Super Bowl repeats or revenge? Whatever happens, the story will be made | Super Bowl Lix

ONE Ghost of inevitability hangs over New Orleans in the last drive to America’s high holy day. Kansas City Chiefs, after spending the last half decade as the National Football League’s most dominant strength, is on the verge of something never seen before: a third consecutive Super Bowl title.

Their is a kind of supremacy that feels almost unnatural in the modern NFL, an era defined by wage caps and on-call list-churn and parity-for-design, where success is intended to be fleeting in the best interests of the revenue sharing collective. But here they are again, winners of 17 matches so far and one more from a three-peat no team in the Super Bowl era has even come within 60 minutes after completing.

Standing in their way is a team they know well. Philadelphia Eagles, with 17 wins of their own, are back in the Super Bowl for the second time in three seasons, still breastfeeding the scars at their first meeting with Kansas City. This game ended in heartache: a cardiac arrest 38-35 Chiefs victory in which a hobbled Patrick Mahomes orchestrated an almost perfect second half to overturn a 10-point deficit.

It was the first Super Bowl where both teams scored at least 35 points and a new match so shortly after – the ninth in the Super Bowl story – only gives to Growth of the Octon. Eagles have spent much of the past year convincing themselves and their rabid supporters that they are built to distance themselves after last year’s spectacular collapse at the end of the season raised doubts as to whether they are the rising power they once seemed. The chiefs, on the other hand, have long arrived and have not given a signal that they are ready to leave the stage.

New Orleans, hosting a joint record 11. Super Bowl, but for the first time since 2013 it is still a suitable step for football’s annual Bacchanal of conspicuous consumption. Superdome has long been a place for NFL mythology, the background of Joe Montana’s legendary game-winning drive in the Super Bowl XXIII, Tom Brady’s first ring in the Super Bowl XXXVI and the surreal 34-minute blackout that almost derived Baltimore Ravens’ title run a dozen year since.

Even a French neighborhood that has come to look like a demilitarized zone in the weeks after the terrorist attack has done little to dampen the visitors’ enthusiasm. This is especially felt on Bourbon Street, where bags of pedestrians entering the area started on Wednesday, and the National Guardsmen armed to Hilt Patrol barricades at each entrance, an increased safety presence that makes Parisol seem like a county fair.

There is also no shortage of personal efforts. Andy Reid, coaching in his fifth Super Bowl, Bill Belichick’s record breaks for most coaches (45) and along with a win with a selected group of head coach with four or more Super Bowl wins. For Mahomes, already a three-time Super Bowl MVP of 29 years old, a win would move him to a category all his own: No quarterback has ever started five Super Bowls before he turned 30 and no one has won four before he reached that milestone. He has already thrown 43 touchdown passes after the season, three shy to surpass Joe Montana and Aaron Rodgers for the second most time.

The Eagles meanwhile struggling to assert their own heritage. Their stormy head coach, Nick Sirianni, only 43 years old, appears his second Super Bowl performance in his first four seasons, a feat previously only achieved by Joe Gibbs and Mike Tomlin. Double threat Quarterback Jalen hurts to become the eighth quarterback to start several Super Bowls in his first five seasons, returning to the biggest stage with unfinished business. The 26-year-old undoubtedly played the best game of his career against Kansas City two years ago, putting the Super Bowl recorder for encryption (70 rushing yard) and rushing touchdowns with a quarterback (three), and this time he has one New weapon next to him: Saquon Barkley, the league’s leading Rusher in the middle of maybe the best season ever at an NFL that runs back.

Barkley’s presence has transformed Philadelphia’s violation into a bruising, old-school machine, one that has produced 39 rushing touchdowns this season-inclusive many of Tush Push, the trademark Kort-Yardage games that have been parsized by Neil DeGrasse Tyson and is celebrated as unstoppable. Barkley, who turns 28 on Sunday, has even rushed 442 yards in the postal season, which has set him within reach of John Riggin’s record for most rushing yard in a single playoffs. If he comes to 500, he joins Terrell Davis and Riggins like only the third player who does.

Of course, it wouldn’t be Super Bowl without an excess off-Field show, and getting out of an election year, the presence of Donald Trump in the game is sure to add a layer of political theater. America’s Once and Restored King has long co-selected sports as not only a power of attorney in the cultural wars, but the primary sight, and while his appearance will largely be symbolic in a city only 90 miles from the freshly refreshed America Bay, the answer, the answer for him – cheering or boos – will inevitably become a talking point. It is an unwelcome distraction for the NFL that prefers to focus on safer tales: the sustained greatness of Mahomes, the Redemption Arch for Eagles or even the pure absurdity of ticket prices that rose by $ 8,000 in the resale market earlier in previous weeks.

For those who look at home, the Super Bowl remains a breathless collision of sports, trade and entertainment. The game is likely to draw more than 120 million viewers, many of whom will be just as invested in the half-time show-Endrick Lamar will overwrite, to the quiet chagrin from hometown Snub Lil Wayne and a certain down-street Canadian-as they are in the result. Advertisers have again paid up to $ 8 million. For 30 seconds of spots competing for attention in a time when social media can either reinforce or bury their efforts within minutes.

A place underneath it all is the actual game that promises to be convincing. Chiefs’ defense, once a reflection, has been their backbone this season, their secondary is able to close even the best quarterbacks. The Eagles meanwhile has thrive behind a defense that has been reinvented under Vic Fangio. The first Philadelphia team that ranked No. 1 in the total defense since Bud Carsons Epochhal 1991 -UnitThey are young and fast and athletic on all three levels with a chemistry and get -together that seems to be better during the week. The rookie linebacker Nolan Smith has been a revelation in the playoffs, where he has recorded a sack in every fall game so far – if he does it again on Sunday, he will be the first player to register a bag in four separate matches in a fall season .

Then there is Travis Kelce, Mahomes’ most reliable weapons. With 174 catches after the season, he already owns the record for playoff receipts, and a very unlikely 207 meters against Eagles would see him breaking Jerry Rice’s postal season record for total reception yards. Another solid performance on Sunday could also see him breaking Rice’s Super Bowl receipts Mark (33). Keeping Kelce contained will be at the top of Fangio’s priorities.

Should Kansas City win, the conversation around these bosses will change permanently from great to historic. They have already appeared in five of the last six Super Bowls and are only the fourth team ever to perform three straight appearances. The other-90s bills, the early 70s dolphins and the Patriots 2016-18-come all with winning three on trot. Mahomes and Reid have a chance to achieve what even Brady and Belichick couldn’t.

If the Philadelphia Buck Oddsen-they go off like slim one and a half points underdogs will not only mark their second Super Bowl title, but a full circular momentum revenge their losses from two years ago and breaks Kansas City’s choking team. In a season when they saw vulnerable, then dominant, so vulnerable again, nothing would be more appropriate than finishing it on top.

Repeat or revenge? Whatever happens, the story will be made. Either Kansas City will cement itself as the greatest dynasty of modern times, or Philadelphia will avert their bid for football emergency by the final obstacle. Either way, when the confett falls in New Orleans, the NFL will have a new standard for what greatness looks like.