Yahoo Sports's Jason Fitz Joins to Preview Super Bowl LIX

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00:00Out here on Radio Row in New Orleans, Kevin Walsh with Jason Fitz of Yahoo Sports and NFL Analyst over there.

00:06We're out here getting ready for Eagles-Chiefs.

00:09We've seen the game before, two years ago in the Super Bowl.

00:13They played the year following actually at Arrowhead.

00:16Both teams were off of a bye. The Eagles win that game.

00:20I don't think calling it 1-1 is fair though because winning the Super Bowl matters a lot more.

00:24I'm curious, when you started to get into this game here, the Chiefs' favorite in the matchup,

00:30how much did you look back at the performances from the two teams in the first Super Bowl meeting that we saw two years ago?

00:36Very little, honestly, because if you're looking at the Eagles,

00:39I mean, you're talking about a complete transformation, offensive coordinator, defense coordinator, like it's a different team.

00:44So what's difficult here is that as much as we want to look at,

00:48hey, Philly was up in that game at the half and they had every opportunity to win.

00:51I don't know how that plays into this situation, if we're being honest.

00:55And that's one of the hardest things, like all of us that love sports or cover sports,

00:58spend so much time talking about the history of matchups.

01:01And the history really is so meaningless to what's actually going to happen in this game.

01:06The history that I look at that matters in this game is,

01:09look at Andy Reid and his record off of bye weeks.

01:11Look at the success that Steve Spagnuolo, their defensive coordinator, has had in the NFL playoffs.

01:15Those are the things that I think, those are palpable stats and information that you can take with you moving forward.

01:20But the matchup before, I think Philly is just a wildly different football team and they didn't have Saquon then either.

01:25Yeah, they absolutely are, I think, on both sides of the ball.

01:29I could argue maybe more even defensively because the defense going into the game

01:33two years ago was led by a great SAC unit.

01:37Everyone knew the secondary was vulnerable.

01:39The line couldn't get there for the reasons that they couldn't get there.

01:43Mahomes lit them up.

01:44I'm fascinated to see and I'm curious what you're expecting out of Pat specifically in the game

01:49going up against what I think is pretty confidently the best defense in the National Football League.

01:54Yeah, you're a thousand percent right.

01:56And by the way, home run of an offseason to be able to get Quinion Mitchell and Cooper Dejean,

02:01two guys that, you know, I've been lucky enough to cover the draft at this point for the last eight years.

02:05And they were both can't-miss prospects that somehow were still sitting there.

02:09You know, it's just the way the board falls sometimes.

02:12You're right.

02:12I think what's going to have to happen here though is Mahomes is going to have to get the ball out of his hands incredibly quickly,

02:17which he's been doing anyway,

02:18but especially when you apply the pressure up the middle that we expect that they will be able to apply.

02:23Joe Tooney moving out to tackle has helped solidify the offensive line for the Chiefs,

02:28but I would argue that that makes them vulnerable right up the center.

02:30We all know if you can get to a quarterback up the gut.

02:32So I'd expect that Andy Reid's going to be moving the pocket around a lot of it,

02:36trying to find ways to get Mahomes moving a little bit

02:39and then he's going to have to get rid of the ball in lightning speed over and over in it.

02:43And you pair that, the rush attack has really struggled,

02:46though I found their ability to run the football in the red area against Buffalo

02:51to be the complete difference in that game where quarterback runs from Mahomes that they never call.

02:58Kareem Hunt had a big run early on.

03:01I do think that is one of the maybe fascinating swings of this game is if Kansas City can run it with some effectiveness,

03:08stay balanced and on time.

03:11I wonder if that presents some challenges that Philly maybe isn't necessarily prepping for.

03:16Yeah, and look, the Chiefs aren't a great run team,

03:18but they're an efficient run team.

03:20When they need to be able to run the ball, they do.

03:22And that's an interesting element in this game

03:24because the aggressiveness of the Eagles defense is something that Kansas City is going to try and take advantage of.

03:29So even if it's not flat-out normal lineup,

03:33we have this concept of what the run game looks like based on what it looked like 20 years ago.

03:36Now there's so many creative ways to run.

03:38I would expect also a lot of jet sweep sort of stuff,

03:41like how can they try and keep movement and motion

03:44and try and just slow down the interior of that defensive line for Philly,

03:47at least for a second, to see if they can get some space.

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