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And history they did make — but not in a good way.

Rather than becoming the first team to win three straight Super Bowls, the Chiefs delivered one of the most feckless first halves in the history of the Big Game.

Their offensive line was helpless in the face of the ferocious Philadelphia Eagles defense. Quarterback Patrick Mahomes became uncharacteristically flustered while under duress.

The Eagles raced to a 24-0 halftime lead, then a 40-6 advantage midway through the fourth quarter.

How bad was it?

The Chiefs gained just 14 yards and one first down in 16 plays on their first five drives. They gained just 23 yards in the first half, which was the second-lowest total in Super Bow history.

Mahomes finished with a 10.7 quarterback rating in the first half. Philadelphia sacked Mahomes six times overall and earned 16 pressures without blitzing once.

It wasn’t one of the worst Super Bowls ever, because the Eagles were brilliant on both sides of the ball.

But the resulting blowout created one of the least entertaining Super Bowls in history. Fox didn’t help matters, serving up a mundane telecast with color commentator Tom Brady offering up mostly obvious observations.

Across America, parties began clearing out early in the third quarter, when it became clear there would be no Mahomes magic. By the time the Chiefs put their garbage-time points on the board, party hosts had packed up all the dip, rousted revelers off the couch and moved into clean-up mode.

Tipsheet’s favorite skeptic, Ray Ratto, warned us via The Defector that this Super Bowl would fail to entertain us:

“We couldn’t even convince ourselves that the game day ads will be fun, because the prime products this year are the same ones that have fouled your streams and televisions all year — a joyless dystopian phalanx of either unnecessary or blatantly foul products that will mostly be AI, crypto, insurance, medications for diseases that eliminate the disease you have but give you four more that are probably worse, and gambling, easily the most benign of them all. They are the five floats announcing the apocalypse, and the best thing about the ads (but sadly not the advertisers) is that they will all die a week later, only to be replaced by something worse for you and with cheaper production values.

“The game then will have to suffice, and one can ask even this late in the proceedings if these are the two teams most up to the task. Maybe for pure distracting zaniness, Lions-Bills might have offered better cover.�

Here is what folks were writing about it:

• JERRY BREWER, The Washington Post: “You could see the resignation on Andy Reid’s face. It happened late in the third quarter as the Kansas City Chiefs coach watched a replay of the Philadelphia Eagles toppling his dynasty. Reid stared at the video board for one more look. It wasn’t a mirage. The evidence was undeniable: Philadelphia wide receiver DeVonta Smith raced past Kansas City cornerback Jaylen Watson and caught another picturesque pass from Jalen Hurts. A staggering score flashed on the screen: 34-0.

“Two minutes 40 seconds remained in the third quarter, but the Chiefs’ dream of becoming the first team to win three straight Super Bowls was already, amazingly over. As Reid winced, his thick mustache couldn’t conceal his dismay. On Sunday night, Kansas City watched its historic bid succumb to disaster. The Chiefs met a force that they could not outwit. ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ were shoved into a fight that they couldn’t win with clever strategies and championship moxie.

“The Eagles weren’t here to play chess and hope to be the rare team to survive a close game against a team that has profited from narrow-margin drama. ... The Eagles overthrew the two-time defending champions with the kind of force that only they are powerful enough to marshal.�

• RATTO, The Defector: “The team that rope-a-doped their way to almost incandescent glory in 2024 instead found out that, sometimes, you just can’t slip the punch. It wasn’t the third-time’s-not-the-charm jinx that did them in, it was the Philadelphia Eagles. And more decisively, it was the Eagles with only some Saquon Barkley, an entirely different M.O. That meant the Chiefs weren’t undone by a single player but a smothering collective impervious to even Patrick Mahomes’s multileveled sorceries.

“The final score of 40-22 grossly flattered the Chiefs and barely explained Philadelphia’s dominance. It’s as if the ‘GAME OVER’ legend at the end of Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show had been frantically cobbled together after Zack Baun’s second quarter interception. And it was a cathartic evening for Eagles fans whose memories of harsh endings ignores the fact that they celebrated a championship just seven years ago. If nothing else, the fan base can no longer justify their default settings. They are now blessed rather than cursed, and they will have to shift into smug mode for the foreseeable future.�

• ZAK KEEFER, The Athletic: “A more fragile team would have folded. It wouldn’t have made it back here, because it wouldn’t have been able to weather the series of storms this Philadelphia Eagles franchise faced along the way. And it wouldn’t have halted history on the sport’s biggest stage. Certainly not like that. But these Eagles were different — defiant, even. And on Sunday night in Super Bowl LIX, they were utterly dominant.â€�
• JARRETT BELL, USA Today: “This one will stick with Patrick Mahomes. Like, forever. No three-peat. No parade. No new championship hardware. No trip to Disneyland. Just a whole lot of heartbreak and soul-searching for the Kansas City Chiefs and their fearless leader. ... What, did Superman leave his cape at home?

“Mahomes was harassed, bruised, bullied and battered on Sunday night, which sums up what happens when you’ve absorbed a career-high six sacks. ... The two first-half interceptions were the last elements his team needed on a night when it was apparent his O-line was woefully overmatched. And if Mahomes, 29, is not bringing his A-game to the NFL’s biggest stage with all of that glory and history on the line, good luck, Chiefs.�

• WILL BRINSON, : “Instead of entertaining the Mahomes vs. Brady conversation, let’s shut it down completely. That Brady was on the call was perfectly fitting, since he’s now been in the building for the two separate Super Bowl blowouts. ... We’re always looking to rush comparisons in sports — guilty as charged here — and the Mahomes chasing Brady concept wasn’t out of control if he won this game. But he didn’t.

“And even if judging careers on one game is often a bad process, it’s still how this works in the NFL. You play to win Super Bowls and if you want to be the greatest of all time, you can’t go into the stadium, play for a title and get blown out.�

Megaphone

“Any time you lose a Super Bowl, it is the worst feeling in the world. They’ll stick with you the rest of your career. These will be the two losses that will motivate me to be even better the rest of my career because you only get so few of these and you have to capitalize on these, and they hurt probably more than the wins feel good.�

Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes.