The Eagles will win the 2025 Super Bowl if they do these 3 things
Jalen Hurts has a chance to do something only Nick Foles has ever done before: quarterback the Philadelphia Eagles to a Super Bowl victory.
Standing in the way, just like in 2017, is an AFC dynasty. Foles and company toppled Tom Brady and the New England Patriots that winter. Now, a Super Bowl 57 rematch from 2023 against Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs looms.
Despite being a 1.5-point underdog in New Orleans, Philadelphia has all the tools to bring a second Vince Lombardi Trophy back to Pennsylvania. What does Nick Sirianni have to do to claim glory and crown his Eagles world champions?
SUPER BOWL PREDICTIONS: How the 2025 Super Bowl could go terribly wrong for Saquon Barkley and the Eagles
1. Empower Jalen Hurts to make throws against one-on-one coverage
Hurts threw less than ever before in his career as a full-time NFL starter. He set career highs in efficiency stats from passer rating (103.7) to yards per pass attempt (8.0) to yards per scramble (9.4).
This is the benefit of Saquon Barkley. It's also a product of one of the league's most potent 1-2 wideout punches.
Barkley's ability to draw safeties downhill helps create one-on-one matchups for A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith. In turn, they were one of only two teammate duos to rank in the top 10 when it came to receiving expected points added (EPA) per game (the other was Tee Higgins and Ja'Marr Chase, who ranked just behind Brown and Smith's 8.5 EPA/game). Importantly, they did this:
a) in a run-first offense
b) even though none of the Eagles' top-3 wideout/tight end targets ranked in the top half of all qualified players when it came to separation yards per target.
What's that tell us? That Hurts isn't shy about throwing to his best players in tight coverage, and this strategy has paid off.
Both Brown and Smith have catch rates over expected (CROE) of 10-plus points, each ranking in the top eight among all NFL targets. Hurts's 79.1 percent on-target throw rate is a top-seven mark among starting QBs. Simply put, give his wideouts a chance and Hurts will get them the ball.
The Chiefs will counter by attempting to generate pressure. Hurts does a solid job exploiting gaps before his pocket collapses, but he's reduced to fairly average when defenders force him to either leave the pocket or speed up his decision making. His -0.39 EPA/dropback under pressure was closer to Mac Jones (-0.40) than Patrick Mahomes (-0.29) in the regular season.
Philadelphia could create extra space by turning to an underutilized asset in its playbook. Despite the league's leading rusher, Nick Siranni's offense only leaned on play-action 23.9 percent of its dropbacks, a league-average number. But no matter what, the Eagles' passing game success will hinge on keeping Hurts patient in the pocket long enough to find the one-on-one opportunities that make the Eagles offense so difficult to stop.
2. Keep a powerful secondary thriving
The Eagles' reloaded defense has been incredible over the back half of the 2024 season and 2025 NFL playoffs. Since Week 9, Philadelphia boasts the league's most efficient defense by a significant margin.
This is a stark turnaround from 2023, where an aging secondary fell apart and Philadelphia spiraled to oblivion. General manager Howie Roseman placed some bets last offseason and saw them pay off in great measure.
Zack Baun was a pass rushing washout with the New Orleans Saints who became an off-ball All-Pro at linebacker on a one-year prove-it deal. The 2024 NFL Draft gave the Eagles access to Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean, first- and second-round picks, respectively, who stepped into vital roles as rookies for the NFC champions.
On paper, a showdown with the regular season's ninth-best offense shouldn't be too taxing. After all, Philly handled the NFL's eighth, 15th and fourth-ranked offenses to get to the 2025 Super Bowl. The Chiefs didn't have anyone with more than 900 receiving yards in 2024 and only two players with more than 500.
Of course, this is Kansas City. Nothing will be simple, and Patrick Mahomes will find plenty of opportunities to escape pressure and launch game-changing throws downfield. That ability to stick to coverage as Mahomes buys time will be a recurring theme because Philly can't afford to blitz him that often lest it get torched.
Mahomes' EPA/dropback nearly triples from 0.08 to 0.24 when blitzed. He's significantly worse when pressured, but Kansas City does a remarkable job redirecting pressure and freeing him up to devastate opponents.
This works, at least slightly, in the Eagles' favor. Their 19.3 percent blitz rate is one of the five lowest in the NFL. Their 31.1 percent pressure rate is similarly low, but it proves they can create chaos in the backfield without sacrificing extra defenders to get roasted by Mahomes's dad runs.
Baun can drop into coverage or track Mahomes, but the key will be crowding the secondary with static that forces the Chiefs to throw into tight windows. Kansas City will get its fair share of big plays because that's unavoidable. But the Philly defense can keep that from reaching a critical mass as long as their new additions continue to exceed expectations.
3. Saquon Barkley? SAQUON BARKLEY
Let's finish with the obvious; the Eagles' offense relies on a lesser X-Man in the run game. Barkley squared off against the league's 27th-ranked rushing defense in the NFC title game and had 60 rushing yards and a touchdown after a single handoff. He's run for 442 yards and five touchdowns in three playoff games this winter.
Now he gets the Chiefs' 11th-ranked rushing defense -- better than the Commanders or Rams but slightly worse than the eighth-ranked Green Bay Packers, against whom Barkley averaged 4.8 yards per carry en route to 119 yards. It seems preordained that Barkley will get the touches to break the 100-yard barrier. But the difference between 110 yards and 170 could be the difference between a tearful press conference and a parade in eastern Pennsylvania.
There's reason to believe in the latter. Kansas City was getting torn apart by James Cook before the Buffalo Bills curiously moved away from him late in a close game. Cook's 64 percent success rate — a play that gains at least 40 percent of yards needed for a first down or touchdown on first down, 60 percent of yards needed on second down, and 100 percent on third or fourth down — would have ranked first among all NFL running backs by a significant margin in 2024. More importantly, it set up the third-and-reasonable situations that kept Buffalo's playbook wide open.
Now, Philadelphia gets to exploit that weakness with a much stronger set of playmakers. Every four-plus-yard Barkley carry makes life a bit easier for Brown, Smith and Goedert. Every Brown/Smith/Goedert reception takes some weight off Barkley's shoulders. And on it goes, this thing of theirs.
More Super Bowl!
NFL Referees Association pushes back against 'insulting' Chiefs conspiracy theories
Super Bowl 2025 betting estimates dropped by $21B for 1 simple reason
How the 2025 Super Bowl could go terribly wrong for Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs
This article originally appeared on For The Win: The Eagles will win the 2025 Super Bowl if they do these 3 things
