Philadelphia Eagles’ quarterback Jalen Hurts won his first Super Bowl MVP award last Sunday after he led the Birds to a Super Bowl victory over the Kansa City Chiefs 40-22. The vote is determined by 16 members of a media panel who make up 80% of the vote. The other 20% of the vote comes from fans who can submit their ballots on NFL.com. I thought the voters got it right but apparently upon further review it wasn’t unanimous. At least two other esteemed dignitaries with strong NFL thought the voters got it wrong.
First there was Hurts’ teammate, defensive end Josh Sweat. “I should’ve had it, I could’ve had it. It’s all good, though” Sweat told Jeff McLane of the Philadelphia Inquirer and he has a case. He recorded two and a half of the six total sacks the defense recorded against Patrick Mahomes. Sweat also contributed with six tackles, two solo and two tackles for loss along with several pressures. His numbers are almost identical to Denver Broncos’ linebacker Von Miller’s, who was the Super Bowl MVP back in 2016 when he led the Broncos to a 24-10 win over the Carolina Panthers. Some, who are in Sweat’s camp are citing Miller’s performance as a comp., at least the clueless ones are. In that game Miller didn’t really have any serious competition because his quarterback that day was Peyton Manning, who was playing in his very last game, and couldn’t throw a football through the goal posts from the three yard line by the time it was time to call it a day. He did manage to throw an interception and put up a QB rating of 56.6 in his career finale though. So there was that.
The other big name to not throw his support behind Hurts (insert tush-push joke here) was Bill Belichick, who’s seen a Super Bowl MVP up close before. The Hoodie knows a thing or two about football. The former New England Patriots coach won six Super Bowl rings as a head coach and two as an assistant with the New York Giants. After the Eagles’ obliterated the Chiefs 40-22 in Super Bowl LIX on Sunday, Belichick was effusive about the Birds and he believes the key to Philly’s Super Bowl title was Eagles’ general manager Howie Roseman.
“You look at Philadelphia, they were one of the oldest defenses in the league behind New Orleans and they didn’t play well last year in 2023,” Belichick said. “And so, Howie changed defensive coordinators, brought Vic Fangio back. Their young defensive linemen like Jalen Carter and the guys that they had drafted in previous years started to mature, get into their second, third, fourth year. Nolan Smith, guys like that. And then they drafted Cooper DeJean and Quinyon Mitchell, who were two young players who came through for them as rookies and had great years.”
Roseman’s biggest splash move last off-season was his first one when he signed star running back Saquon Barkley in free agency, but it was the construction of his defensive with key additions that really shined on Sunday. Drafting game-changers like DeJean, Mitchell, and Jalyx Hunt, and signing playmakers like Zack Baun and C.J. Gardner-Johnson really helped transform and elevate the Eagles’ defense to the head of the class.
“Now, all of a sudden Philadelphia’s one of the youngest defenses in the league,” Belichick said. “They’re one of the best defenses in the league. And they were able to flip that around. And that was, I would say, kind of really the difference I thought in this game … what Howie did in addition to getting Barkley was improving the defense and putting young players on the field and how well they played. It was really just a great job by the entire Eagles organization.”
Roseman did a similar thing in the off-season prior to the 2017-2018 season, mostly through free agency and the trade market which ended in the franchise’s first Super Bowl championship, a win over Belichick’s Patriots in Super Bowl 52 on February 4, 2018.
The Hoodie now believes the Eagles have what he calls a “good problem”.
“The Eagles are maxed out on the spending and there’ll be a lot of people on the team who will come looking for a little bigger payday than they’ve had in the past,” Belichick said. “And that’ll be a challenge, a good challenge. That’s a good problem that the Eagles have to deal with.
“They pushed everything out to max out this year. It worked for them. They had a great year. And now Howie and owner Jeffrey Lurie will have to go back and start to figure out who they can spend on, who they’re going to need to maybe cut some financial considerations with in order to pay for some of the young players who are going to need to be compensated. And that just comes with winning. It’s a great problem to have, but it’s definitely something that needs to be managed.”
Judging from experience I think Howie can manage.
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