A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
This year's Super Bowl is all set.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
The Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles are set for a rematch of the big game from two seasons ago. The Chiefs won that game, and last year's, too. Now they're looking to be the first team in Super Bowl history to go back to back to back.
MARTÍNEZ: NPR sports correspondent Becky Sullivan joins us now from Philadelphia. So, Becky, I mean, the Chiefs, one game away from being the...
BECKY SULLIVAN, BYLINE: Yeah.
MARTÍNEZ: ...First team in NFL history to win three straight Super Bowls if they can do it. So why hasn't that happened before? I mean, I know that football is hard, but come on.
SULLIVAN: Yeah.I mean, it really is crazy. And before I answer your question, actually, like, I mean, just to point out, this has happened multiple times in Major League Baseball, in the NBA, in the NHL in fairly recent history, in fact, in some of those. So the fact that it hasn't happened with Super Bowls, I think is pretty wild. And so there's a lot of reasons for it - there's more injuries in football, the rosters, the team sizes, they're just bigger. So it's harder to keep core groups together year to year. Good teams have coaches get poached away. Kansas City has been lucky in those ways. And injuries helped take down other contenders this year like we saw with the Detroit Lions. Chiefs have been mostly healthy, able to find replacements for players. And the team - a lot of the team's important players have stayed in place, led, of course, by quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who has just been tremendous in the playoffs. Very close game last night with the Buffalo Bills. Back and forth a lot. Came down to the final few minutes. The Chiefs won it 32 to 29. And I think a lot of people have really come to see their success in the playoffs as inevitable.
MARTÍNEZ: They're really good. They also get a lot of breaks, but, you know, there you go. I'm...
SULLIVAN: One could say.
MARTÍNEZ: ...An AFC West person, so I can see it twice a year every year. You're in Philadelphia, though. You...
SULLIVAN: Yeah.
MARTÍNEZ: At the Eagles game yesterday, how did they get done?
SULLIVAN: Oh, yeah. They played the Washington Commanders who were this year's playoff Cinderella story. But they really - the Eagles came out and really set this tone right away. So first quarter - start of the first quarter, Commanders have the ball first. It took them just so much effort to get down the field on that first drive. It was an 18-play drive. They were just getting a few yards at a time, were held to a field goal. Then the Eagles get the ball, and on their very first play from scrimmage, their star running back Saquon Barkley broke free for a 60-yard touchdown. His teammates afterward were just singing praises about how that play started things off for them. And here's Eagles offensive lineman Jordan Mailata.
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JORDAN MAILATA: I don't know, man. I wish we had a camera in our helmet. So you guys could just see that view. Truly special. I was just running after him trying to make sure that, you know, if anything happened, if he fumbled the ball, jump on it. But, man. Got into the house.
SULLIVAN: Yeah.
MARTÍNEZ: (Laughter).
SULLIVAN: And there were just a lot of unforced errors by the Commanders - three fumbles, an interception, some consequential penalties. But honestly, the Eagles, I thought, just looked better. I mean, they scored 55 points. Hard to argue with that.
MARTÍNEZ: Yes. I mean, that's a lot of points in any game, much less a playoff game. So one thing though, Becky, I mean, of the four teams that played on Sunday, the Chiefs and Eagles might have been the Super Bowl matchup that the fewest people may have been open for.
SULLIVAN: I definitely think you're right about that. I think people understandably have some Chiefs fatigue. This is their fifth Super Bowl appearance in the past six years. Even the Tom Brady New England Patriots dynasty never did that. That's a lot of, you know, having one dynasty ruled over by Brady in the AFC conference. Now you have the Chiefs showing their grip on that conference, too. On the other side, Philly has also been really successful in recent years. They won it all in the 2017 season. Of course, they appeared with the Chiefs a couple of years ago. But both teams have looked like contenders all season, I think. And so the Super Bowl, now it's just under two weeks away. I think there's a lot to look forward to.
MARTÍNEZ: Countdown begins. That's NPR's Becky Sullivan. Becky, thanks.
SULLIVAN: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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