Reigning Super Bowl champions Philadelphia Eagles held off the Kansas City Chiefs 20-17 on Sunday in a scrappy rematch of last season's NFL championship game.

Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts threw for 101 yards and plunged over the goal line for a touchdown on a "tush-push" play in the fourth quarter as Philadelphia improved to 2-0 in the young season.

The Chiefs, who lost just two games in the 2024 regular season, suffered a second straight defeat.

Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes threw for 187 yards and ran for a touchdown, but he and long-time target Travis Kelce will regret an early fourth-quarter play on which the tight end couldn't control a rifle pass from Mahomes on the edge of the end zone and Eagles safety Andrew Makuba grabbed the ball for an interception.

That set up Philadelphia for the scoring drive capped by Hurts's TD for a 20-10 lead. The Chiefs cut the gap on Mahomes's 49-yard touchdown pass to Tyquan Thompson with three minutes remaining but didn't get another chance.

Hurts said he wasn't surprised that the game was close, despite their 40-22 Super Bowl victory.

"That's something in the past," he said. "We knew they were going to come in hungry today and that's something that we had to put on ourselves. We can't be casual."

"When you're playing against championship-level teams it's about showing up in those big-game situations. I think we did that," he added. (AFP)