Super Bowl LVII is just days away. We’ve been talking for a week and more about all of the game’s key characters, from Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts to Chris Jones and Lane Johnson and more. But it’s not always the biggest stars who make the tiebreakers. Sometimes it’s the actors who have to stand out.
We’re here to identify the least talked about players on each team who have a chance of making a big impact, primarily due to how the opposing team is likely to attack them. These are our X factors for the Eagles and Chiefs.
Eagles linebackers and safeties
All season, Kansas City’s passing game has been passed by star tight end Travis Kelce, who was targeted 152 times during the regular season — 51 more than the team’s closest player ( JuJu Smith-Schuster). With the Chiefs’ recent wide receiver injury issues, Kelce has been even more of a focal point during the playoffs: He was the targeted receiver on 25 of the team’s 80 pass attempts during the playoffs, good for a target share of 31.3%. That’s up from 23.4% during the regular season.
Kelce and Patrick Mahomes have unparalleled chemistry and they are capable of threatening all areas of the pitch. Yet most of their work is in the short and middle ranges, and especially in the middle.
True Media
That makes Eagles linebackers TJ Edwards and Kyzir White — along with safeties Chauncey Gardner-Johnson, Marcus Epps and Reed Blankenship — arguably the team’s most important defensemen for Sunday’s game. This is the group that will most often have the responsibility of covering Kelce, whether the Eagles are playing man or zone.
Philadelphia has acquitted itself well against tight ends this season, ranking sixth in the Football Outsiders DVOA on throws to players at position. Of course, Kelce isn’t your standard tight end. During the regular season, the following tight ends ran at least 20 routes in a game against the Eagles: TJ Hockenson, Johnny Mundt, Irv Smith Jr., Logan Thomas, Evan Engram, Zach Ertz, Peyton Hendershot, Pat Freiermuth, Brevin Jordan, Austin Hooper, Chigoziem Okonkwo, Daniel Bellinger, Cole Kmet, Dalton Schultz, Juwan Johnson, Nick Vannett and Lawrence Cager. (In the playoffs, they saw Bellinger and then George Kittle again, but the Niners literally didn’t have a quarterback who could kick the ball for most of the game.) Needless to say, there’s no a remote player in Kelce’s league among those. band. It’s going to be a different kind of challenge.
In particular, White has shown that you can take advantage of him when he’s on cover, especially when he needs to slip up to the slot and play in more space. Widening him and running routes that circle behind him and in front of the safeties has proven to be a successful strategy, and leaders should expect to use him until he proves he can stop him. (Kelce was targeted on more than 25% of his routes when lined up in the slot, according to Tru Media, catching 53 of 69 passes for 657 yards and three touchdowns on those plays.) The way Mahomes and Kelce are able to working together to find weak spots in area coverage makes her and Edwards’ ability to immediately tackle Kelce and not let him gain yards after capture incredibly important as well.
Safeties will also need to be on high alert for the independent, off-structure play that Mahomes and Kelce enter when Mahomes breaks contain in the pocket. They created a bunch of big plays in those situations, with Kelce either working towards Mahomes or on the court and in open space. Keeping a roof over the defense and not allowing Kelce to come in behind them, and thus forcing the Chiefs to methodically force their way down the field, is Philly’s best option.
The Chiefs’ rookie defensive backs
Against the Bengals in the AFC title game, this group showed. Facing one of the best wide receiver duos in the NFL (Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins), the foursome of Trent McDuffie, Jaylen Watson, Joshua Williams and Bryan Cook had one of their best collective games of the season. They accounted for all four pass breakups and two interceptions the Chiefs recorded against Joe Burrow, and helped keep the Bengals to just 7.5 total yards per attempt.
Things won’t get much easier for this group at the Super Bowl. If there’s an NFL pass-catching duo that rivals Chase and Higgins, then AJ Brown and DeVonta Smith are definitely up there on the list of contenders. They present a host of challenges, with Brown’s physique and ability to win the ball through the air and Smith’s deep speed and body control testing opposing secondaries in various ways.
It will be interesting to see how the Chiefs choose to line up their corners here, as they’ve been willing to move McDuffie around a bit. During the latter part of the regular season, he played in the slot most often. In the divisional round, he came back on the outside as L’Jarius Sneed slipped into the slot to cover Christian Kirk. In the conference championship, McDuffie was back inside. After Sneed left with a concussion, Williams slipped to second on the perimeter across from Watson. The Chiefs would probably rather have Sneed on one of Brown or Smith than cover Quez Watkins or Zach Pascal, but Philly moves their receivers often enough that it’s hard to secure that match with every snap.
Either way, the Eagles are sure to shoot the outside when they see they have individual coverage. That rookies can hold their own in these situations, how many explosive plays Philly can generate through the passing game. Cook also has a role to play in this, even as the team’s third safety. His deflection of a deep ball from Burrow in the AFC title game prompted an interception, and if he can get past a deep ball from Hurts and turn a one-on-one into a one-on-two, that reduces the odds. of this ball being finished.
