The Philadelphia Eagles proved that the Kansas City Chiefs are not invincible. After the beating that Patrick Mahomes and company suffered in Super Bowl LIX, all the AFC teams will want to copy head coach Nick Sirianni’s blueprint, but Jason McCourty warned that one of them is ahead of the rest.
On Sunday, February 9, at the New Orleans Superdome, Jalen Hurts and his Eagles gave a masterclass on how to crush Mahomes and Travis Kelce’s Chiefs. Their defense was immovable and their offense was unstoppable, defeating the three-time Super Bowl champions by a resounding 40-22.
However, McCourty cautioned that Philadelphia’s success was not built overnight. The former New England Patriots safety said the front office worked all season to retain a core of players, adding talent in key areas, a strategy that the Cincinnati Bengals are replicating this season.
Cincinnati is the Chiefs’ next threat
Speaking to The Rich Eisen Show, McCourty said the Bengals are replicating the blueprint laid out by the Eagles. “We watched Joe Burrow make his plea to management, saying, ‘Hey, we watched the Eagles build a team, we watched contracts being restructured.’ He gave them the whole blueprint on how to do it.”
The Super Bowl LIII champion insisted that the Bengals quarterback is “out here playing 4D chess. He’s telling Cincy’s front office, ‘Keep Chase and Higgins.'” The latter in reference to receivers Tee Higgins and Ja’Marr Chase, who are key pieces in Burrow’s artillery.
McCourty explained that Burrow’s demands come at a time when Higgins has become a free agent, while Chase has one year left on his contract.
“He’s trying to implore them by saying, ‘You know what, go ahead and sign all of these guys, keep our offense together, and we have a chance to do exactly what the Eagles have done. The flip side of that, the other part, is that you got hit in the draft,'” the player-turned-analyst said.
Bengals are ahead of the game
Even though their season ended in early January, Cincinnati’s management has not rested and is already looking for ways to retain players like Higgins and Chase. “We’ve had those preliminary discussions,” Burrow said in statements to NFL Network.
The Bengals signal-caller detailed, “It’s really early in the offseason, so those guys and their agents will start to have those discussions coming up.” If they do their job right, the Bengals will be a serious threat to a Chiefs team that is just beginning to see what it did wrong last year.
