Keys to Super Bowl LIX, Part 2: When the Chiefs are on defense
Examining the key matchups/issues that will help swing the Super Bowl for KC's defense.
The Chiefs are back in the Super Bowl, and the familiar (sort of) Eagles await them.
Every week in the playoffs I’ve written about the main things I’m watching for (or keys to the game, whatever you want to call it). I’ve tried to go outside of obvious stuff like who wins the turnover battle, luck, injury, and the things that we all know will be important, instead looking a little deeper at specific matchups that I think will play a big role in the game’s outcome.
Because this game is IT, I’m going to break down a few more things than what I’ve done in previous weeks. So we’ll do this in two parts, looking at some key matchups/issues for both when the Chiefs are on offense and when they’re on defense. In Part 1, I wrote about 6 keys to the game when the Chiefs were on offense. Today, we’ll look at some keys when the Chiefs are on defense.
Leo Chenal and Spags’ guys vs Saquon Barkley
I’ll be spending significantly more time on this one than any other, and for good reason as it requires some context AND some film talk.
The first topic that comes up when discussing the Chiefs defense vs the Eagles offense is invariably Barkley, and it’s easy to see why. He’s run for well over 100 yards in each playoff game and averaged a whopping 7.9 yards per carry in the last two (including a freakish 205 yards on 26 carries against the Rams). He was a legitimate contender for MVP, and the Eagles offense, despite having an incredible WR duo and a very good tight end, starts with their run game.
On the flip side of that, the Chiefs have been in a similar situation before under defensive coordinator Steve Spagnulo, where a dominant ground attack was going to run them over in a big playoff game and dominate the box score and game script. And to be perfectly frank, it’s never happened. Look at some the rushing attacks the Chiefs have faced in their Super Bowl and playoff runs since 2019… The Titans (with Derrick Henry), the 49ers (both without and with Christian McCaffery but with top-level run games both times), The 2022 Eagles, the 2023 Dolphins and Ravens, and the 2024 Bills.
Those are some very, very, high-level rushing attacks, including several based around elite RBs (Henry and McCaffery). And not in a single one of those games was it “taken over” by that rushing attack. There have been dominant drives, to be sure, but not games taken over. If you look at the rushing production those teams had in terms of “expected points added” (remember, this is a stat that tracks yardage that’s contextualized in how likely said yardage makes you to score, thus weeding out meaningless yards and valuing 2 yards on 3rd and 1 more than 7 yards on 3rd and 15), you can see that story…
(keep in mind these numbers include scrambles which always “pump up” rushing EPA)
2019 Titans: -1.5 EPA
2019 49ers: 3.59 EPA
2022 Eagles: -1.47 EPA
2023 Ravens: 3.31 EPA (mostly on Jackson scrambles and a single big designed run)
2023 49ers: -5.49 EPA (remember, this is with McCaffery)
2024 Bills: 6.41 EPA (a sizeable portion on Allen scrambles)
That’s a lot of numbers, what’s my point? Well, it’s that none of the teams that were projected to “run the Chiefs over” were able, in fact, to dominate the game with their rushing attack. And in fact, in half of the games that were analyzed that way the run game HURT the opponent more than it HELPED them. The closest a team has come to “running the Chiefs over” has been the 2024 Bills, whose 6.41 EPA was still absolutely dwarfed by KC’s passing EPA of 18.21 and surpassed by their own passing EPA of 8.5.
In short, no ground-based attack has ever been able to dominate Spags’ defense in the playoffs. It has literally never happened. And in last year’s Super Bowl we saw a good reason why, as Spags has multiple players who are well-suited for that sort of game. Starting with one of the most important players of Super Bowl LIX, Leo Chenal.
We’ll circle back to other players in the below clip, but watch Chenal in particular taking on the TE at the point of attack.
