Super Bowl LVII has finally arrived as the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs prepare for a monumental battle in Phoenix, Arizonia. The NFL’s star quarterback Patrick Mahomes will be hoping to claim his second Super Bowl ring for the Chiefs as he squares off against the Eagles’ Jalen Hurts, with both players expected to recover from their respective injury problems in time for the all-star clash, which has been billed as one of the most exciting encounters in recent NFL history.
Ahead of the match on Sunday, NFL pundit and commentator Mike Carlson – speaking at a Betfair event – gives Express Sport the lowdown on what to expect from Super Bowl 57 as the biggest event of the NFL calendar gets underway.
Who has the edge?
I don’t actually put a whole lot of store in the past because there’s so much turnover in the NFL, so maybe only last year counts if you played the same team again. You could argue there’s more experience on the Chiefs’ side in the big games because Philadelphia haven’t been back since that game, and I think there’s still three guys from that team still playing.
It could be the closest balanced game over the last 10 years maybe, if we consider neither is a powerhouse team in the sense you’d feel comfortable them playing anybody. But there are no better teams in the league at this point, they deserve to be there.
I was actually hoping for San Francisco because that would’ve been a rematch [of the 2020 Super Bowl] and that would’ve been a good one. The basis is that Philadelphia has the best team, they’ve got a lot of depth, they’re really strong in the trenches with the two lines. And the Chiefs… well, they have Patrick Mahomes. They probably also have the best three players in the game in their defense.
Key players
Philadelphia Eagles
If you look away from the quarterbacks, the first thing I would watch when Philadelphia have the ball is Lane Johnson – the tackler on the right flank – to see how much he gets away with in the first period. If he does, he has a tendency to false start to take a good jump and it’s nice for Philadelphia because the officials aren’t likely to be calling things that are tight in this game. If Haason Reddick can do the same against Kansas City, who a lot of the time try to block their outside rusher with a tight end, often coming across, that’s a mismatch with a guy like him.
And the third guy is Dallas Goedert because Travis Kelce gets all of the publicity, but Goedert is very quietly the force of the tight ends in the league. You can do some damage to the quarterbacks, with Jalen Hurts we don’t know the state of his shoulder from the last game. And you could say the same with Mahomes. The guy Goedert I would watch as the most crucial match-up is Chris Jones on the defensive line, to see what Philadelphia do to control him.
Kansas City Chiefs
The second one is Travis Kelce, the idea would be to contain him as to oppose to trying to stop him, which means a lot of catches and not a lot of yards, if you can help it. [Isiah] Pacheco could have a big game running to be outside and if you get him the ball, he could do a lot of damage because they’re going to be shooting to Kelce and there will be a guy who is going to come across and either going to come across to Pacheco or stays home with Kelce. And then Mahomes takes it from there.
Reid’s point to prove
I think for Andy Reid, the main storyline is not him against his old team, we’re past that, but rather if they don’t win the Super Bowl. In the Mahomes era they’ve been really successful, but they’ve only won one Super Bowl.
When he was at the Eagles, they were always in contention, they had a tough division and most years they’d win it, but when they’d get to the Super Bowl and didn’t win it — they won it under Doug Johnson.
And so then, I’d get the feeling would be is Andy Reid one of those kind of bridesmaids but not the bride type of coaches? He can get there but in the big games, it’s different and with Mahomes as well he’s a great player but only won one Super Bowl, so that’s a joint entry.
The city comes alive
When you’re there for the whole week, there’s a lot of anti-climax going on because everybody is making an awful lot of it. The city is lively, people are coming in for the game and the Super Bowl setup is its own thing. It gets livelier and livelier, and on Saturday it’s called the calm before the storm because nothing’s happening. They used to announce the awards but they do the whole awards programme on Friday.
And then on Sunday, you get that feeling where everything has been leading up to, and by the time the game starts, you’re ready to explode. The atmosphere in the game is weird in the sense that the crowd is not like when you’re at home, because it’s like FA Cup finals besides the team allocations you’ve got people who are not affiliated with either team.
They don’t necessarily care who wins, but one team becomes the crowd’s favourite and you can often see that, like in the Philadelphia game with Minnesota, it was definitely Philadelphia.
Verdict
It’s a really hard one for me to pick, unfortunately I picked Kansas City at the start of the season as the Super Bowl winner so I’m kind of locked in. It’s a point and a half game, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was that close.
I’d be looking at something like a 27-21 scoreline or 27-24. I had to pick the Chiefs at the start of the year, so the MVP would be Mahomes.
CARLSON’S VERDICT: Kansas City Chiefs to win
Listen to Mike Carlson on Betfair’s NFL…Only Bettor Super Bowl preview podcast and get the latest tips by heading to the Betfair website.
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