The showdown between the Eagles and Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII is packed with story lines, and fans are doling out unparalleled prices to be there in person for the Big Game. The top seeds from the AFC and NFC each survived conference championship weekend, and now we get a clash between two of the league’s most exciting quarterbacks with the Lombardi Trophy on the line.
Here’s a look at some of the biggest headlines surrounding what promises to be an exciting end to a roller coaster season in the NFL.
Jalen Hurts vs. Patrick Mahomes
Hurts and Mahomes are MVP candidates, and it’s fitting that two of the sport’s brightest stars become the duo that makes history as the first time a Super Bowl features two Black starting quarterbacks.
It’s Mahomes’s third trip to the Super Bowl at just 27 years old, a winner in Super Bowl LIV over San Francisco before losing 31–9 to the Buccaneers in Super Bowl LV. Mahomes has toughed it out through an ankle injury sustained against the Jaguars in the divisional round and led his team past the Bengals in perhaps the best game of the playoffs to date in the AFC championship game.
Hurts, who played in two national championship games in college at Alabama before transferring to Oklahoma, now gets his crack at the Super Bowl in his third season with the Eagles. He’s the catalyst of one of the NFL’s best offenses, effectively distributing the ball to a deep wide receiver unit while also being a factor in the run game. Outdueling Mahomes is quite the challenge, but Hurts has proved he can be an elite-level quarterback this season and is a huge reason the Eagles are one of the last two teams standing.
Andy Reid vs. his former team
Fourteen of Andy Reid’s 24 years as a head coach in the NFL were spent in Philadelphia, where he took the Eagles to the Super Bowl in the 2004–05 season and is still the winningest coach in the organization’s history. He departed a decade ago for Kansas City after a 4–12 season with the Eagles and has since turned around the Chiefs franchise to make it a perennial contender.
The Eagles won a Super Bowl under Doug Pederson, something Reid never did in Philadelphia. But the organization hasn’t had the continued success it had under Reid since his departure. Whether it wins this year’s Super Bowl, the foundation laid under Nick Sirianni with a franchise quarterback like Hurts in tow makes a long-term place atop the NFC possible. The Chiefs certainly seem likely to stay in the Super Bowl conversation for as long as Mahomes and Reid are teamed up.
Travis Kelce vs. Jason Kelce
Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and Eagles center Jason Kelce will become the first brothers to play against each other in the Super Bowl, a neat historical angle on an already-intriguing game. The Kelce brothers are both offensive players, so we won’t see Travis go head-to-head with Jason. But one Kelce is guaranteed a ring, which makes the only guaranteed winner (and loser) of Super Bowl Sunday their mother, Donna, who sat down with Sports Illustrated’s Greg Bishop this week.
“The Kelce brothers did dream, though. They joked and hoped for serendipity to allow both to play on the same NFL team, which they would lead to the Super Bowl, of course. But Jason spent each of his 12 professional football seasons in Philadelphia, while Travis never left Kansas City in his 10 years. “This is the closest they’ve gotten to that dream,” Donna said before the games last week. She laughs. Maybe it’s a nervous laugh. The boys love winning. One will on Feb. 12 for sure. But it will come at the other’s expense.”
Expect to hear plenty more about this story line throughout the Big Game. Both brothers already have one ring, but the sibling bragging rights of getting a second will be unmatched.
A historic ticket market
Demand to see this showdown is pushing all-time highs, based on data from SI Tickets. The average ticket price is already in the five figures at $10,959.29, while the lowest price (for a seat in Section 436) is $6,051. Last year’s Super Bowl in Los Angeles came in with a lowest price of just over $5,800 per The Sporting News, so this year’s game is on pace to surpass that.
If you’re looking for a better view of the action than the upper deck, SI Tickets’ highest-priced seat for the game comes in at a cool $40,723 for a seat in Section 108, right at midfield.
