Welcome back Drive Time on ESPN seven hundred, Porter Larson Tony Parks taking you through it all, of course, reacting to Super Bowl fifty nine, the Philadelphia Eagles championship over the Kansas City Chiefs, of course, the hopeful three peat champions not to be. Robert Johnson joined us a little bit earlier to discuss at omar Ruiz of the NFL Network as well. Big thanks to Tom Haverstrow talking some hoops. If you missed any of that, just check the podcast
page a little bit later on. I'll have it up and available for you then, as we'll be all of ESPN seven hundred interviews and stuff from the Drive with Spence. Check it's now two Stevenson cil Vester talking some football, talking some Super Bowl with a guy who's played in the damn game. Sly, how's it going man?
What's up? How you doing doing well?
Doing well? Tony Parks and I here holding the Ford down to day?
What's up? How are you? What's up?
Brother?
How you doing?
I'm great? Always appreciate your time.
Slide.
What's uh?
What's the Super Bowl look like in the house of a guy who's who's played in one before? Is it, Uh, get everyone out of the way, or uh, you know, let you dial in or is it pretty relaxed and you know, serving wings and dip like everyone else.
Oh no, no, I don't. I don't have anybody around.
Doesn't surprise me.
Nobody's around my house. It's a it's a thing, a stable.
Everybody tried to like what you guys doing, You wanna get together.
We're just like no, no, no, and it's it. So it's just me and my wife. We have a party for two at the Sylvester household and and and that's it. Nobody else is involved. It was actually funny. My wife's nephew called during the game. He's like, hey, did you see number fifty six?
Did your move?
And and and then he just kept talking. He was like watching the game and like talking. And then his mom goes, you know, slide doesn't like to talk there in the game.
So it was funny. So like everybody knows that I don't like people around, so it's good. But yeah, it's just by myself. Yes, I see.
We used to have when I was younger, we had you know, the really big Super Bowl party and all of that stuff. But those games were always blowouts, so it didn't really disrupt a lot. And it's fifty five to ten and forty six to ten and all these,
you know, just massive blowouts. Well, then the games got good, and when the games got good, it started to really sour some key moments like I remember, you know, somebody going off about how they hated their boss, and here's John Elway driving down the field trying to win his first Super Bowl two minutes to go, and it was just.
Driving me insane.
And I still remember a close friend of mine who was like, yeah, we used to get everybody together, and then here we are. We have Tom Brady and against the Panthers, and it's back and forth in the fourth quarter, and I keep hearing about Janet Jackson's nipple, and it's driving me in saying and I don't want to hear about you know, like it kept getting so now more and more I know.
Of different people. I know porters this way, I'm this way, you're this way.
I thought I was kind of on an island there for a bit, but more and more people are like, hey, I wanted a smaller party and I wanted about the game like that's and it sounds like that's exactly, uh.
The only way you've ever wanted it.
Man, you might be the only person that didn't want to hear about Janet Jackson's nipple.
Yeah, I definitely wanted to hear that.
I actually was working that guy was.
I was board opping.
I was board opping at a station for the super Bowl, and the next morning I get a phone call from a producer going.
On he was working wardrobe.
Yeah, well no, yeah, right right.
I get this phone call and they're like, hey, why don't we have anything on Janet Jackson?
I'm like, what about her? What are you talking about?
Because I was doing the radio, like board opping the radio, so I wasn't watching the TV. I mean it was on, but I wasn't like intently watching the halftime show. So I was so lost about what anybody was talking about. And obviously, yeah, I was the last.
One to know. Magical moment. Man, it was magical.
But uh no, man, it's that was pretty wild.
Uh, yesterday, Porter and I've been talking about I mean, the front four just decides to dominate right away, and there are many times, you know, there's so many chapters in a game.
It's a long game.
Things change, you never know but the way that the four were just winning one on one matchups and collapse in the pocket with ease, I thought to myself, Man, this might get really.
Bad in a hurry.
At what moment were you at all, like really worried for Kansas City.
When the last touchdown of the first half it was seventeen zero, I'm just like, all right, it's whatever, But like I started to get worried for Kansas City.
Anyway, if anybody would be worried, it'd be like, oh, this might get out of him.
Twenty four to zero and you go into halftime and you got to sit for an hour for halftime show and just and just stew on a twenty four to zero lead. Like it's at that point that's where I
was just like, oh this is this is bad. But like cause, like even with the couple picks, anytime you throw a pick six in a game, I don't know what the statistic is, but you lose that game, I would say over seventy five percent of the time, and especially in the first half, because you don't give your defense an opportunity to stop the other team, Like even if they get a pick, even in their in your territory,
or whatever. That defense still has an opportunity to make them only settle for three points or whatever, and that's a.
