What do Super Bowl results tell us about Eagles and Chiefs when it comes to 2025 fantasy football drafts?

Kansas City Chiefs

Using any game-long stat from the Chiefs offense in the Super Bowl to make a point about a unit or player is flimsy at best and outright dishonest at worst.

By the time the second quarter ended, the game was 24-0 and the Chiefs offense was utterly flummoxed. Isiah Pacheco and Kareem Hunt combined for an outright pitiful three yards rushing in what was a perfect ending for one of the least explosive run games in the NFL this season. A pass-catching corps that felt lacking for most of the year couldn’t get off the line of scrimmage against a suffocating secondary, as JuJu Smith-Schuster was the leading receiver with 16 yards while playing 65% of the snaps. Most critically, the offensive line was en route to give up one of the biggest butt-whoopings we’ve seen in recent Super Bowl memory.

All of this suddenly caused a quarterback — the best player at his position in this era of the sport — who started to show immediate signs of bother under the wave of pressure and lost faith in his surroundings far too quickly. The lack of a counterpunch from Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid was disturbing but not altogether shocking when considering the players on the field for Kansas City.

Not to single out one player, especially the guy who is the best currently healthy Kansas City skill-position option, but just to show how little Chiefs stats matter from this game: Xavier Worthy finished the contest with one of the fattest boxscores in Super Bowl history — 8 receptions for 157 yards and two touchdowns — but he had one yard at halftime and a whole 9 yards by the time the game was 34-0 with less than three minutes left in the third quarter.

Now, the Chiefs close the books on a 2024 season that saw them scratch and claw their way to a 15-2 record and another Super Bowl appearance by winning on the margins only to get wiped off the field by a more talented team. All of these pain points on offense, combined with needs on the defensive line and secondary, will follow the Chiefs into an offseason that contains a sneaky long to-do list.

It’s difficult even to discuss the 2025 outlook for anyone on this offense as we stand here today because a lot of change should be on the table, in my opinion. And that’s not an overreaction to one game. The areas that turned out to be screaming problems for the Chiefs against the most talented team in football weren’t exactly silent all season.

The move to kick Joe Thuney out to left tackle was only made out of necessity because the plan to roll into the season with a rookie second-rounder as the starter was an outright disaster. Maybe Kingsley Suamataia is ready to rock in Year 2, but it would be negligent to walk into next season without another option at that spot. Making matters worse, it’s not the only area of concern on the line. Right tackle Jawaan Taylor has the third-highest guaranteed salary on the team next season but hasn’t been a consistent plus player and right guard Trey Smith is a candidate to walk in free agency. The Chiefs went hard at improving the offensive line after their last Super Bowl loss and they can’t afford to ignore it this offseason.

Outside of Worthy, you can talk me into anyone getting replaced in the skill-position department.

Pachecho was never really right after he came back from a broken fibula, so perhaps he’ll be fine enough to just run back as the starting rusher next season. Still, it wouldn’t shock me to see the Chiefs add another steady running back somewhere along the way to replace what they got out of Hunt at times this season. Pacheco was ceding critical snaps to Hunt in the postseason. If you want to draft him in fantasy next season, you better hope you can entirely write that off to the injury.

At wide receiver all of DeAndre Hopkins, JuJu Smith-Schuster, Justin Watson, Mecole Hardman and Marquise Brown are all scheduled to become free agents. Worthy is entrenched as a key contributor and the Chiefs found the right way to use him down the stretch. Some of that will overlap with Rashee Rice, who is a really good player, but just like Worthy, also needs a bit of role-catering as a slot/flanker hybrid who specilizes at beating zone-coverage on in-breakers. His presence would have helped but he doesn’t exaclty bring the skill-set that the Chiefs needed to beat that Eagles defense. Rice is also a coming back from a complicated knee injury and has a potential suspension hanging over his head from his arrest last summer. He’s not a lock to be a 17-game contributor next season.

As usual, I’ll be hoping the Chiefs add a specific archetype of receiver that they’ve neglected in recent years. I’m fully aware it likely falls on deaf ears.

