Superbowl LVII Preview
February 9, 2023
The Kansas City Chiefs will face the Philadelphia Eagles this Sunday for Superbowl VII (57), held this year at State Farm Stadium in Phoenix, Arizona.
This will be the Eagles’ fourth Super Bowl appearance in team history, with the teams’ only championship title won five years ago in Superbowl LI against the New England Patriots. Philadelphia has consistently had the greatest offensive line of the past decade, only making improvements the past few seasons and holding the most efficient defensive line of this season.
Deep in the playoffs is familiar Chiefs territory- the team made five consecutive AFC championship games, the third longest championship streak in history behind the 8 straight New England Patriots in 2011. While the Chiefs have made 3 Super Bowls in the modern NFL era, the team also played in the first Super Bowl, losing to the Green Bay Packers in 1967.
Both teams have come out of the 2022 regular season as the hottest teams of their respective conferences, both of which take the 1st seed with 14-3 records.
Both teams’ coaches have an interesting past with their opposite teams during the 2012 offseason. The Eagles began that offseason by firing head coach Andy Reid, who found a home later that year in Kansas City, where he remained. When he completely reduced his coaching staff, he cut wide receiver coach Nick Sirianni, despite positive accounts from Kansas City’s front office.
As reconciliation, Reid, fortunately, vouched for him as he bounced across teams while moving up the coaching ladder. His word eventually landed Sirianni a job as Eagles head coach, where he will have the chance to win the championship title against coach Reid.
Superbowl LVII will have several firsts of the game’s history, the most popular narrative being the first Super Bowl to feature two brothers playing in the same game- in this case, against each other.
Two pro-bowl players- both of which have high odds to be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, grew up together as teammates through high school now face off against each other this Sunday: tight-end Travis Kelce of the Chiefs and center Jason Kelce of the Eagles. Both brothers have been to and won a Superbowl with their respective teams, the two growing up close together playing for the Cleveland Heights High School football team.
A change.org petition to have the coin toss before the game performed by their mother, Donna Kelce, has gained 195,000 signatures online.
In addition, both teams’ quarterbacks: Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes and Eagles’ Jalen Hurts, make the youngest combined age of any Superbowl at 27 and 24 years old respectively.
Superbowl LVII will also hope to empower black culture and representation coming off a range of unique circumstances.
While Black History Month is celebrated, both team’s quarterbacks: Hurts and Mahomes, are people of color- the first Super Bowl to have such an occurrence.
Further, in addition to the national anthem and America the Beautiful performed by country star Chris Stapleton, the hymn ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’ (nicknamed the ‘Black National Anthem’) will be performed by Grammy-winner Sheryl Lee Ralph.
In addition, headlining the Apple Music Halftime show (the name change after a sponsor change from the Pepsi halftime show) will be pop star Rihanna with the performance directed by Jay-Z.
Superbowl LVII also charged the highest price for a Super Bowl ad, with 30 seconds of runtime costing over $7 million. As with every year, celebrities will line commercial breaks with some ads being teased already. To name a few, rappers Jack Harlow in a Doritos commercial and Diddy for the newly-released Uber One subscription service, a reunion of the cast of former Netflix series Breaking Bad from PopCorners chips, and a ‘mystery celebrity’ appearing for detergent-maker Downy.
Super Bowl LVII’s exciting pre-game show begins at 6:00 P.M. local time after all-day coverage, and kickoff from Glendale, Arizona will be at 6:50 P.M.