Win for the defense.
But when you give them seven points, there's nothing you can do about that. And so that was a huge, huge part because it was ten zero at that point and then you do a pick six for a touchdown, and then you get the ball back and plunt it back to them and then they score again. At that point, that was just a demoralizing eight minutes of the last
of the second quarter. And that just really like settle things in because when your opponent now has all the confidence in the world to where they think they could just do whatever they want, and their defense was just kicking your butt like crazy.
And yeah, as you said, you can't like blitz everybody.
Patrick Mahomes, he has great pre snap breeds and and so he's gonna get rid of the football and make.
You hurt for it.
But if you can win your one on one battles, you could win with just four guys. That means you got seven guys in coverage at all times. And Patrick Mahomes doesn't have time. He's rushing the throws and that is how you beat somebody as great as.
Patrick Mahomes and they just did it.
It wasn't I didn't think like they just confused them with the looks they were doing. I mean even the pick six was just a cover four, three hundred four deep and Cooper dejen just made an athlete play right. Like we saw in the last game against Utah versus UCF when Smith Snowden's interception for a touchdown.
I talked to him after the game.
He's just like, man, they tried it to play before and the exact same thing. I just came off of my guy and I made a play. Same thing with Cooper Degen. He should have been a little bit more out to the flats, but he saw the guy coming across the middle and he's like, wait for it, wait for it, ballam, and he just made a play. Man, So make plays. And that's exactly what it does. And there's no better birthday gift than it picks six homes in the Super Bowl.
Sly, you mentioned obviously the four man rush that was able to get pressure on Patrick without sending an extra guy. It allowed the Eagles to drop seven in coverage oftentimes, and a lot of the magic that Mahomes makes is capitalizing when teams blitz him. Right, That's a lot of times the spectacular plays you see him make are are correlative with the other team blitzing. Is it that simple that that is the the that that is the recipe
that Eagles used to beat him? Or was there anything that you saw, as you mentioned maybe pre snap, maybe disguising things. What was it from an NFL linebacker's perspective that they did maybe beyond just the four man rush, because I've been hitting that over the head all day long, but it seems almost a little too simple to be true.
Yeah.
Well, the Super Bowl game it's self is extremely hard to play because of all of the media, the marketing, the TV time outs, the pregame, the halftime. It's just a much longer football game. And so making adjustments isn't as easy as that because you have the ability to just stew on your mistakes and then it just capitalizes. But like pre snap, no, I think pre snap, Patrick Mahomes understands is like, Okay, they're not blitzing.
That means as a quarterback, I can hold the football.
And so in his mind, pre snap, he's like, okay, they got seven deep, I can hold the football.
My clock in my head, shit, have gave me two or three extra seconds.
But these guys are winning their one on one battles, and so that two or three seconds just isn't there. So now I have to scramble out of the pocket against an athletic defensive line, which means I'm not gonna be able to set back up and deliver an accurate pass, let alone Travis Kelsey and jon Dre Hopkins and Hollywood Brown dropping footballs, which isn't helping either.
Like the timing was just off, And that's what you do.
That's that's what you teach, right, What is the best coverage on the back end, A good pass rush? What's the best pass rush, A good coverage on the back end. That's complimentary defense. And that's what the Eagles were doing. It wasn't the disguise as I said. They played that cover four three hundred four deep. You could see that
that was easy. There wasn't nothing that really disguised that, right, Like I just listened to something where Jayden Daniels was talking about playing the Baltimore Ravens and Kyle Hamilton's up at the line of scrimmage and then at the snap he drops thirty yards back into the deep third, Like you weren't seeing that with the Eagles, like and so like, it's just an understanding, and I think Porter it's it is as simple when you're one on one battles and
compliment your coverage on the back end and you win football games.
You talk about the length of the Super Bowl, the stoppages, the long amount of time. At what point could you feel that most like, Wow, this is different.
I mean the glitz, the glamour.
We know about the hype, but just in terms of the length of it and how different the timing now is and just how unique that one game is compared to all others.
Are you asking me personally?
Yeah, oh, when you're in the stadium, when you're there and the whole process of it all.
It was literally in the pregame in the warm ups, right, And I saw it on Patrick Mahomes's face too as they were singing God Bless America and national Anthem and all of this stuff too. It's just like like you get hyped running out of the tunnel, right, you run out of the tunnel, you gotta singing.
You don't kick off for another thirty five minutes. I didn't notice that, Like, but it's it sucks. Man.
I'm standing we run out of tunnel, I'm all juiced.
I'm like, let's go. Yeah, I'm about to run down on this kickoff YadA.
And then I'm standing next to Christina Aguilera before she goes and sings the national anthem, and next to you know, God Bless America and then like, oh crap, we haven't even done.
