Jalen Hurts and Patrick Mahomes aren’t fully healthy for Super Bowl LVII. Their backups could be the difference.

PHOENIX — Back in high school, Gardner Minshew used to throw up before games. That icky ritual doesn’t jibe with either his laid-back vibe or the genuine greatness of his career at Brandon High in central Mississippi. You don’t expect a kid who throws for 9,705 yards and 88 touchdowns in just 52 games to be upchucking because of nerves before every opening kickoff. “After that, I’d be good to go,” he said. “Leveled out.”

In fairness, Minshew didn’t do it before every kickoff. About midway through his senior year, he stopped. “Don’t get as nervous as much anymore,” he said.

At least there will be one person pulling for the Eagles on Sunday who won’t be worried if Jalen Hurts aggravates or worsens that right shoulder injury of his. And make no mistake: There is a real chance that either Minshew or his backup-quarterback counterpart on the Chiefs, Chad Henne, will play.

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It has been the unspoken possibility, the unasked question, throughout this leadup to Super Bowl LVII. Hurts’ shoulder might feel better than it once did, and Patrick Mahomes might be getting around better on his highly sprained right ankle. But neither of them is fully healthy, and it would take just an unpleasant play or two — Hurts scrambles, is tackled, and lands on that shoulder; Mahomes sits in the pocket, gets sacked, and America watches that ankle buckle — for the entire complexion of Sunday’s game to change.

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For Henne, a 37-year-old native of Wyomissing who is in his 13th NFL season, such a situation would be old hat (no pun intended). Twice in the last three postseasons, he has had to step in for Mahomes, and he performed ably each time in a close Kansas City victory. In the Chiefs’ 22-17 win over the Browns in the 2020-21 divisional round, he went 6-for-8 for 66 yards and, more importantly, pulled off two late, clutch plays to seal the outcome: a 13-yard scramble on third-and-14 and a fourth-and-1 completion to Tyreek Hill for a first down. And last month, after Mahomes suffered his ankle sprain, Henne led a 98-yard touchdown drive, capping it with a 1-yard pass to Travis Kelce — a drive that was the difference in a 27-20 victory over Jacksonville.

The irony of Henne’s excellence in those moments, of course, is that he and Mahomes couldn’t be more dissimilar in their styles of play. Not that any quarterback in the league can really approximate Mahomes’ combination of creativity, mobility, and arm strength. But Henne, at his age, with all the speed of cold maple syrup, is further from him than most.

“Playing with Patrick Mahomes is like pulling a rabbit out of a hat, magic trickery,” Chiefs wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster said. “When Chad’s in there, it’s all timing. He’s been playing quarterback for 80 years now.”

Andy Reid and his offensive coaches keep separate play sheets for Mahomes and Henne, though Henne minimized the differences in the Chiefs’ approach when he’s in a game. “You put your own nuance to it,” he said. “Obviously, I’m not going to be Pat. He’s not going to be me. But I kind of just go through the process, prepare like I’m a starter. I don’t think the offense is changing much play-call wise. We will revert back to what I like the most on the sideline and what I feel comfortable with.”

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The Eagles would do the same if Minshew were to play Sunday. The changes to their offense with him would be more subtle than the Chiefs’ with Mahomes, but not much. For Minshew, one of the key intricacies that he takes care to master, or try to master, is Hurts’ verbal cadence on the snap count. “That’s something I have to try to mimic,” he said. “Other than that, you have to be yourself.” And being Gardner Minshew means a couple of things.

It means that the Eagles might throw the ball just as well as they do with Hurts; last season, in a victory over the Jets, and this season, in a 40-34 loss to the Cowboys, Minshew showed he can do that. It also means that the dimension that Hurts brings to the offense — his running ability — is not the big-play benefit that it usually is. “But you can still do RPOs or some of the other things we do,” center Jason Kelce said. “We can still do a lot of the runs that are staples of ours.”

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They couldn’t do much of anything in Minshew’s most recent start, that ugly 20-10 loss to the Saints on New Year’s Day. Kelce wrote off that one as a poor effort by the entire offense. “I think he gets too much blame for that one,” Kelce said. “If you go back and watch the tape, it was a collective failure. If things arise and we need Gardner, we’re all confident he’s going to go out there and play really well.”

It’s good the Eagles will feel that way, because none of their fans will. Same for the Chiefs and Henne. Funny. These were the two best teams in the NFL all season, and the game for No. 1 could come down to the No. 2s.