Lastly, we need to be real about where Travis Kelce is at this stage. He’s one of the best tight ends to ever play the game but he’s two years into a steep decline. Unlike last season, he didn’t just magically turn up the dial in the postseason. We’re past the point where that can be something this team counts on. He’s actually one of the few players they can move on from and get some cap relief. I can’t imagine him wearing another uniform but it might be best for both parties if he walks away from the game, even if this is a pretty sour note to end his career. Either way, Kelce won’t find his way into my top-five tight end rankings for 2025 and whether he’s on this roster or not, the Chiefs may want to consider a real succession plan at the position.

So, all told, that’s a long list of areas that need addressing on this Chiefs roster. There is no chance they get to everything on both sides of the ball but so much possible change is on the table. I’m quite confident that no matter what happens, the presence of Mahomes, Andy Reid, Chris Jones and Steve Spagnulo is enough to make them contenders against next season. No organization has more built in equity of trust that they can get back. But with so much in flux in the orbit around the main entities of this team and so much possible change on the horizon, if someone is secure right now on February 10th in their ability to project the Chiefs offense or rank some of these players in fantasy football, they’re more confident than me.

Philadelphia Eagles

Unlike the team they beat in the Super Bowl, the Eagles have a lot of stability to rely on from a personnel standpoint on offense.

All of the key names we know as big-time fantasy football producers are slated to return and the only offensive lineman up for free agency is Mehki Becton. The former Jets first-round tackle was a revelatory find by GM Howie Roseman and, even if he had some blips in the postseason, enjoyed a tremendous career turnaround in moving to right guard. Becton’s ascension is just another feather in the cap of legendary offensive line coach and run game coordinator Jeff Stoutland. His presence is a big reason why this team should have all the faith in the world they can churn that spot and find another answer.

Defensively, they are likely to lose some guys. Another 2024 low-cost homerun addition was linebacker Zach Baun, who is up for free agency after an All-Pro campaign. Two of the heroes of the Super Bowl, Josh Sweat and Milton Williams, will see their contracts expire in March. The Eagles are very rarely in cap trouble because of how Jeffery Lurie allows Roseman to manage the salaries on the roster, so anything is possible, but my guess is Philly retains only one of those three names. The Eagles’ success is predicated on continually reinvesting in the trenches and I’d bet that double-down on it in a draft stocked with defensive line talent.

The only major variable of change coming to the offense is the all but certain departure of coordinator Kellen Moore, who looks primed to take the New Orleans Saints head coaching gig.

Moore’s departure will lock Jalen Hurts into playing under his fourth offensive play-caller in as many seasons. We’ve seen this not work out for this team before. The offense tried to rely on stability and promotion from within by elevating Brian Johnson from quarterback coach to offensive coordinator to replace Shane Steichen after 2022. The results weren’t ideal. On the other hand, Hurts has settled into a phase of his career where the offense has stability simply by his own style of play. Every offense becomes the Jalen Hurts offense. There will always be some level of limitations but the strengths overwhelm the weaknesses … especially when you have great players.

The good news? The Eagles have great players, all of whom are under contract and ready to return next season.

I feel pretty comfortable walking into 2025 expecting the main Eagles skill-position players to be ready to match, or at least in the case of Saquon Barkley, get within shouting distance of their 2024 rankings. Hurts will go off the board as a top-five quarterback. Count me in. Barkley will fight with Ja’Marr Chase to be the first overall player off the board. You won’t get an argument from me. Receivers A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith are still in the prime of their careers and should both push for top-20 point-per-game finishes, just as they did in 2024. Even Dallas Goedert should hang around the fringes of the TE1 discussion and a useful role player like Jahan Dotson will be back.

Stability beget by a unique approach to salary structure and tried and true “Football Guy” approach to roster-building through the trenches is the strength of this Eagles organization. All of those things combine to make this, once again, an offense to buy into next season fresh off a Super Bowl win.