Coin toss and you're on your feet the whole time, and you're on.
Your feet the entire time, and then they gotta do uh, they gotta do interviews before like they interviewed Jalen Hurts, they interviewed the coach, they interviewed Patrick Mahomes, and before the kickoff even started.
There's a lot of time.
And that's just like for me, I'm just like I'm hip coming out of the tunnel and the next you know, and you gotta build that back up and so like, and that's where the Kansas City's experience would come in. But at the same time, a game is a game, and you throw all of these uh, these distractions and and things in there, it's so easy to be affected. And for me watching Patrick Mahomes, I just saw a lot of frustration.
I saw a lot of and I don't.
Know what his pre Super Bowl game was like this whole Super Bowl week, but I had to imagine it was a lot between family, between friends, between media interviews, between what was asked for him. I can't imagine what he was going through and and and the amount of distraction that he was faced with heading into this and and so that plays a huge, huge dividend and actually performing in the game.
And I honestly, for me, they.
Did a solo shot of Patrick Mahomes, you know, as the national anthem was being sung, and I'm just like, that's gotta be frustrating.
You just sit there and just do all of this stuff.
And so that's just a crappy part of the game of the Super Bowl game to me. And honestly, they're not going to change it because of how much money they make, right But but it's definitely something that you know, coaches or experienced people have to game plan for it by itself.
So is there any reason to believe one of the Eagles or the Chiefs shouldn't be back at least to a maybe a conference title next year? Which which of those teams is best suited or which concerns do you have about either one of them?
Getting back to this.
Point, man, everybody's unnotice everybody is unnoticed. You know, everything's about matchups, right, and when you win, a lot of people disperse, rosters disperse, you know, administration, coaching staffs, there's a lot of people that go elsewhere. Right, we were talking about Kellen Moore leaving now might be the head.
Coach of the of the Saints.
I don't know if that's official yet, but it might be the head coach of the Saints. Right, Like how important was Kellen Moore to the play calling this year?
Right?
How important is is UH Steve Spagnola?
What if he leaves? Right to them?
It's a long football season right now, seventeen games, playoffs, you got to do that over and over again, and like, and everybody's now looking at Kansas City.
I mean I said it in my show the other last week.
It's like the Texans did a good job against Kansas City, right, And so with that pass rush, Kansas City got helped out a lot with UH, with calls and situational things where their defense helped them out and got points and then the Texans kind of lost it in the end, but that was but that was a good football game from them.
Right. The AFC is tough.
You got Pittsburgh, you got Baltimore, you got the Texans, you got the Bengals who're gonna come up, you got the Bills who want to to.
To have a rematch and another go at it to go back again.
It's tough all in the same. But I mean, I don't think so. I don't think either of these teams will be back next year. And so this moment was was huge for you to take advantage of the moment because you never know when you be back.
Right, Like my rookie year I went there, I was just like, oh, we'll be back. We didn't even we didn't go.
We lost in the wild card the next year, and so like, man, it's it's tough sledding getting to the Super Bowl, man, So you got to cherish each moment. But next year, I don't I think the Chiefs are on notice as far as being exposed and how to beat them, and then the Eagles as well. I just I think there's a lot of things that they'll break up This year, from from personnel getting new new contracts, from free agency to coaching staff taking jobs, they're gonna
be a new little team. And you got to watch the Commanders, the Detroit Lions and the Buccaneers and teams like that who were surging in the NFC.
So it's gonna look different in the super Bowl next year, for sure.
Well that's what I wanted to get your take on too. As you mentioned, you were in the super Bowl the next year. You guys had a great regular season, got trucked by Baltimore that first game, but you're still a twelve win team. All of that, even with the success and the expectation. How do you describe just how different every season actually is. It's almost like each season has its own life, right.
Yeah, it's just like for me, heading into the playoffs, right, forget your season, your season record, right, that means nothing. It only means something if you're able to get some kind of home field advantage or be able to play in your home stadium. But your records, the way you played the team the last time you played them means nothing going into the playoffs. And so the very next year, the same thing you can't think about last year. Oh, last year, we made it. That means we'll make it
this year. Absolutely not. It doesn't even mean you'll make it to the playoffs. There's so many things that go in, so many new people. Do they buy into the culture, do they buy into all of the medias? Can they handle themselves professionally.
To get back to this point? Right? Like, the Chiefs have won in so many.
Different ways, and now they've lost a couple times in a couple different ways.
Right.
They've won with not the best record. They've run with a passing threat. They've won with a rushing threat, with no tight end, with no receivers having any touchdowns only the tight ends throughout the season, and they went all the way and won in the Super Bowl. They've done it so many different ways, but you can't guarantee that
that way is gonna work this next year. And so now everybody knows the Kansas City Chiefs is beatable, and so they're gonna bring their best effort all the time, and so hopefully, you know, cooler heads prevail and Andy Reid is just who he.
