NEW ORLEANS - For two weeks it was impossible to convince even Eagles fans that Vic Fangio was the best defensive coordinator in Super Bowl LIX.
The shadow of Super Bowl titles and Steve Spagnuolo was just too strong.
Now Fangio has his own Lombardi Trophy after a 40-22 "Super" win over the Kansas City Chiefs, culminating a 40-year coaching career and his status as the most copied defensive coach of the modern era with a game plan that should be put in Canton.
The Eagles captured their second Lombardi Trophy as a franchise fueled by an other-worldly dominance in the first half in which Philadelphia scored 24 points and Kansas City, with the best quarterback and offensive play-caller of the generation, mustered all of 23 yards on 20 offensive plays.
Fangio unfurled a quarters-heavy scheme that had Mahomes seeing ghosts. The best quarterback in the game was sacked three times in the opening 30 minutes and threw two back-breaking interceptions, a 38-yard pick-six to 22-year-old birthday boy Cooper DeJean, and a backed-up INT to a diving Zack Baun that set up the Eagles on a short field late in the half.
One Jalen Hurts and A.J. Brown converted the Baun turnover into a 12-yard touchdown late in the first half, the second 30 minutes might as well have been a coronation.
On the other side, the Eagles' top-tier offensive line handled Spagnuolo's blitzes more often than not and Kellen Moore allowed Jalen Hurts to play to his strengths with go routes that actually left meat on the bone because the answer was there consistently.
The story was Fangio and the players he had prepared who allowed one play of more than 10 yards until the third quarter when the game was secured, a quick throw to JuJu Smith-Schuster for 11 yards on Kansas City's opening play.
The Chiefs didn't convert a third down in the first half (0-for-6) and Mahomes retreated to the locker room with a 10.7 passer rating and virtually no chance to win a third-consecutive Super Bowl despite some padded garbage time-padded numbers from Kansas City in the second half.
Now the potential dynasty talk turns to the Eagles, who cashed in on their second Super Bowl appearance in three years and won their second Lombardi Trophy in eight years.
Ironically, the only thing that didn't click for the Eagles was the one everyone thought would. Kansas City held Saquon Barkley to a pedestrian 31 yards on 12 carries in the opening half while getting blown out of the building.
However, it was one of those nights. On the last play of the opening half, Barkley ran for two yards and passed Terrell Davis' all-time single-season rushing record of 2,476 yards ultimately ending one of his least-productive games of the season with 57 yards on 25 carries for a total of 2,504 yards .
Everything came up Eagles Sunday in the Crescent City.
