The Super Bowl is the most prestigious football game of the NFL season, with the two greatest teams of the year battling for the trophy. The Kansas City Chiefs have played in the coveted Super Bowl three years in a row, intending to three-peat their winning luck, which has never been done before.
The Philadelphia Eagles ended their streak and came out on top for the big game with a final score of 40-22. This is the second time the Eagles have gone against Kansas City in five years, getting a rematch of the 2022 Super Bowl where the Chiefs took the win.
Super Bowl LIX was held in New Orleans on February 9th, 2025, in the Ceaser Superdome. The stadium was sold out, and 65,719 people attended.
The game was jam-packed with not only fans and rowdy crowds but also big celebrities and politicians. These familiar faces include Taylor Swift, Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga, Pete Davidson, and Donald Trump, who made history as the first president in office to attend a Super Bowl. Tom Brady was also in attendance, on the mic instead of the field, as a full-time announcer for Fox Network.
Before the game could start, Lady Gaga performed on Bourbon Street in New Orleans to “celebrate the lives of recent U.S. tragedies such as the New Year’s truck attack in New Orleans, the Los Angeles wildfires, and the plane crash in Washington D.C.” according to USA Today. She paraded down Bourbon playing Hold My Hand – a song she curated for Top Gun: Maverick.
The pre-kickoff show also included The Southern University Marching Band (The Human Jukebox), Terence Blanchard, the Soul Rebels, The Original Pinettes (the only all-female brass band in New Orleans), and the Spirit of New Orleans Gospel Choir. The performance also included a special performance by Harry Connick Jr. with the help of Leroy Jones on trumpet and Freddie Lonzo on trombone.
Grammy award-winning Jon Batiste performed The Star Spangled Banner on a colorful piano with The Joint Armed Forces Color Guard. The Color Guard members repped their branch flags, and one held the American flag. America The Beautiful was performed by Lauren Daigle and Trombone Shorty signed by Stephanie Nogueras, who also signed the National Anthem, after a moment of silence for Virginia Halas McCaskey – the owner of the Chicago Bears.
The next, and final performance before kickoff was the performance of Lift Every Voice And Sing performed by Ledisi and an all-black women’s choir. It has become a sudo tradition for the performance of the often referred to Black National Anthem for the past three years.
It wasn’t kickoff yet – as we finished the performances, the team captains and representatives came out to the field for the coin toss. Because Kansas City was the dedicated visitor of the game, their call was on tails. The coin landed right on tails and the Chiefs called the second-half opener, meaning the Eagles would get the ball for kickoff.
The opening drive was a pass to Barkly #26 with a first run of 4 yards. The Eagles grabbed the first touchdown of the night by Jahan Dotson with 6 minutes left in the first. But the refs called the touchdown incomplete because Dotson’s knee was down just before getting into the endzone. Starting at 1 yard away from the endzone, quarterback Jalen Hurts scored the first official touchdown of the night. With the extra point, the score lands at 7-0. Getting closer and closer to the second touchdown of the night, Hurts went for the pass to A.J. Brown but was intercepted by Bryan Cook.
Another couple of plays by the Chiefs of incomplete passes and the ball is handed over to the Eagles who have been dominating the game so far. Philly goes for a 43-yard field goal attempt which would have been good if not for the flag on the play. False start from the Chiefs, a 5-yard penalty. The Eagles attempted 48 yards and it was good, the score 10-0 with 8 minutes left in the second. The ball over to the Chiefs, Mahomes got sacked for both the first and second play and the third was an interception by Cooper DeJean and he ran to the touchdown at 7 minutes left in the half, 17-0.
The third flag of the night was at 2 minutes left in the half by #32 Nick Bolton from the Chiefs for unnecessary roughness as a 15-yard penalty. Another interception by the Eagles set them up at the 10-yard line for a touchdown by A.J. Brown. Making the extra point, the score landed at 24-0 Philly in the lead, 1 off of the largest halftime lead in history.
Speaking of halftime, it was finally time for the long-awaited performance of Kendrick Lamar. The rapper played a total of 10 songs in his halftime setlist such as Not Like Us, Humble, DNA, etc. There were a lot of familiar faces in his show like SZA, Mustard, Samuel L. Jackson, and Serena Williams as well as all of the backup dancers were only people of color. The stage was set up like a PlayStation controller and Lamar went from button to button, while Samuel L. Jackson as Uncle Sam critiqued him on how he played the “American Game.”
Though there are no definite meanings to this performance, fans theorized that the messages may mean that the United States is going in the wrong direction of history or that Lamar was going in the wrong direction of what Uncle Sam wanted in his performance. There were also theories that the reason all of the dancers made the American flag was to symbolize America being built on the work of Black people.
As the second half started, Mahomes was sacked almost immediately by Jordan Davis. Another sack to Mahomes by Josh Sweat directly after made that the fifth sack of the game by Philly. The ball came back to the Eagles, and they went for a 29-yard field goal attempt, which was good. The score landed at 27-0 with 5 minutes left in the third. The Chiefs gained back the ball and there was a flag on offense #74 for holding by Jawaan Taylor. Soon after the Egles intercepted the ball with one play and scored a touchdown on the next by DeVonta Smith, the score at 34-0 with 2 minutes left in the third. With only 30 seconds left in the third, Kansas City made their first touchdown of the night by Xavier Worthy and finally put them on the board with a score of 34-6 missing the extra point conversion.
Right back to the Eagles, they try for a 48-yard field goal attempt and it was good, the score at 37-6 with 9 minutes left in the game. Philly then went for a 50-yard attempt and scored at 40-6 with 6 minutes left. Getting into the last 5 minutes, Kansas City scored a touchdown by DeAndre Hopkins totaling 40-12. The Chiefs then went for the two-point conversion, which was good, and landed the score at 40-14. With only 2 minutes left, the Eagles grab the ball but it’s not over yet, because the Chiefs ended up grabbing another touchdown by Xavier Worthy. With the Chief’s 2-point gain, the final score was 40-22 and the Philadelphia Eagles let the clock run down, and are Super Bowl Champions. Though fans doubted their commitment to the win, the Eagles brought out the heat and took away the Chief’s chance to a three-peat.
After the game Coach Sirianni said, “God has blessed us very much. He gave us all the talents to be here, so first and foremost thanks to him… Offense, defense, special teams, coaching staff, these great players, we never cared about what anyone thought about how we won, or their opinions. All we wanted to do was win. Thank you, Jesus.”
