One position can make or break Super Bowl hopes — and it's not quarterback

When the Philadelphia Eagles thoroughly dominated the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl 59, it was a rebuke of an especially popular 21st century football adage: Quarterback is the most important position in football

When the Philadelphia Eagles thoroughly dominated the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl 59, it was a rebuke of an especially popular 21st century football adage: Quarterback is the most important position in football.

While Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts is accomplished in his own right, almost nobody outside Philadelphia would claim he’s a better passer than Patrick Mahomes. Yet, as last season’s championship game showed, there’s one position unit that’s also inextricably tied to ultimate team success: the offensive line.

“Everything starts on the line,” Los Angeles Rams offensive tackle Rob Havenstein told NBC News during the team’s training camp. “When everything goes bad, it always starts on the line, too. It’s so hard to convey what the inline have to do on a day-to-day basis.”

Perhaps nobody knows better than Mahomes how badly things can go when the offensive line isn’t performing. When the Chiefs play the Eagles in a Super Bowl rematch Sunday, Mahomes will face the remnants of a defensive line that pressured him 16 times and sacked him six times in February — all without ever sending a blitz.

Philadelphia’s front four overwhelmed Kansas City’s front five in that matchup, and Mahomes finished the game with a quarterback rating of 10.0, his worst single-game mark since 2021. (In Mahomes’ other Super Bowl loss, he was pressured on over 50% of his dropbacks.)