The Super Bowl on Sunday was such a stinker that it should remind us of things we might have forgotten.
First among them is that good — even great — NFL teams can be beaten.
There are reasons for this, such as a star quarterback having an off-day, great plays being made by the other team, weird bounces of the odd-shaped ball, bad matchups for an offense, trick plays suddenly working, injuries and coaching solutions to difficult schemes.
The Eagles’ 40-22 beatdown of the Chiefs wasn’t even as close as that lopsided score appears. It was 40-6 seven minutes into the fourth quarter, and if this hadn’t been a game in which attendees paid more than $5,000 a ticket, the Superdome would have been emptying fast.
Another thing this game should remind us of is that all supposedly great coaches can be beaten. The Chiefs’ Andy Reid was the king of the game going in; the Eagles’ Nick Sirianni was the new emperor coming out.
That’s how fast the NFL anoints and destroys. Openings exploited. Consider that the Chiefs made it a mission to stop Eagles transcendent running back Saquon Barkley — and they did. But that opened up the passing game for the Eagles, allowing quarterback Jalen Hurts to complete 77.3% of his passes for 221 yards with two touchdowns, an interception and a 119.7 passer rating.
Crazily, the Eagles made Chiefs superstar quarterback Patrick Mahomes look confused, almost mundane. He ran for his life and was sacked six times, the most in his career. Stunningly, the Eagles did this without running a single blitz, meaning there were always seven men defending the pass.
‘‘This game doesn’t have to be complicated,’’ Sirianni said afterward in praising defensive coordinator Vic Fangio’s game plan, adding, ‘‘Vic did an unbelievable job.’’
And where was the brilliant Fangio a few years back? Yep, with the Bears.
This leads us to another lesson from Super Bowl LIX: All coaches and players need to be in the right situation, have the right talent around them and the right ambience to succeed.
TV commentator and seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady spent a lot of time extolling the genius of Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, saying: ‘‘I still have PTSD from some of those blitzes in the 2007 Super Bowl [against the Giants]. . . . What a coach he is.’’
How did genius ‘‘Spags’’ do against the Eagles? Well, allowing 345 yards in total offense, 21 first downs and 33 points (the Eagles had an interception for a touchdown) pretty much says it all.
The last — and maybe the most important — thing to remember is that the NFL is oh-so-cleverly built on parity. Tellingly, 141 regular-season games this past season were decided by seven or fewer points. Think of that.
Theoretically, every team has a decent chance to be great every year. Every team has college All-Americans and all-conference stars on it. The worse you are, the higher your draft pick. There’s a salary cap for equity.
How did the Bears get quarterback Caleb Williams with the first pick in the 2024 draft? By being terrible in 2022, then making a trade with the also-terrible Panthers in 2023 and winding up with the No. 1 pick the next year.
It’s the little things that matter immensely when everybody is competing inside the same cartel, which the NFL is. Unplanned, disruptive events can happen, such as the Kendrick Lamar performer who held up a Sudanese-Palestinian flag during the halftime show. That man now is banned from NFL stadiums for life and likely doesn’t care. But the on-field equivalent would be something like the devastating leg injury suffered by Lions defensive superstar Aidan Hutchinson in Week 6. A lot flew out the window for the Lions that day.
The Bears and their fans should come away from Super Bowl LIX feeling better about the future. The Bears already won the head-coaching sweepstakes by snaring everybody’s coveted rising star, Ben Johnson. They have cohesion in the front office. They have good receivers. They can build an offensive line and a stronger defense.
In short, there’s no reason the Bears can’t become a dominant team, but it won’t be easy. Williams must sync up with Johnson’s computer-like brain the way a laptop hooks up with a control system. Everyone in the organization will have to do their job with passion, intelligence and effort. Clichés, yes, but true.
As Sirianni said of his technique: ‘‘My job is not to inspire them, it’s more to just remind them of the things they already know.’’
The blueprint’s there. The Bears just have to read it.