Best offseason ever? Where Eagles (and Chiefs) rank among Super Bowl teams: Sando’s Pick Six

No team in Super Bowl history loaded up to get there quite like the 1994 San Francisco 49ers. Jimmy Johnson’s rival Dallas Cowboys had won the previous two Super Bowls, beating the 49ers in the NFC Championship Game both times. Mike Holmgren’s Green Bay Packers were rising in the NFC. Free agency was new. Competition was palpable.

Then-49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr. opened his checkbook, adding future Hall of Famers Deion Sanders, Rickey Jackson and Richard Dent in free agency, plus Ken Norton Jr., Bart Oates and Gary Plummer. That all-in San Francisco team also traded up from No. 15 to No. 7 in the first round of the 1994 draft to select Bryant Young, who became a Hall of Famer.

Those 49ers beat the Cowboys in the NFC title game and won it all, covering an 18.5-point Super Bowl spread versus the San Diego Chargers.

An East Coast businessman with advanced degrees in psychology and social policy was taking detailed notes. Jeffrey Lurie, who purchased the Philadelphia Eagles that same year, said his team would be “as aggressive in the front office as we expect the players to be on the field.”

Lurie, more than most, always seems to be pushing. The “Dream Team” that his Eagles assembled in free agency 13 years ago crashed, but this year, the team’s most audacious bet — on former New York Giants running back Saquon Barkley — highlighted a historic offseason.

How good was it?

The Pick Six column heading into Super Bowl week leverages Pro Football Reference data to rank the offseason additions for all 110 conference champions since 1970. The 1994 49ers rank first and the 2024 Eagles are third in value added by rookie and veteran newcomers. The Eagles rank second in value added only by veterans, led by Barkley and linebacker Zack Baun.

We’ll lay out the details here and consider whether the Buffalo Bills should follow suit — all part of a jam-packed Pick Six as the Eagles and AFC champion Kansas City Chiefs arrive in New Orleans for Super Bowl LIX. The full menu:

• Best Super Bowl team offseasons
• Whether Bills need “Howie mode”
• Is time on Patrick Mahomes’ side?
• Barkley’s historic opportunity
• Spagnuolo not top playoffs DC?
• 2-minute drill: Belichick’s book

1. How good was the Eagles’ offseason? Their additions provided historic returns despite one big miss in free agency.

The 2024 Eagles are the only Super Bowl team since 1970 with two veteran additions (Barkley and Baun) who earned first-team Associated Press All-Pro honors, per Pro Football Reference. Fourteen other Super Bowl teams had one such newcomer apiece. The remaining 95 teams had zero.

Those two home runs for Philly more than offset an underwhelming initial return on a three-year, $51 million deal for former New York Jets pass rusher Bryce Huff.

While signing Barkley away from the division-rival Giants wasn’t quite as sweet as the 1994 49ers signing Sanders and Norton (the latter from the Cowboys) to help short-circuit a Dallas three-peat, it was arguably the best free-agent move any team made this season.

How to quantify such things?

Pro Football Reference’s Approximate Value (AV) metric (explained here) uses position-specific formulas reflecting team/unit success relative to league averages in assigning value to each player season. It’s logical and uniform across eras, making it useful for analysis.

The top four regular-season AV figures in NFL history, for example: 2006 LaDainian Tomlinson (26), 1999 Marshall Faulk (25), 2019 Lamar Jackson (25) and 1975 O.J. Simpson (25). All but Faulk won MVP in those seasons (Faulk’s teammate, Kurt Warner, was MVP in 1999).

The top four AV figures this season: Jackson (21), Josh Allen (20), Jayden Daniels (20) and Penei Sewell (19), followed by the Eagles’ Barkley and Baun among a group tied at 18.

The chart below plots all Super Bowl teams since 1970 by veteran newcomer AV (X axis) and rookie newcomer AV (Y axis). The 2024 Eagles stand out toward the far right as the team that added the second most AV through veteran newcomers, along with an average amount of AV through rookie newcomers. The Chiefs’ last five Super Bowl teams are in yellow.

Teams predating the 1993 advent of free agency added fewer veteran newcomers. The 1974 Steelers (upper left) were an extreme example. They got zero AV from veteran newcomers while ranking first in rookie AV, thanks to a draft class featuring five future Hall of Famers: Lynn Swann, Jack Lambert, John Stallworth, Mike Webster and Donnie Shell.

Lurie bought into the league in 1994, when free agency was new. The 49ers and Cowboys were signing impact players away from each other. Lurie dove into the action quickly, signing Ricky Watters from the 49ers in 1995, his first full offseason as the team’s owner, after first trying to sign center Mark Stepnoski away from the Cowboys.

