(Reuters) – Five storylines to watch for during the 57th Super Bowl on Sunday between the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs in Glendale, Arizona.
HISTORIC QUARTERBACK MATCHUP
Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and Eagles counterpart Jalen Hurts will become the first Black quarterbacks to face off in a Super Bowl, when the National Football League’s championship game gets underway on Sunday.
A victory for Mahomes, 27, would make him a two-times Super Bowl winner, having led the Chiefs to the title three years ago.
Hurts, who the Eagles took in the second round of the 2020 NFL Draft, is looking to close out his breakout season with a triumph that would make him the fourth Black quarterback to win a Super Bowl, joining Mahomes, Russell Wilson, who won with the Seattle Seahawks, and Doug Williams – the first Black quarterback to start a Super Bowl – with the Washington Redskins.
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SUPER-SIZED SIBLING RIVALRY
In another first, this year’s Super Bowl will be a sibling rivalry game for Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and his older brother Jason, who is a center with the Eagles.
The Kelce brothers, who between them have been selected to 14 Pro Bowls, will not be on the field at the same time as they both play on offense. As a result, their mother this week said she will be rooting for whoever has the ball.
Both Kelces have already won a Super Bowl with their respective teams. Travis will be appearing in his third NFL title game in four seasons while Jason returns for the second time in five years.
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CHIEFS COACH FACES FORMER TEAM
Andy Reid’s quest to win a second Super Bowl trophy with the Chiefs will come against the team he spent 14 years with as a head coach prior to his current role.
In his 14 seasons as Eagles head coach, Reid compiled a 130-93-1 record and made one trip to the Super Bowl but was never able to bring the championship Vince Lombardi Trophy back to Philadelphia.
Reid will be the fifth head coach in Super Bowl history to face a team he previously led, joining Pete Carroll, Jon Gruden, Dan Reeves and Weeb Ewbank. The previous four head coaches went 2-2 versus their former clubs.
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CLASH OF NO. 1 SEEDS
Sunday’s game will be a battle between the two best teams from the regular season as the Chiefs (14-3) and Eagles (14-3) captured their respective conference’s top seeds to secure a first-round bye.
The last time the two top seeds faced off in a Super Bowl came in February 2018 when the Eagles defeated the favoured New England Patriots.
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PLACE YOUR BETS
The Super Bowl is a betting bonanza each year and this year could be the biggest yet with the American Gaming Association expecting a record 50.4 million American adults, or about 20% of the population, to bet $16 billion on the game.
This year’s Super Bowl will also be the first held in a state that offers legal sports betting. There is even a physical sportsbook on the same grounds as the stadium.
(Reporting by Frank Pingue in Toronto; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
