NFL: Sky Sports' Neil Reynolds previews Super Bowl LVII | OneFootball

The Super Bowl is one of the biggest events on the sporting calendar, with this year’s matchup featuring the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles.

So the NFL season will officially come to an end this Sunday night/Monday morning (depending on what time zone you live in), as the #1 seeds from both the AFC and the NFC face off in Arizona to battle it out for the Vince Lombardi Trophy.

The game sees the Kansas City Chiefs take on the Philadelphia Eagles in a game that is way too close to call, and has a lot of talking points going into it. Are these the two best teams in the league this year (a question that would have brought up a lot of different answers over the course of the season), what would a win do for the legacy of Chiefs quarterback (and league MVP) Patrick Mahomes, and what is the score going to be?

GiveMeSport VIDEO OF THE DAY

Play Video

To answer those questions, we sat down for an exclusive interview with Neil Reynolds, host of the NFL coverage on Sky Sports, who will be covering his first Super Bowl in person since the game in 2020 when the Chiefs took down the San Francisco 49ers:

GiveMeSport: Maurice Jones-Drew had an interesting comment this past week about Patrick Mahomes and his legacy that if he were to win this Sunday, you can crown him as the G.O.A.T, as the greatest of all time. Obviously, Tom Brady might have something to say about that. I think I might be a bit too far. But what do you think a win would do for Patrick Mahomes’ legacy?

NR: So I was thinking about this because Mahomes hasn't played well in two Super Bowls with the exception of the fourth quarter against San Francisco when he delivered, 21 points in six minutes to steal that game away.

So it's on his mind. I spoke to Mahomes yesterday and he said that “I've won one now, I've lost one, it's a motivating factor.” But he also said that it's too early in his career for this to define his legacy and I agree. Even if he loses this one, it doesn't define his legacy. He is a great player. And I think it's a strong word to use when he's only had five seasons as a starter, but he is a great player. That's his legacy.

Whether he picks up this second one this weekend, or whether he loses this weekend, it doesn't change it for me. He's still the best quarterback in the NFL today. He's a true superstar. He's a great player.

I do think if you're going to do if you're going down the road and putting him in the conversation with Brady, you’ve got to stack some wins at some point absolutely. You don't necessarily have to because you might play a different way you might be more prolific in your passing yardage, you don't have to win seven as Brady did. Joe Montana is one of the greatest we've ever seen, he won four, so for Mahomes, he’s going to have to stack some wins. But I don't think his legacy gets defined on Sunday.

GMS: Would you say that we have the two best teams playing this Sunday? Obviously what people see as the ‘best team’ sort of fluctuates over the season, many people had the Bills, I personally think were it not for Brock Purdy’s injury, I think the San Francisco 49ers would have made here and I could make the argument that they were the best team over the course of the season. But would you say that with the Chiefs and the Eagles we have the two best teams playing this weekend?

NR: I do think we've got the two best teams in the NFL, we've got the two top seeds, you know they both won 16 and lost 3 to get to this point, that's not easy to do, to win that many games in the NFL.

Now. I think there was an upper echelon when you look at the teams in the league. You can put the Bengals, you can put the Bills and you can put the 49ers in that top group. But we are with two teams that are loaded with talent. If you think about how complete they are, the Chiefs we think about their passing attack with Mahomes and Kelce and now the receivers are coming on. And then Isiah Pacheco has been one of the best running backs for the second half of the season.

You look at the Eagles, they can run all over you but then Jalen Hurts has got a 1,500-yard receiver in AJ Brown and a 1,000-yard receiver in DeVonta Smith. You’ve got Chris Jones on defense for the Chiefs, and you’ve got this pass rush of the Eagles. So everywhere you look there are elite players, and I think that makes these the best in the NFL.

They’re the number one seeds, we haven’t seen the number one seeds go off against each other since 2017. I feel like we’ve got a kind of classic matchup on our hands. The Eagles are favourites, but only slightly favourites, but then you've got the Patrick Mahomes factor, right? So Mahomes can turn a game on its head. So I genuinely don't know which way this game is going to go as we head towards the weekend.

GMS: That sets it up perfectly then. Where do you think the game is going to be won and lost? And what is your score prediction?

NR: All right, so the game, like most Eagles games this year, the game is going to get decided in the trenches, so I think Philadelphia will have one of those days. I've been at quite a few Super Bowls where there's been a top-ranked offense, like the Chiefs are this year and a strong defense, and so often the defense comes out on top.

Now, I don't think Patrick Mahomes will be shut down completely, he's too good for that. I think Mahomes is going to have his moments of magic, Chiefs are going to score their points. But I can also see elements of when Mahomes was running for his life against Tampa Bay in his last Super Bowl outing.

I think there's so much pressure that's going to come from this Eagles pass rush, that's going to prove to be decisive. Not in a blowout kind of way, I think it'll just be enough to tip the scales in the in the favour of the Eagles. So I'm saying Philadelphia wins 27-24, and in order to do that, they will have had a good display on their defensive line and they'd have got a lot of pressure on Mahomes.