By CNN
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The Philadelphia Eagles avenged their Super Bowl LVII defeat on Monday night as they defeated the Kansas City Chiefs, 21-17, on the road at Arrowhead Stadium in Missouri.
While February’s championship game was a free-scoring offensive masterclass from both sides, Monday’s matchup was not the prettiest. The two teams combined for 13 punts while each squad’s quarterback threw an interception apiece.
The Eagles were limited to 78 total net yards of offense in the first half, per the NFL, and 70 of those came on one touchdown drive. Star QB Jalen Hurts ended the game with only 150 yards, an interception and no passing touchdowns, but the Eagles still managed to escape with the ugly victory.
“Whoever was going to win that game was going to do it gritty, grimy, nasty, all those adjectives,” Philadelphia head coach Nick Sirianni said after the game. “It was going to be that way, and the guys just stayed together and kept fighting, and kept grinding it out, and we were able to come out on top.”
The Chiefs will come away from Monday’s game feeling incredibly frustrated, as the stat sheet suggested that they did enough to come away with the win. They outgained the Eagles by 98 yards, converted on 47% of their 3rd downs to Philly’s 27% and the offensive line allowed only one quarterback sack (on the first play of the game). Hurts, conversely, was brought down on five occasions.
The Chiefs opened up the scoring towards the end of the first quarter. Reigning league MVP Patrick Mahomes found Justin Watson in the end zone before Eagles running back D’Andre Swift leveled things up on the next drive.
The Super Bowl champions restored their advantage in the second through Travis Kelce, who caught his 74th career touchdown pass to move into joint-fifth place for most receiving TDs by a tight end.
A Harrison Butker field goal to cap off the quarter meant that Kansas City entered halftime with a 10-point lead and appeared on course for another victory over Philadelphia.
However, the tables turned after the break as the Eagles’ defense stepped up and shut out the Chiefs for the entirety of the second half.
Hurts may not have had the most productive day through the air, but he was able to contribute on scoring plays on the ground. A rushing TD up the middle in the third quarter got the Eagles back into the game, and he was shoved across the goal line in the fourth as the Philadelphia executed its trademark ‘tush push.’
Hurts’ second rushing touchdown put the Eagles up four with just over six minutes to go and the Chiefs were still very much in the game, but were left to rue their mistakes as time expired.
The Chiefs had already turned over the ball on their first fourth quarter drive via a Kelce fumble in the red zone, before the game literally slipped through their fingers on their final possession.
Mahomes could only watch in despair as his perfect 50+ yard pass was dropped by wide receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling as he was across the goal line with under two minutes left in the game.
The Eagles were able to get the defensive stop on fourth down to wrap up the win, meaning that Chiefs head coach Andy Reid tasted defeat against his former side for the first time.
Philly is now a league-best 9-1 while Kansas City is 7-3 and has already lost as many games in Week 11 as it did in the entirety of the last regular season.
