Our Super Bowl LVII cover story, by the numbers: My colleague Conor Orr and I conducted 50-plus interviews with Chiefs, Eagles, relatives, coaches, support staff, musicians, actors, Hall of Famers, retired players, baseball managers and executives and retired players, and fans. They were conducted over videoconference, over phone, in person, in group settings (that don’t count in the total), while traversing hotel grounds, walking downtown streets, riding in Ubers, driving rental cars (safely) and hiking up Camelback mountain. We ended up with 77 Word files, more than 20 Google docs and with more than 20,000 words written on both teams. I banked 10 hours of sleep Super Bowl week and eight hours the night before. We filed at 5:10 a.m. local time—50 minutes before deadline, a first in the nine Super Bowl cover stories I’ve done.
This was what fit into that cover story on the Chiefs, their all-galaxy quarterback Patrick Mahomes, their teaching-soul coach Andy Reid and their too-often-overlooked general manager Brett Veach.
Chiefs fans, purchase a print copy of the commemorative here.