Lurie reached the Super Bowl for the first time a decade later after acquiring another former 49ers star: Terrell Owens.

If Andy Reid drove the Eagles’ success in the 2000s as their coach at the time, general manager Howie Roseman has been the constant more recently. Super Bowl LIX will be the Eagles’ third in eight seasons, all with Roseman in charge of personnel.

Among all Super Bowl teams since 1970, the 2024 Eagles are tied with the 2021 Cincinnati Bengals for the third-highest total AV from veteran and rookie newcomers. I’ve listed the players for the top five teams below. Italics identify rookies and other players making their NFL debuts.

• 1994 49ers (100 total AV): Deion Sanders 18, Bart Oates 14, Derrick Deese 11, Bryant Young 7, Rickey Jackson 6, Gary Plummer 6, Ken Norton Jr. 6, Lee Woodall 5, Willam Floyd 5, Doug Brien 3, Ted Popson 2, Toi Cook 2, Ed McCaffrey 2, Elvis Grbac 2, Rhett Hall 2, Tony Peterson 1, Tim Harris 1, Dedrick Dodge 1, Richard Dent 1, Kevin Mitchell 1, Derek Loville 1, Tyronne Drakeford 1, Rod Milstead 1, Charles Mann 1.

• 2001 Patriots (90): Antowain Smith 12, Roman Phifer 9, Mike Compton 9, David Patten 9, Anthony Pleasant 9, Mike Vrabel 7, Matt Light 7, Richard Seymour 6, Bryan Cox 4, Terrell Buckley 3, Marc Edwards 3, Riddick Parker 2, Terrance Shaw 2, Larry Izzo 2, Hakim Akbar 1, Je’Rod Cherry 1, Jace Sayler 1, Ken Walter 1, Fred Coleman 1, Charles Johnson 1.

• 2024 Eagles (84): Saquon Barkley 18, Zack Baun 18, C.J. Gardner-Johnson 8, Mekhi Becton 7, Quinyon Mitchell 6, Cooper DeJean 5, Bryce Huff 4, Jahan Dotson 3, Oren Burks 2, Jalyx Hunt 2, Thomas Booker 2, Isaiah Rodgers 2, Jeremiah Trotter Jr. 2, Nick Gates 1, Tanner McKee 1, Kenny Pickett 1, Will Shipley 1, Ainias Smith 1.

• 2021 Bengals (84): Ja’Marr Chase 13, Trey Hendrickson 11, Larry Ogunjobi 8, Riley Reiff 7, Eli Apple 6, Chidobe Awuzie 5, Mike Hilton 4, Evan McPherson 4, Jackson Carman 4, Isaiah Prince 3, B.J. Hill 3, Wyatt Ray 2, Trey Hill 2, Joe Bachie 2, Chris Evans 2, Tre Flowers 1, Trae Waynes 1, Cameron Sample 1, Clay Johnston 1, Vernon Hargreaves III 1, D’Ante Smith 1, Ricardo Allen 1, Michael Thomas 1.

• 2019 Chiefs (76): Frank Clark 9, Tyrann Mathieu 9, Damien Wilson 7, Mecole Hardman 7, Juan Thornhill 6, Bashaud Breeland 6, LeSean McCoy 5, Alex Okafor 4, Martinas Rankin 3, Emmanuel Ogbah 3, Khalen Saunders 3, Stefen Wisniewski 2, Matt Moore 2, Darron Lee 2, Byron Pringle 2, Rashad Fenton 1, Blake Bell 1, Darwin Thompson 1, Morris Claiborne 1, Nick Allegretti 1, Mike Pennel 1.

The Chiefs’ 2019 team was out of the norm for Kansas City. The 2024 Chiefs have the lowest total AV added (38) of any of their Super Bowl teams in the Patrick Mahomes era. K.C.’s top additions by AV were first-round rookie Xavier Worthy (seven), running back Kareem Hunt (five) — who was signed in late September — and October trade acquisition DeAndre Hopkins (four).

The 2024 Eagles are one of three Super Bowl teams since 1970 with two veteran additions whose first-season AV with their new teams was 15 or higher. The 2022 Eagles (A.J. Brown, Haason Reddick) and 2007 Patriots (Randy Moss, Wes Welker) are the others.

The table below shows all veteran newcomers with 15-plus AV seasons for Super Bowl teams since 1970. Eagles players from 2024 and 2002 are shaded blue.

Notice the trend? Philly tends to take big swings on offensive skill-position players.

