This isn’t the first post of its kind—not on this site or from this author. It’s the one where, as the dust from the Super Bowl settles, there’s an attempt to decipher just how the champion pulled it off.
Championship-caliber quarterbacks? Elite defenses? Injury-resilient rosters? Accomplished head coaches? Well, Philadelphia’s exhilarating destruction of the Death Star defeat of the Patriots complicates the preceding platitudes.
Not to take anything away from the Eagles’ defense, but it played nothing like the top five unit it was all season. Tom Brady found wide-open targets throughout the contest on his way to 505 passing yards, eclipsing the record he set (466 yards) against the Falcons last February.