Andy Reid, Kelce brothers will be more than good stories in an Eagles-Chiefs Super Bowl

The main characters in the biggest stories also are the ones who likely will decide the outcome.

Published Jan. 29, 2023, 11:17 p.m. ET

Maybe it was always meant to be this way. It sure felt like that on Sunday night as you watched a hobbling, wobbling Patrick Mahomes and the face-palm version of Andy Reid somehow eke out a victory against a superior Cincinnati Bengals team. Truth be told, it felt that way four hours earlier, as Jeffrey Lurie stood in the middle of the Eagles locker room and talked about the roads that might soon be converging.

“I’ve thought about it because I admire him so much,” the Eagles owner said. “We have an outstanding young coach in Nick [Sirianni], an amazing coaching staff — amazing — and Andy is as good as they come. Give Andy a bye, very formidable. Give us a bye, very formidable.”

The prospect of a Super Bowl showdown between the Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs was such a difficult thing to process that it seemed a thing best ignored. Even now, here, the end of championship Sunday, the Eagles 31-7 winners over the San Francisco 49ers, the Chiefs 23-20 winners over the Bengals, both of them officially conference champions, the two teams left standing, it remains hard to believe.

If you lived through the Reid era, you know what this means. The Eagles were nothing when he arrived. It boggles the mind that they have become everything since he left. Two different coaches. Two different quarterbacks. A Lombardi Trophy. And, now, a chance for a second one against the guy who might be most responsible for it all.

It has always been lurking in the background of this Eagles run. Throughout the season, throughout the stretch run, throughout the past couple of weeks, you looked to the other conference and saw where all of this was heading. Forget about whether the Chiefs and the Eagles are the two best teams in the National Football League. All season, they have been the two teams that have looked the most like Super Bowl teams. They have looked like two teams destined to meet, like an algebra problem, except one of the trains’ conductors was the other’s granddaddy.

“For the people that are on board with the NFL being scripted,” Eagles center Jason Kelce said, “it is pretty good evidence.”

That’s another thing about the trains. There are a couple of brothers on board. They share a name and a podcast, and now they will share a Super Bowl. Jason, the anchor of this Eagles team, broke into the NFL as a sixth-round draft pick and personal favorite of Reid. Travis, the anchor of this Chiefs team, broke into the NFL as the second player Reid drafted in Kansas City.

All of them will be in Arizona starting next Sunday, all of them traveling west to watch the world realize what has happened. Lurie, Kelce, Brandon Graham, Fletcher Cox, Howie Roseman, Reid, Steve Spagnuolo, Rick Burkholder: It’s like we are watching the Big Bang reverse course to the Singularity.

The craziest thing? This isn’t just sentiment. These aren’t just feel-good story lines. The main players in this civil war still are the ones who will decide it. It will come down to Jason Kelce’s offensive line against Spagnuolo’s defense. It will come down to Reid and Travis Kelce’s ability to help an injured Mahomes withstand Cox and Graham’s defensive line.

We have two weeks to break it all down. Two weeks to process. I’m not sure that there is a team in the NFL that contends with the way this Eagles offensive line is playing. Same goes for the defensive line. Cox and Graham are supporting actors now. Haason Reddick is playing like one of the best in the game. Same goes for Javon Hargrave. The biggest imprint Reid left on the Eagles organization is that the trenches are where victories happen.

Poetic justice, perhaps. The Eagles are favored by 1.5 points. If Mahomes is as limited as he looked on Sunday, the smart money will be on the Eagles. But when the subplots look like this, it’s impossible to predict where the actual plot will go.