The Eagles’ 2017 Super Bowl team featured another prominent receiver new to Philly: Alshon Jeffery, who led that team with nine touchdown catches. Owens, signed by the Eagles heading into their 2004 Super Bowl season, missed two games due to injury but still had a solid 12 AV while earning Pro Bowl and first-team All-Pro honors.

Plenty of teams have loaded up on free agents without reaching the Super Bowl. Plenty got there without loading up. In the Eagles’ case, no one can call them complacent. The degree to which they overhauled their team sets them apart.

The two Super Bowl teams ahead of Philadelphia in newcomer AV (1994 49ers, 2001 Patriots) both had new defensive coordinators as well (Ray Rhodes for San Francisco, Romeo Crennel for New England). Those teams’ scoring defenses jumped from middle of the pack to second and sixth, respectively.

The 2024 Eagles switched coordinators on both sides of the ball. They remained seventh in scoring while jumping from 30th to second in points allowed. The have legitimate candidates for Offensive Player of the Year (Barkley), Defensive Player of the Year (Baun), Defensive Rookie of the Year (Mitchell, DeJean) and Assistant Coach of the Year (Vic Fangio). Their offensive coordinator, Kellen Moore, appears likely to become next head coach of the New Orleans Saints.

That’s tough to top.

2. Do the Bills need to pull a Philly Special in the coming offseason?

Four of the Buffalo Bills’ past five seasons ended with playoff defeats to the Chiefs, including twice in the championship round. That led a reporter to ask GM Brandon Beane whether the team needed to do something extra to finally reach a Super Bowl. Beane did not rule out making an expensive addition, but he left a strong impression Buffalo would stay the course.

“You’re never one player away,” Beane said. “That is a dangerous mindset to get into.”

Is staying the course enough with the Chiefs in the way?

The Bills resemble the 1970s Oakland Raiders.

Chuck Noll’s Pittsburgh Steelers and Don Shula’s Miami Dolphins made the AFC treacherous back then. Those Raiders teams, led by future Hall of Famers in owner Al Davis, coach John Madden and quarterback Kenny Stabler, lost three times to Pittsburgh and once to Miami in the playoffs from 1972 to ’75. That included three consecutive defeats in the AFC Championship Game.

That Raiders team finally broke through in 1976, beating an injury-diminished Steelers team in the AFC title game before routing Minnesota in the Super Bowl.

The Raiders didn’t do it by standing pat.

Davis, then in his resourceful prime, signed 6-foot-8, 272-pound defensive end John Matuszak during the 1976 season. Matuszak, the first pick in the 1973 draft, had clashed with coaches, bouncing from the Houston Oilers to the Chiefs and Washington before finally getting cut. He blossomed in Oakland under Madden, an expert in getting the most from other teams’ outcasts. The Raiders won two Super Bowls with Matuszak, going 8-1 in the playoffs with him.

“Buffalo needs somebody who is just going to freaking floor it and get there,” an exec from another team said, “instead of, ‘Hey, let’s keep ourselves in it and things will break our way eventually.’ That is all fine and good, and maybe eventually you do break through, but the reality is, if you make a go-for-it move, whatever that may be, the whole building feels that and it takes everyone’s game up a level.”

The Bills tried that by acquiring Stefon Diggs from Minnesota in 2020. They made another aggressive move in signing Von Miller three years ago.

Lurie’s Eagles lost in three consecutive NFC title games in the early 2000s. They added Owens in 2004 and reached the Super Bowl with him, but that marriage ended poorly. The Chargers of the later 2000s had Philip Rivers and a very good team around him, but couldn’t get past Tom Brady and Peyton Manning in the AFC. Manning himself failed to reach a Super Bowl until his ninth season at age 30. Allen enters Year 8 in 2025 at 29.

“Buffalo has a heckuva team, and they have gotten younger, but in the AFC, you are chasing generational quarterbacks in Mahomes and Lamar,” another exec said. “How are you going to overcome those two guys, by doing the same thing? I’d be desperate.”

If Beane is desperate, he’s hiding it well. He also could simply be taking a strategic approach. Setting high expectations for the offseason now would serve no purpose. The team has nearly six months until training camp begins.

“We also have guys coming up on extensions, so I don’t expect us to be big spenders in free agency,” Beane said. “We still have to manage this cap. We are not going to set this thing up to go into a year where we have to strip it all down while we have No. 17 (Josh Allen). We want to give him every chance, every single year, to see if that team in ’25, ’26, ’27 and as many years as he can play, can contend for a title.”

