{"id":36598,"date":"2023-02-11T10:09:31","date_gmt":"2023-02-11T15:09:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/?p=36598"},"modified":"2023-02-11T10:09:31","modified_gmt":"2023-02-11T15:09:31","slug":"the-b-gap-the-defining-battle-of-super-bowl-57-patrick-mahomes-vs-the-eagles-defensive-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/2023\/02\/11\/the-b-gap-the-defining-battle-of-super-bowl-57-patrick-mahomes-vs-the-eagles-defensive-line\/","title":{"rendered":"The B-Gap: The defining battle of Super Bowl 57: Patrick Mahomes vs. the Eagles defensive line"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Sam Robb O\u2019Hagan<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Patrick Mahomes is great at everything.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Five AFC Championships, two Super Bowl appearances, two MVPs and one Super Bowl speak for themselves, of course, but the ubiquitousness of Mahomes\u2019 greatness is the first of its kind.<\/span><\/p>\n

His superpower \u2014 if there has to be just one \u2014 is that there isn\u2019t a weakness in his game that an opponent can key in on, no weakest link for him to only be as strong as. He\u2019s a jack of all trades, master of <\/span>all<\/span><\/i>, and there\u2019s just about nothing that anyone can do about it.<\/span><\/p>\n

But if there\u2019s one of Mahomes\u2019 strengths that stands above the rest, one extra-extraordinary quality among an endless line of extraordinary qualities, it\u2019s that it\u2019s next to impossible to sack him.<\/span><\/p>\n

Consider this: In Mahomes\u2019 five seasons as the Kansas City Chiefs\u2019 starting quarterback, he has yet to take more than 30 sacks in a single season, has yet to finish as one of the NFL\u2019s 20 most sacked quarterbacks, and the Chiefs have yet to finish outside of the NFL\u2019s six-lowest adjusted sack rates \u2014 a metric that accounts for the volume of passing plays an offense runs.<\/span><\/p>\n

Those numbers are remarkable for a player who, among plenty of other things, ascended to superstardom because of his jaw-dropping creativity out of structure. Mahomes doesn\u2019t let plays die and has unwavering belief in his improvisation \u2014 the NFL\u2019s social media accounts have basically made a living off of highlights of Mahomes running around endlessly behind the line of scrimmage before somehow finding a receiver downfield \u2014 and yet, despite all of the inevitable risk that comes with that style of play, he\u2019s basically never sacked.<\/span><\/p>\n

To understand just how rare it is for a player that plays like Mahomes does to be sacked as scarcely as Mahomes is, consider Chicago Bears quarterback Justin Fields. Fields has kept his head above water in the NFL almost exclusively because of his production as a scrambler \u2014 see his 61-yard touchdown run against the Miami Dolphins earlier this year \u2014 but he\u2019s paid a hefty price for that style of play. Fields has been sacked 91 times in 27 games in two years as a starter, and the Bears have finished with the highest adjusted sack rate in the entire league in each of the last two seasons.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fields\u2019 91 career sacks are only 30 sacks behind Mahomes, despite Mahomes playing over 50 more games in 3 more seasons as a starting quarterback.<\/span><\/p>\n

These numbers are especially important when you consider that, contrary to popular belief, sacks are very much a stat that quarterbacks are responsible for. Offensive lines are responsible for preventing pressure, for maintaining clean pockets and keeping the picture clean long enough for their quarterback to execute whatever passing concept is dialed up.<\/span><\/p>\n

But it\u2019s the quarterbacks themselves that are responsible for ensuring that when their offensive line does surrender pressure, it doesn\u2019t turn into sacks, those critical negative plays that can derail drives.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s what Mahomes does so especially well; not only does he create positive plays out of structure like few others in the history of the sport, but he never surrenders negative plays either, relentlessly keeping the Chiefs\u2019 offense on schedule.<\/span><\/p>\n

Getting caught up in the more directly tangible magic of Mahomes\u2019 game is easy; those no-look passes, those bombs down the field that appear so hopelessly mindless but are somehow so perfectly precise. But his astonishing volume of positive output is so historically impressive only when the volume of his negative output is considered, too \u2014 in that it basically doesn\u2019t exist. For everything he does so well, he does almost nothing wrong.<\/span><\/p>\n

For opposing defenses, it\u2019s already an impossible struggle just to slow him down, let alone actively stop him, but to push him back? To fully take the wind out of his sails and point his arrow in the other direction? To sack him? Mahomes doesn\u2019t let it happen, and it\u2019s <\/span>that <\/span><\/i>that makes him so stupidly good.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Photo Credit: Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

However.<\/span><\/p>\n

If there was ever a defense to do it \u2014 and there very well may simply not be one at all \u2014 it\u2019s this one.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Philadelphia Eagles defense, like Mahomes, does just about everything well, but one number stands out among the rest.<\/span><\/p>\n

70 \u2014 for the number of sacks the Eagles recorded in the regular season, just the fourth team in NFL history to reach it. If they sack Mahomes five times on Sunday, which only the 2018 Cardinals have done over his five-season career as a starter, the 2022 Eagles will be the very first team to reach 83 sacks in the regular season and the playoffs combined.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Eagles defense\u2019s adjusted sack rate of 11.2 percent is the highest since the 2000 New Orleans Saints, and just the second mark of over 11 percent since Football Outsiders started tracking the stat in 1996.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the Eagles don\u2019t just finish pressures with sacks at an astonishing rate. Jonathan Gannon\u2019s defense generates pressure itself with the best of them, too. Philadelphia\u2019s defense led the league in ESPN\u2019s pass-rush win rate metric at 52 percent, and both of the Eagles\u2019 starting edge rushers \u2014 Hasson Reddick and Josh Sweat \u2014 finished top 10 in individual pass-rush win rate at their position.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Philly\u2019s defense is excellent in several different areas, but its defensive line is its engine room; its home run hitter and closer all in one. They win fast and often, immediately disrupting the integrity of opposing offenses. When they do win, they finish the play with a sack, leaving no room for improvisation for opposing quarterbacks. If they beat you, and they will beat you, it\u2019s game over.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s what the Eagles defense does so incredibly well, and it’s so remarkably rare. They make things happen themselves, they turn production into actual output, and they finish what they started.<\/span><\/p>\n

In what is shaping up to be one of the closest Super Bowls in recent history, between the two teams that have led the way since the first week of the season, there will be no shortage of critical matchups to consider.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s what makes the Eagles defense, and Mahomes, so historically special. They excel everywhere, they can win — and <\/span>have won —<\/span><\/i> in so many different ways that it\u2019s almost impossible to stop them. This is the unstoppable force against the immovable object, the pinnacle of a cliche that will live on in the NFL forever.<\/span><\/p>\n

Something has to give, and in a sport that is still dominated by two pillars \u2014 quarterback and trench-play \u2014 you\u2019d be hard-pressed to find a more obvious pressure point, a more impactful point of inflection, than how clean Patrick Mahomes can keep his jersey.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Sam Robb O\u2019Hagan Patrick Mahomes is great at everything.\u00a0 Five AFC Championships, two Super Bowl appearances, two MVPs and one Super Bowl speak for themselves, of course, but the ubiquitousness of Mahomes\u2019 greatness is the first of its kind. His superpower \u2014 if there has to be just one \u2014 is that there isn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21477,"featured_media":36616,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1024,1050,1035,19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36598"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21477"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36598"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36620,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36598\/revisions\/36620"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}