Is, you're in and you're out.
And Patrick Mahomes get to his greatness and what he is and he recognizes where he went wrong in this game. But you know there's a lot of teams gonna be striving out there. Man, it says new year. You got to treat it as that year. Last year does not go into this year. There's nothing from this year that the kssas city Chiefs can take into next year. You know, the experience, all of that stuff, I mean, it all goes out the window because football being the ultimate team sport,
everybody's got to work together. You're gonna get new personnel from the draft, from free agency, from attrition, and you're gonna have to work with that in different capacities.
So it's gonna look crazy next year.
Say you mentioned how cyclical things are and how you can't necessarily bank on a team just from them being here this year being their next year. With that in mind, how impressive is it that the Eagles last year the collapse that they had, and then you look at the offseason that Howie Roseman had the offensive line that he built. This offseason he signed Sekwon Barkley, Quinn and Mitchell did
Cooper Dejene. He hired Vic Fangio and Kellen Moore. And this is after losing a Hall of Famer in Jason Kelce, and you lose Reddick in the offseason as well. I mean, I can't think in recent memory, at least on paper, a better you know, short stint off season and the results that it got than the one we just saw from Howie Roseman.
I mean a lot of people do it.
I mean the fact that they found success with it, right, you know, they could have got tripped up in the Rams game. They could have got tripped up at any point through here. Because you put a roster together like that, it doesn't mean it's gonna work. We've got plenty examples
of all star rosters and it not working right. And so you know, even the seven Patriots, right, they go seventeen eighteen and oh and they lose in the Super Bowl, but they lose by a little bit, right, They're just that far away from having a nineteen and oh perfect season.
And it's just it's splitting hairs man, because it's the fine tuning, right, But putting a roster together that works is extremely difficult, right, Like I'm sure at the beginning parts of this year with Philadelphia, I mean ever since there, I think the statistic was ever since their bye week, they're fifteen and one and now sixteen and one since their bye week. They had to figure some stuff out
at the beginning of the season, right. The Ravens didn't have it all figured out with Derrick Henry at the beginning of the season either, and so like it's not always telling that this roster or things are going to work out. But you know, you got to have humble professionals on your football team, people who aren't sitting over here crying for the football doing this and that. It's just like, you need to do what you need to
do to win. And if you got a lot of people like that in your aid positions, you're gonna win football teams.
And that was that offensive line.
The Kai Becton, a veteran, you know, I think he just understood what he needed to do because I believe he was a tackle, you know, over there for the Jets for all those years, and you just got to Lane Johnson and everybody across that that offensive line. Man, it sucks because you know, Jason Kelce, he retires and they go.
Win a ring, and so I know he feels in it. He's feeling it.
But I think they just had a lot of a veteran experience that understood what needed to be done to get to this point, to.
Get a ring.
There was a lot of guys on this roster who's been chomping at the bit.
For a ring.
Man, I think I don't know how many guys were on that twenty seventeen championship team besides Brandon Graham, not very much, right, But this was this was something that a lot of those guys felt that lost a couple of years ago in Arizona playing for the Super Bowl, and so they definitely wanted to get some get back in this football game.
Man, Just how important situations are.
Yes, you know, and you had coaches you know, college and then also there in the NFL. They were honest, They knew how to get the most out of you as a player and how to get others the most out of them as well. And then staff changes are made, I mean, you have success. That's usually actually a positive indication. Guys get hired other places, promoted other places. That's how it works when staff changes are made at any level
when it comes to football. How long do you feel like it usually took to feel like that trust is replicated to then have ultimate level success.
Again, Man, I mean it's it's both. I can't say that it'll take forever. I can't say that it happens quickly. It's it's all about the people involved, right from each level, from the staff to the coaching staff, from administration to the coach staff, to the captains, leaders on the team, to the freshmen or rookies that come into a program and buying in and understanding what it takes to win, right.
And so I think it's a good mix of both people who are hungry for it and really a part of that mission, and you know, people who just want to be competitive. I think it's all about who is involved, in Nell's cases, in that organization to make those things happen.
Man Stevenson Sylvester, of course, the former youth former NFL linebacker, played in the Super Bowl talking some Super Bowl. Always appreciate your time, Sly, Uh, have a good week.
We'll catch up.
I don't know draft spring football time, but enjoy some hoops and enjoy some downtime in the In the meantime, we'll do watch.
My Lakers tonight, right, yes, sir, Luca, all.
Right, Yeah, to throw that down there, of course. I don't blame I don't blame him.
It should be.
It should be fun Lakers and Jazz tonight at a thirty on ESPN.
If you