3. Is time on Patrick Mahomes’ side? These numbers suggest otherwise.

This isn’t exactly breaking news, but if a defense can take away Mahomes’ initial quick throws, force him to hold the ball and pressure him, beating the Chiefs becomes much easier.

Just about any football fan could tell us that, but the degree to which this appears true for Mahomes borders on the extreme.

The Chiefs have won 80 percent of Mahomes’ regular-season and playoff starts over the years, so when they lose, their defeats invite study. A striking pattern emerges when sorting Mahomes’ starts by average time to throw or sack. He wins almost all the games when the ball comes out of his hand quickly, while losing almost all the games when he holds the ball longest.

The correlation between winning and how quickly, on average, the quarterback throws the ball or takes a sack is stronger for Mahomes than for  Allen and Jackson, other top quarterbacks with scrambling ability.

Kansas City has a 2-8 record in the 10 games when Mahomes held onto the ball longest on average. As the chart below shows, Mahomes’ game-level production, measured by EPA per play, declines as his game-level average time to throw increases, per TruMedia.

To envision Mahomes struggling is to picture him unable to find open receivers quickly. Pressure mounting, Mahomes holds onto the ball longer. He scrambles and finally takes a sack, throws incomplete or throws for a short gain.

Tampa Bay accomplished this against Mahomes in the Super Bowl after the 2020 season. Denver did it against Mahomes in Week 8 of 2023. The Raiders beat him twice this way, in Week 5 of 2020 and Week 16 of 2023. Those four games and the 2018 AFC title game against New England produced Mahomes’ five longest time-to-throw (or sack) games. Kansas City lost all five.

Opponents have pressured Mahomes on 34 percent of pass plays in his career. The Eagles pressured him at a 37 percent clip when they faced Kansas City in the Super Bowl two seasons ago, but as the table below shows, Mahomes’ average time to throw or sack in that game — 2.69 seconds — was the second-fastest of his career in the playoffs. It was the 19th-fastest for all of his games. Kansas City has a 30-1 record when Mahomes’ average time to throw or sack is less than 2.79 seconds.

Poor footing on the natural grass at State Farm Stadium in Arizona contributed to the Eagles’ inability to harass Mahomes more effectively two years ago. This time, the teams will play in the Superdome on an artificial surface called Turf Nation S5.

Can the Eagles get quick pressure? Can they cover Mahomes’ receivers initially? These were always important questions. The data helps drive home just how important they can be for pulling off the toughest trick in the NFL: beating the Chiefs when Mahomes is in the lineup for Kansas City.

The Chiefs are 8-0 with Mahomes in the lineup when current Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio has called plays for the opposing defense. Those games are stacked in the table below by Mahomes’ quickest to slowest time to throw or sack.

Fangio faced Mahomes twice while in the same role with Miami last season, and six times while head coach of the Denver Broncos.

4. Saquon Barkley has put Terrell Davis on alert. John Riggins should be safe unless Barkley does what only five running backs have done to a Steve Spagnuolo-led defense.

If Barkley breaks a long run to secure a victory over Kansas City, will he slide to the ground so his team can drain the game clock by kneeling down? He did it against Green Bay in the wild-card round, costing him up to 59 additional yards.

As a result, Barkley still needs 30 rushing yards in the Super Bowl to break Davis’ NFL single-season record for combined rushing yards in the regular season and playoffs. He needs 169 yards to break Riggins’ record for most rushing yards in a single postseason.

Barkley has had at least 47 yards rushing in every game this season. He reached 169 yards three times and had 167 in another game.

Only five running backs have reached 169 yards in 268 total games against a defense featuring Spagnuolo as either head coach or defensive coordinator, per TruMedia. Four of those backs hit that benchmark against Spagnuolo-led defenses that were in rebuilding mode with the Rams or Saints more than a decade ago. Derrick Henry is the only back to rush for that many yards against the Chiefs in the 118-game Spagnuolo era.

Lamar Jackson is the only player to top 100 yards rushing against the Chiefs this season. He had 122 in Week 1. No one else reached even 85 yards on the ground against Kansas City during the regular season.

Joe Mixon (88 yards) and James Cook (85) fared slightly better against the Chiefs in the playoffs.

One reason: limited carries. Mixon’s 18 carries against the Chiefs in the divisional round were the most by any player against Kansas City this season. No one else has had more than 16. Chiefs games have had fewer combined possessions than any other team’s games this season. Of course, Barkley can take any carry the distance, so he might not need volume to break out.

