Super Bowl LVII: Preview and predictions

Image: USA TODAY Sports

WRITTEN BY KYLE JOYCE 

For the first time in two seasons, one of the teams in the Super Bowl won't be playing at their home stadium. After fifty-four seasons of a team never making a Super Bowl when their stadium was hosting, we had two seasons where they did. This season, we have returned to what is seemingly the norm. That doesn't mean that this year's big game won't be making history though, for the first time in the Super Bowl, two black quarterbacks will be competing for the Lombardi Trophy. It's a crucial moment for the Super Bowl and the NFL as a whole, which has struggled with representation and equality in the sport. Both of the quarterbacks realise the enormity of the situation, with Patrick Mahomes commenting: "It's special, there's so many great ones that haven't been recognised because of the stereotype of the black quarterback not being able to have sustained success." Jalen Hurts said of the same topic: "It's a historic moment. To be on this platform and to give so many others so much inspiration moving forward, telling them that they can do it, too... it's a proud moment."

The venue for the 2023 edition of American Football's biggest game is State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. Home of the Arizona Cardinals, it has a capacity of 63,400, expandable to 72,200 for bigger events, meaning the Super Bowl attendance will likely be closer to the latter figure. The stadium has hosted two previous Super Bowls, with the New York Giants enjoying success there in 2008 and the team they defeated, the New England Patriots winning over the Seattle Seahawks in 2015. The competitors wanting to be the new team on the list of Super Bowl winners at State Farm Stadium are the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs.

Image: Bloomberg

Philadelphia Eagles

One-time Super Bowl champions Philadelphia Eagles will be looking to add their second this Sunday, following their 2018 triumph. They reached the game following a 13-4 regular season and a division title, winning the NFC East for the twelfth time and their first since the season they won the Super Bowl. The Eagles were impressive from the start, being the last unbeaten team standing at 8-0 before losing to the Washington Commanders in mid-November. They would then go on another streak, winning five games before losing to the Dallas Cowboys on Christmas Eve and the New Orleans Saints on New Year's Day. They were, however, without starting quarterback Jalen Hurts for these losses due to injury. He recovered to lead the Eagles to two post-season wins, 38-7 over the New York Giants and the San Francisco 49ers 31-7, who had quarterback injury issues of their own. 

Image: AL

Eagles players to watch

Jalen Hurts is of course the main player to watch on the Eagles, with quarterback being the most important position on the field. He threw for 3701 yards and 22 touchdowns in the 15 regular season games he played. and rushed for 760 yards and 13 touchdowns. He is joined by an impressive supporting cast of running back Miles Sanders (1269 rushing yards, 11 touchdowns) and wide receiver A.J. Brown (1496 receiving yards, 11 touchdowns), contributing to 477 total points, an average of 28 points per game. Defensively they have linebacker Haason Reddick who had 16 sacks and 11 tackles for loss and safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson who contributed with 6 interceptions. Center Jason Kelce makes up one of two brothers featuring in this Super Bowl.

Image: Getty Images

Kansas City Chiefs

Their opponents are two-time champions Kansas City Chiefs. They also reached the game following a 13-4 regular season record and a division title, winning their fifteenth AFC West including seven in a row. This was also the fifth season in a row they had made the AFC Championship game. Led by MVP Patrick Mahomes, they only lasted two games undefeated before a shock loss to the Indianapolis Colts in September. They would win another two games before losing to the Buffalo Bills, who they contested the 2020 AFC Championship game with. A run of five wins concluded with a loss to the Cincinnati Bengals in December, who they also contested an AFC Championship game with, in last year's edition. That would be their last loss of the season, winning another five games to set up a Divisional Round win against the Jacksonville Jaguars and avenging their regular season and 2021 AFC Championship defeats against the Cincinnati Bengals, winning in controversial circumstances. 

Image: Forbes

Chiefs players to watch

Whilst their opponent's quarterback is the player to watch for the game, Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes might be the player to watch in the entire league. His 5250 passing yards, 41 touchdowns as well as 358 more yards and 4 touchdowns on the ground earned him the MVP at the 12th Annual NFL Honours. He had an injury scare in the Divisional Round win against the Jaguars, but was deemed fit enough to play and win against the Bengals. He had a further two weeks of rest thanks to the Pro Bowl Games being in between the Conference Championships and Super Bowl. Mahomes is of course joined by his main receiving threat and younger brother of Jason, tight end Travis Kelce. He contributed 1338 receiving yards and 12 touchdowns, with wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster having 933 receiving yards and 3 touchdowns. The Chiefs had 496 total points, an average of 29 a game. Defensively they have linebacker Nick Bolton who had 180 tackles including 9 for a loss and defensive tackle Chris Jones who added 17 tackles for loss and 15.5 sacks. 

Halftime show

Rihanna will perform the famous Super Bowl halftime show, with her first televised live performance in five years after her last at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards in 2018. With 9 Grammy wins and 8 successful albums, this is the type of global act that the game and halftime show attracts. "The Super Bowl is one of the biggest stages in the world so as scary as that was, there's something exhilarating about the challenge of it all," the singer said on Thursday in a pre-show interview with Nadeska Alexis for Apple Music. "It's important for me to do this year." She added: "The halftime show is going to be a celebration of my catalogue in the best way that we could have put it together. You only have 13 minutes. That's the challenge. You're trying to cram 17 years of work into 13 minutes." Rihanna said that she and her team came up with various versions of the setlist, with the current arrangement being the 39th, "I think we did a pretty good job at narrowing it down."

Rihanna explains her decision to perform at #SuperBowlLVII, saying it was "now or never." https://t.co/Tdau0waAs9 pic.twitter.com/CRDOMT8SR4

— AP Entertainment (@APEntertainment) February 12, 2023

Predictions

This is my third year doing a Super Bowl preview for SportingMatrix and sadly I have gone 0-2 in my Super Bowl picks, going against Tom Brady in 2021 and believing the Bengals fairytale would have a happy ending in 2022. For 2023, I have been predicting every single game of the season, including how many I thought a win would be by. I have had a record of 175-108, including 20 exact margins of victory picked correctly. I have gone 8-4 in the postseason, correctly predicting the Bengals winning by 7 in the Wild Card Round, Chiefs winning by 7 in the Divisional Round and the Chiefs winning the AFC Championship by 3 points. I am hoping for a hat-trick of correct Kansas City Chiefs picks and am backing them to win by 3 against the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LVII. 

Image: Kirby Lee / USA TODAY Sports

Viewing information

Super Bowl 57 is on Sunday, February 12th 2023 and can be watched on ITV1 in the UK, with kickoff expected at 23:30 GMT. The game will be on Fox in the United States, with the game kicking off at 18:30 ET/16:30 local time. ESPN will be airing the game in many countries worldwide, for a full list of countries, times and channels airing the game you can visit click here.