win multiple Super Bowls this century (2000-01 season onward). Can you name the other six?
Hint: Four AFC, two NFC.
Answer at the bottom.
🍿 Baker's Dozen: Top 13 plays of the weekend
Trivia answer: Patriots (6 Super Bowls this century), Chiefs (3), Steelers (2), Ravens (2), Giants (2), Buccaneers (2)
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