The NFL is Blaming the Eagles’ Super Bowl Slipping on Incorrect Cleat Selection

Mike Florio reported today, from a NFL league source, that the NFL is privately blaming the Eagles and Chiefs slipping on the field during Super Bowl 57 on the idea that they didn’t wear the proper cleats:

The NFL has an unofficial excuse for the situation, one that has been communicated when owners ask about it. Per a league source, the league blames the players for not wearing the right shoes. (The Eagles changed their cleats — and it didn’t seem to matter.)

This is an all time move by the NFL to deflect any blame from that debacle of a field. Not to mention giving it to Florio in the middle of a four-day holiday weekend. This only fuels my speculation that The SodFather gave the Chiefs inside information about the field. If you think the Chiefs guessed which cleats to wear out of dumb luck, I’ve got beachfront property in Idaho I’d like to sell you. You’re telling me the guy who has two Super Bowl rings from the organization and worked for them for over 40 years didn’t get in someone’s ear about the state of the grass? Don’t be so naive. He knew about the field before anyone:

The 94-year-old told ESPN that he believes the field was overwatered in the days leading up to the game. According to (George) Toma, who has been nicknamed The Sodfather, the field was watered the Wednesday morning before the game and promptly rolled into the stadium on the moveable tray that housed the grass field for the last time before kickoff four days later.

Toma contended that the field should’ve been watered in the morning and kept outside to dry before being rolled in.

“So, what he does,” Toma said, referring to Ed Mangan, the NFL field director who was in charge of the Super Bowl field and worked under Toma for years, “he waters the hell out of it and puts it right into the stadium and that’s it. Never sees sunlight again. He can’t do that.”

The slip stats tell the entire story:

I charted slip/sod-gate:

– The Eagles’ defense had a player slip on 38% of Patrick Mahomes’ dropbacks — five times they had multiple slippages.

– The Chiefs’ defense had a player slip on only 14% of Jalen Hurts’ dropbacks — with no multiples

— Ollie Connolly (@OllieConnolly) February 14, 2023

Instead of a sack from Josh Sweat or Haason Reddick on this play, it goes for a 20-yard gain instead of 3rd and long:

Pay attention to #7 (Haason Reddick)

2 sacks & a forced fumble in a game prior to this one.

pic.twitter.com/Qps3K8hj1I

— ʟᴇᴇᴍ 🦇 (@RunHurts) June 19, 2023

Brandon Graham even admitted recently on Sports Take that they couldn’t believe how slippery the field was, saying the Chiefs O-Line was “blessed” the Eagles were slipping:

You need that traction to be able to get off the block and we were slipping a lot. I don’t make excuses. I just know that that’s what was being talked about, us trying to get out of our own head a little bit, too. … I’m telling you that O-line, they got blessed, I’ll say that.

The greatest defense in franchise history was neutralized because a billion-dollar league cared more about how Rihanna looked than the safety of their players. Can’t make this shit up. Let’s screw everyone who gambled billions on the outcome and then take millions from our own players for betting on the NBA in between film study. What a joke.

Kinkead: if Florio’s source is right, then I hate the NFL

EDIT – CJGJ weighs in: 

Man pre game I went through 3 different cleats!! Even the studs wasn’t working 😒 explain that please https://t.co/HzHLtnRyot

— C.J. Gardner-Johnson (@CGJXXIII) July 3, 2023

If that’s the case we should’ve played on AZ original grass! we was fine the week we traveled there and won 🙃

— C.J. Gardner-Johnson (@CGJXXIII) July 3, 2023

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