3 things the Patriots can learn from the Super Bowl champion Eagles

Philadelphia won the Super Bowl in convincing fashion.

The final game of the 2024 NFL season effectively over by the early fourth quarter. The Philadelphia Eagles overwhelmed the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX from the get-go, dethroning the two-time defending champion with a final score of 40-22 — a score not indicative of the lopsided nature of the game.

The Eagles were simply the better team on Super Bowl Sunday. How they became that is something teams will have to take a close look at, including a New England Patriots organization finding itself on the opposite end of the NFL spectrum.

After winning only eight total games the last two seasons combined, the Patriots are in the process of rebuilding their team both on and off the field. Using the Philadelphia model as a blueprint would not be the worst idea, especially for a team that already has some key pieces — including at the quarterback position — in place.

It all starts in the trenches

The biggest story of Super Bowl LIX was the Eagles thoroughly dominating the line of scrimmage on both sides, but especially on defense. The Chiefs offensive line coming into the game with a reshuffled left side, including moving ex-Patriot Joe Thuney to left tackle, did help Philadelphia, but make no mistake: the NFC champions would have been a tough challenge for a fully healthy Kansas City O-line as well.

The Eagles, after all, entered the game with as talented a defensive line rotation as any in the game. Led by standout defensive tackles Jordan Davis, Jalen Carter and Milton Williams, the group put quarterback Patrick Mahomes under constant duress, forcing him into uncharacteristic mistakes of a game-deciding magnitude.

All three of Mahomes’ turnovers were either the direct or indirect result of pressure getting to him all day long — something Philadelphia was able to do because of the sheer quality of players it has available. That quality did not suddenly appear out of thin air, though: the Eagles and their general manager, Howie Roseman, invested considerable resources to build a defensive line that ferocious.

Davis and Carter, for example, were the team’s first-round draft picks in 2022 and 2023, respectively; Williams was a third-rounder in 2021. Edge rushers Josh Sweat (Round 4, 2018), Nolan Smith (Round 1, 2022) and Jalyx Hunt (Round 3, 2024) were drafted by the Eagles as well.

What this shows is that Philadelphia invested considerable resources in its defensive line over the last few years. On Sunday, the effect of those moves on full display.

The same was true on offense. Four of the Eagles’ five starting offensive linemen were drafted by the team, with the fifth — right guard Mekhi Becton — signed as a free agent last offseason. Becton was a perfect fit for Philadelphia’s strategy when it comes to building an O-line: the taller and heavier, the better.

In fact, the team’s offensive line became the tallest and heaviest to ever play in a Super Bowl on Sunday:

More than anything, Sunday’s game showed the importance of having quality and depth along your offensive and defensive lines — something New England has been lacking for quite some time now, particularly along the O-line.

Despite that, the Patriots’ biggest offensive line moves last year were signing since-released Chukwuma Okorafor in free agency and drafting Caedan Wallace and Layden Robinson in the middle rounds. The same approach this offseason, with a potential franchise quarterback to protect, would be gross negligence on the team’s part.

Luckily for the Patriots, though, they do have some building blocks along both their lines. On offense, Michael Onwenu is an established player, while Cole Strange and the aforementioned Robinson have shown flashes in their short careers. Defensively, meanwhile, Christian Barmore, Keion White and to a lesser degree Anfernee Jennings have all played strong football in the past.

It will take more than one offseason to surround them with quality, but the Patriots have to start at some point. Or, as the Eagles have shown over the last few years, they just have to keep throwing darts at the board over and over again.

Weapons matter

It is no secret that the Patriots need to improve the supporting cast around sophomore quarterback Drake Maye, from the trenches to the skill players. Unless new offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels can work his magic with what is available, that latter group will need a near-total overhaul in the coming years.

Just look at it this way: the Eagles have A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith and Jahan Dotson as their top three wide receivers, all of whom selected within the first 51 picks in the draft; the Patriots’ top three at the position at the moment would be Kayshon Boutte, Kendrick Bourne and DeMario Douglas.

Obviously, acquiring a receiving corps of the Eagles’ quality takes both time and the right amount of luck. It also takes a willingness to invest, something Philadelphia showed when it signed running back Saquon Barkley to a three-year, $37.8 million contract last free agency.

Barkley was a difference maker for the team all year. And even though he was relatively quiet compared to his own lofty standards in the Super Bowl, his presence alone changed how the game was played: Kansas City made it its defensive priority not to let Barkley beat them on the ground, which in turn opened things up elsewhere on offense.

In terms of opportunities to make plays, quarterback and eventual game MVP Jalen Hurts was the main beneficiary of that. A multi-faceted QB not unlike Drake Maye, Hurts not only delivered the ball to his receiving weapons — Brown and Smith both scored touchdowns — he also gained a game-leading 72 yards on the ground.

All of that ties together, of course. Barkley’s presence influenced the defense, which influenced Hurts, who took advantage of his outstanding wide receiver duo. Had one piece looked different on Sunday, who knows if the Eagles offense would have been able to hang 40 points — including 7 via a pick-six — on a Chiefs team surrendering an average of only 19.4 points in its 19 games leading up to the Super Bowl.

Needless to say, weapons matter.

The Patriots, who have the resources to make investments in that regard this offseason, cannot underestimate their importance. While an elite quarterback has a “rising tide lifting all the boats” effect on an offense, Drake Maye is still a developing player at the position. Him maximizing his potential while throwing to the likes of Boutte, Bourne and Douglas — who are solid players but nowhere near what the Eagles have — seems unrealistic.

Coaching over concepts

Vic Fangio is a simple man with simple tastes.

OK, that may be a bit of a hyperbolic way to describe the Eagles’ defensive coordinator, but there is some truth to it. Fangio, unlike many of his brethren, likes to keep things simple from a schematic perspective. The Super Bowl, which saw his unit throttle the Chiefs offense, was a perfect illustration of that.

Fangio did not call a single blitz all day, instead relying on his front four to get the job done, which it did. Additionally, he also did not use an overly-complex mix of coverages to defend behind his front line: the Eagles relied heavily on zone coverage, with Cover 4 as their preferred shell of choice.

Fangio not mixing and matching looks on every play or dialing up exotic blitz and pressure packages is nothing new. The 66-year-old has been a purist throughout his career, and his approach to coaching has served him well.

For him, it’s essentially coaching over concepts.

That doesn’t mean he only runs basic-level looks, of course, but that his packages are not as extensive as those employed by other defensive coaches in the NFL. He basically asks his players not to do or consider a million different things every game, but rather that they do a reduced number of things at the highest possible level.

“He brought so much detail to this defense and called great games. Developed the coaches, developed the players,” said Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni after Sunday’s beatdown of the Chiefs.

That last part of what Sirianni said is where the Patriots come into play, a team that just completely rebuilt its defensive coaching staff and for the first time in a quarter century will not run a Bill Belichick-type operation on that side of the ball. What the unit will look like from a personnel and schematic perspective remains to be seen, but the lessons learned from Fangio and the Eagles still apply: coaching is of the utmost importance.

You can have the most eloquent defensive game plan, if you cannot teach the players properly and prepare them for game day it will not matter. Last year’s Patriots were a good example of that (as well as a cautionary tale for this year’s version of the team and its staff), as was the Eagles’ outstanding defensive performance on Sunday.