By Jimmy Kempski,Shane Haff

Copyright phillyvoice

In Week 2 of the NFL season, the Philadelphia Eagles will travel to Kansas City for a rematch of Super Bowl LIX against the Chiefs. Here are our five things to watch.

1) The Chiefs could be without their top two wide receivers, and Travis Kelce seems to be in decline

The Chiefs’ top two receivers are Rashee Rice and Xavier Worthy.

Rice had 79 catches for 938 yards and 7 TDs as a rookie in 2023. His 2024 season was off to a great start, as he caught 24 passes for 288 yards and two TDs in the first three games before he injured his LCL and hamstring. He missed the rest of the season, and was the Chiefs’ most notable player to miss the Super Bowl. This offseason, Rice caused a car crash when he was driving like a maniac at 119 MPH, while weaving around traffic (video here). Rice was suspended for the first six games of the season. He won’t play.

Worthy was the Chiefs’ first-round pick in 2024. In his rookie season, Worthy had 59 catches for 638 yards and 6 TDs as a receiver, and he added 104 yards and 3 TD on rushes. He is perhaps best known for running the fastest 40 time in the history of the NFL Combine, where he ran a 4.21. He was also the star of the garbage time portion of Super Bowl LIX against the Eagles’ backups. Worthy reportedly suffered a dislocated shoulder in the Chiefs’ Week 1 loss to the Chargers in Brazil, and is unlikely to play Week 2.

With Rice and Worthy both out, the Chiefs’ top two receivers are Hollywood Brown and JuJu Smith-Schuster.

Brown got 16 targets Week 1, with Rice out and Worthy leaving early. He often seemed to not be on the same page with Patrick Mahomes, as Mahomes passes often went where Brown wasn’t. He also failed to make defenders miss after the catch. Here are his 16 targets, via @NickPenticoff:

Brown finished with 10 catches for 99 yards.

After one of his best seasons in 2022 when he had 78 catches for 933 yards, Smith-Schuster had two unproductive seasons with New England in 2023 (29-260-1) and then back in Kansas City again in 2024 (18-231-2).

The other receiver who got a lot of playing time Week 1 was Tyquan Thornton, another speedster who ran a 4.28 at the 2022 NFL Combine. Thornton was waived by the Patriots during the 2024 season, and spent the rest of the season on the Chiefs’ practice squad. He signed a futures contract in February, and made the 53-man roster out of training camp this year.

In their Week 1 win over the Cowboys, the Eagles struggled covering CeeDee Lamb, George Pickens, and the Dallas receivers. The commonly toasted corner was Adoree’ Jackson, who Vic Fangio said will likely start again on Sunday. Expect the Chiefs to attack Jackson, though certainly Lamb and Pickens are both better than anyone who will line up at receiver for the Chiefs.

And then there’s Kelce, who is arguably the best receiving tight end in NFL history. Kelce had seven consecutive 1000-yard seasons from 2016 to 2022, but his production dipped in 2023, and then again in 2024. While still a top 5 type of tight end, he is not the ultra-elite player he once was.

In Week 1 against the Chargers, everything the Chiefs tried to do offensively seemed to be a struggle, and far too dependent on Mahomes making Houdini-like plays.

2) The Chiefs don’t exactly have a stellar run game, either

Against the Chargers Week 1, Mahomes dropped back to pass 45 times. He attempted 39 passes, and scrambled six times. Andy Reid only ran it with his running backs 10 times. Isaiah Pacheco and Kareem Hunt combined for those 10 carries for 41 yards.

Their top two backs in 2024 were also Hunt and Pacheco, who combined for 3.7 yards per carry:

Hunt and Pecheco combined for two runs of 20+ yards. Pacheco’s lone run of 20+ yards was 34 yards. Hunt’s was 20 yards. They are not game breakers.

The Chiefs’ leading rusher Week 1 was Mahomes, who ran six times for 57 yards and a TD. In recent seasons, Mahomes has taken advantage of his star status by drawing unnecessary roughness penalties near the sidelines. He has a habit of stepping out of bounds just before he’s about to be tackled by an oncoming defender, and then acting like he got shot by a bazooka if the defender so much as breathes on him.

Against the Chargers, CB Donte Jackson conceded that Mahomes was going to step out of bounds and pulled up from hitting him. Knowing full-well that Jackson’s guard was down, Mahomes threw a shoulder into him, and knocked Jackson to the ground.

That is a punk-ass cheap shot, in my opinion.

So, Eagles defenders have to be smart when Mahomes is near the sidelines. On the one hand, they must be conscious that Mahomes is master at baiting officials into throwing flags for weak penalties. On the other hand, if they have a chance light him up legally, they absolutely should.

During his Tuesday press conference, Vic Fangio got asked about Mahomes’ sideline chicanery:

Question: “I’m curious if you saw the Chiefs-Chargers game where Patrick Mahomes was running towards the sideline, the corner kind of conceded, ‘Okay, he can go out of bounds,’ and then Mahomes ran him over. Then other times, you see Mahomes near the sideline, gets hit very lightly, acts like he got shot. So, what’s the teaching point there in terms of him riding the sideline like that?”

Fangio: “Always be aware when you’re near the sideline for all those points you just brought up. One, the quarterback flopping going out of bounds. Two, the quarterback lowering his shoulder and tries to get the last piece of business in there. You have to play with good bent knees and be ready for anything that happens. But Mahomes is the ultimate competitor and it doesn’t surprise me to see him do that.”

I love that Fangio basically acknowledged that Mahomes is a flopper. But I suppose my takeaway here is also that the Eagles seem to have a plan for his nonsense.

3) Where might the Eagles go #Feastin’?

In Super Bowl LIX, the Chiefs’ offensive line looked like this:

Humphrey and Smith are both very good at C and RG, respectively. They spent much of the Super Bowl double-teaming Jalen Carter.

The other three spots were major problems. Over the course of the 2024 season the Chiefs tried a few different guys at LT, like Wanya Morris, rookie Kingsley Suamataia, and D.J. Humphries, who they signed in-season. None of them played well, so the Chiefs moved LG Joe Thuney out to LT. Thuney’s move to LT opened up a hole at LG, where 2022 UDFA Mike Caliendo filled in. Major downgrade. Meanwhile, at RT Taylor finished second in the NFL in 2024 with 18 penalties.