The United States has become familiar for a few weeks with the name of Donna Kelce.
The woman will become this Sunday the first mother to see two children face each other in a Super Bowl.
Kelce has made a name for herself giving interviews wearing a split jersey in the colors of the two teams her sons defend: Jason, a veteran defensive
tackle
with 176 games for the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis, the star receiver for the Kansas City Chiefs, the second player with the most receptions and yards in the playoffs.
The Kelces have exploited the opportunity that it gives them to appear in the sports game with the highest audience in the country with a podcast on YouTube.
Their story has given a brotherly touch this year to the NFL Finals in Arizona, a league known for finding epic in its toughness.
On paper, Super Bowl LVII is one of the closest finals in recent years.
It is the sixth time in 23 years that the best teams of the season will meet.
Kansas conquered the American League with 16 wins and 3 losses.
Philadelphia had the same record in the National conference.
This edition, however, will face two styles of play with its best squads.
Neither side has reported injuries or removed players.
Kansas City will make its third Super Bowl appearance in the last four years.
His main weapon is his star, Patrick Mahomes, who will tie Tom Brady this Sunday as the first
quarterback
who plays three finals in his first five years in the league.
With Brady in retirement, the NFL is looking to the 27-year-old Mahomes as the heir to the best player of his generation.
This Sunday he will try to conquer at the State Farm stadium in Glendale, and in front of some 65,000 spectators, his second championship ring.
In other circumstances, Mahomes, named the most valuable player of the season on Thursday (his second MVP), and his would be the broad favorites of the match.
Football experts, however, have shown caution in their forecasts.
The Chiefs will have before them a team that set an all-time record this season after scoring 39
touchdowns on the ground.
The previous mark had been standing for almost a century.
The team's top scorer is its pitcher, 24-year-old Jalen Hurts, a phenom with 13 touchdowns.
Running back Miles Sanders has eleven.
Boston Scott, one of the pieces that make up this attack, described this running style to reporters this week: “It's very physical.
Explosive.
Solid.
It's a machine".
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The bets have the Eagles as a favorite with a close score.
Philadelphia won its only NFL title in 2018 against Brady's Patriots (41-33).
This Friday, in what has been the last training session for both teams, coach Nick Sirianni focused on working on closing the game, in the second half and after what will be a long pause after the half-time show in the hands of Rihanna.
Sirianni wants to keep oiled the defensive machinery that has made the organization one of the most balanced.
The defensive backs of the birds, as the fans call the Eagles, have achieved 78 sacks in the season, the third best mark in a season.
This is a latent threat for Mahomes, one of the pitchers who waits the longest before throwing the ball, about 2.6 seconds on average.
Andy Reid, the Kansas coach (and former Philadelphia coach from 1999-2012), spent the last day of preparation working inside the red zone, the last 10 yards of offense before the end zone.
It is in that strip where Kansas will have to exploit the variants of its attack.
From the receptions of Kelce, one of the best players to get away from the mark, and Marques Valdes-Scantling, who seeks to extend his scoring streak to three consecutive games.
Veteran running back Jerick McKinnon also capped off a great season in which he had six straight games catching Mahomes' balls in the touchdown zone.
The offense had new blood this year.
Rookie Isaiah Pacheco rushed for more than 85 yards in the postseason, becoming one of the main weapons every time Kansas runs the ball.
two
black
quarterbacks
Jalen Hurt will become the eighth African-American player to play in a Super Bowl this Sunday.
The LVII edition will be the first time that two black quarterbacks start their teams in the finals of a league that has a troubled history with racial issues.
Mahomes, the son of a black father and a white mother, four years ago became the third black player to win the Lombardi Trophy.
First they did Doug Williams,
quarterback
for the Washington Redskins in 1988 and Russell Wilson, the Seattle star, who did it in 2014 by beating Denver (the team he plays for now).
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Super Bowl 2023: all the ads that can be seen in the final
For decades, most of the league's star pitchers were white players.
College talents who came to the NFL at
quarterback
were rotated by coaches or team owners to other attacking positions, such as running backs or receivers.
But times have changed.
Today there are a dozen black starters in the 32 teams in the league.
And this Sunday the two best will face each other.
Hurt was second in the league's most valuable voting to Mahomes.
His numbers are impressive: he is the third in history to throw a season with 35,000+ passing yards, 20+ TD passes and 10+ rushing touchdowns.
Only one of them will make history in Arizona.
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