5. What makes Spagnuolo so good? Statistics do not tell the story.

Spagnuolo is one of 17 defensive coordinators with at least 10 playoff games in the role since 2000. He ranks first among them in win rate (.833) with a 20-4 record. He ranks first in NFL history among defensive coordinators with four Super Bowl rings.

When the Chiefs need the perfect call, Spagnuolo is famous for delivering.

But in looking at all defensive coordinators with at least 10 playoff games since 2010, Jim Johnson and Wade Phillips rise to the top as clear leaders in points allowed per game on defense, touchdowns allowed per game and EPA per play. Spagnuolo’s playoff defenses ranked 12th in points allowed, 10th in touchdowns allowed and 13th in EPA per play.

Phillips’ defenses allowed a combined 23 points in two Super Bowls since 2000. That was good enough for Denver to beat Carolina 24-10, but not enough for the Rams to beat New England (the Patriots won that Super Bowl, 13-3). Phillips’ defenses allowed 14 or fewer points in seven of his 17 playoff games as a coordinator since 2000. He faced Tom Brady four times in the postseason and had two games against Brett Favre, one against Peyton Manning and one against Drew Brees.

Johnson’s Philadelphia defenses under then-Eagles coach Andy Reid allowed 15.5 points per game in 17 playoff games from 2000 to ’08, when scoring across the league was lower. He faced Kurt Warner twice in the playoffs and also had games against Brees, Favre and Brady. Spagnuolo was on those staffs until leaving to become the Giants’ defensive coordinator in 2007.

Spagnuolo’s first Giants defense held the previously unbeaten Patriots to 14 points, less than half their season average, and a season-low 4.0 yards per play in a 17-14 Super Bowl upset for the ages. His playoff resume includes four games against the Bills’ Allen, another Super Bowl victory over Brady, two games against Joe Burrow and one apiece against Aaron Rodgers, Favre and Ben Roethlisberger.

“Spags has a great mind for the game and adjusts very well,” a former Spagnuolo associate who works for another team said. “His ability isn’t necessarily going to show up on a per-play basis. Part of that is roster construction. The Chiefs built their team to outscore people. Spags is just a very thoughtful coordinator and play caller. He has some good players, but he also has a vision for how to use them and is very good at identifying who he has, what they do and what he needs.”

6. Two-minute drill: Move over, Bill Walsh? Belichick’s book faces competition

Bill Belichick’s forthcoming book, “The Art of Winning: Lessons From My Life in Football,” will hopefully live up to what should be sky-high expectations.

It’s difficult to imagine there’s anyone alive possessing a greater understanding of the game and its history. I pre-ordered a copy for delivery in May and will be eager to see how Belichick’s book compares to “Finding the Winning Edge,” the Bill Walsh book that remains so coveted that copies can fetch $1,000 or more.

“To me, that’s a bible for running a pro football team,” Belichick said of Walsh’s book in 2007. “Just about everything in there has application to every football team, every coach, every general manager, every personnel director. I can’t imagine anyone in this league reading that book and not saying they got a lot out of it.”

This book from Walsh reads more like a manual than a memoir, with detailed thoughts on the roles and qualifications for staff throughout an organization.

Walsh spent 10 years as an NFL head coach and won primarily with Joe Montana as his quarterback. Belichick had a 249-75 (.769) record with Brady as his quarterback. The record was only 87-107 (.448) otherwise. Here’s hoping Belichick addresses that gap in addition to the team-building strategies he implemented so effectively.

• From Walsh to Reid: Walsh’s top offensive assistant with the 49ers, Mike Holmgren, wrote the foreword to his “Winning Edge” book and went on to reach Super Bowls with two quarterbacks (Favre, Matt Hasselbeck) at different franchises (Green Bay and Seattle). It’s one reason he’s a Hall of Fame finalist this year.

Holmgren’s top assistant in Green Bay, Reid, has also gone to Super Bowls with two quarterbacks across two franchises.

That’s the link from Walsh to Reid.

• From Reid to Shula: The Chiefs’ 17-2 record this season, counting playoffs, has brought Reid to 301 wins. He needs 33 to pass Belichick for second on the all-time list. He needs 47 to pass Don Shula for the top spot.

Reid, who turns 67 in March, has averaged 15.75 total wins per season since the NFL adopted a 17-game schedule in 2021. That average ticks upward to 16.0 per season if the Chiefs win Super Bowl LIX. Maintaining that pace brings into play the possibility of Reid tying or passing Shula in the Super Bowl after the 2027 season.

That wouldn’t be a bad way for Reid to go out.

(Photo of Saquon Barkley: Mitchell Leff / Getty Images)