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NEW ORLEANS — One of the biggest winners of Super Bowl 2025 hasn’t yet played a snap in the NFL.
Anyone who watched the reveal of Patrick Mahomes’ kryptonite as a stacked pass rush should simultaneously have pushed Penn State edge rusher Abdul Carter up their mock draft.
Overreaction to the Super Bowl is a real thing inside the NFL, but it might just be wise after the Eagles’ 40-22 win against the Chiefs to go from seeing Carter as a top four prospect in the 2025 class to the favorite at No. 1.
Quarterbacks Cam Ward and Shedeur Sanders aren’t can’t-miss prospects. Receiver/cornerback Travis Hunter is a scouting unicorn but — even if he plays on both sides of the ball (no guarantee) — will he make the same impact that a premier pass rusher would?
“There was nothing they could do,” Eagles defensive tackle Milton Williams said. “We knew they couldn’t block us up front. We have dawgs everywhere.”
The Chiefs offensive line featured three $72 million-plus investments and another blocker who will reach that threshold in free agency next month. Mahomes still was hit 11 times and sacked a career-high six times.
“In these games,” head coach Andy Reid said, “those lines get magnified a little bit.”
To Williams’ point, three pass rushers isn’t enough.
If you are the Giants holding the No. 3 pick with Brian Burns, Kayvon Thibodeaux and Dexter Lawrence on the field, why not target Carter and replicate your own blueprint of overlapping Justin Tuck and Osi Umenyiora with Michael Strahan and Jason Pierre-Paul?
Carter, who offers inside linebacker versatility, led the Big Ten with 24 tackles for loss, including 12 sacks.
He has drawn comparisons to Cowboys star Micah Parsons, who has 52.5 sacks as a defensive chess piece over a four-year career.
“When you win [matchups] on a four-man rush and you can just cycle guys through and they are still winning,” Eagles linebacker Zack Baun said, “you don’t have to blitz.”
The Eagles didn’t blitz on any of Mahomes’ 42 dropbacks, according to Next Gen Stats. He still faced the fifth-highest pressure rate (38.1 percent) of his 133-game career.
“I was just running around and … they let me go crazy,” edge rusher Josh Sweat said after a career-high 2.5 sacks. “I don’t think [Mahomes] was flustered really, but you can see hints of it once we started hitting them, for sure.”
The risk-highlighting irony of any team choosing Carter over Ward or Sanders is that a pass rusher went No. 1 overall in Mahomes’ draft class.
Myles Garrett is a future Hall of Famer, but the Browns surely would pick Mahomes (who slipped to No. 10, after quarterback bust Mitch Trubisky) on a do-over.
Carter’s first-step quickness should translate, but a quarterback-needy team is subject to ridicule if Ward or Sanders pans out.
“In order to make a team blitz, you have to be able to beat what they’re showing,” Mahomes said. “That’s what we didn’t do.”
Williams, Baun and Sweat are all free agents whose value might have been boosted by Super Bowl LIX’s script. The same goes for a soon-to-be rookie.
