Retired NFL defensive end Stephen White has a track record of making uncannily accurate Super Bowl predictions. Here’s how this year’s game will unfold.

I’m not going to beat around the bush -- the outcome of this year’s Super Bowl is going to be determined in large part by how Eagles quarterback Nick Foles plays.

Before his stellar performance against Minnesota in the NFC Championship, I had very little faith in Foles, but after seeing him carve up that excellent Vikings defense, now he has me like *hand on chin emoji.*

Is it possible that Foles could have a repeat performance this weekend in the Super Bowl against the New England Patriots?

Before the NFC Championship, Foles hadn’t exactly set the world on fire since replacing the injured Carson Wentz in Week 14. He had looked pretty shaky at the beginning of the Divisional Round against the Falcons just a week prior. Even though Foles eventually came on and played better against Atlanta, and the Eagles ultimately found a way to win that game, the fact that the Eagles still only managed to score 15 points was definitely cause for concern.

Against the Vikings, however, Foles unleashed one of Elon Musk’s new flamethrowers on their ass.

There are no caveats here, either. The Vikings have a very good defense, one that played better than the Patriots’ defense this year. And Foles torched them.

Repeatedly.

Maybe most importantly, Foles was able to push the ball down the field and hit Torrey Smith and Alshon Jeffery on deep balls. He went from being essentially a game manager to a being a weapon. If that Foles shows up on Sunday, things could get mighty interesting.

That’s a big if, though.

There’s no way to know if Foles will be Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde until after the game has already started, and that’s a little too late for me to be make a Super Bowl prediction.

Therefore, I’m going to lay out what I believe both teams should do along with the things I expect they will do to give themselves the best chance to win. Then, based on my film study and intuition, I will tell you which team I think will be hoisting the Lombardi Trophy this year.

Don’t skip ahead!

What the Patriots have to do on offense.

If the Patriots want to have success against that stout Philly defense, they’ve got to block Fletcher Cox.

They have to keep Cox, my Hoss Of The Week from the Divisional Round, blocked up front. Whether it’s a run or a pass -- especially if it’s a pass -- the Patriots are going to have to know where Cox is lined up at all times, or he will make them pay. The Eagles have a bunch of good players up front, but Cox is the straw that stirs the drink.

If it takes staying on a double team a little longer, if it takes sliding the center his way more often than usual, if it takes chipping him with a back, the Patriots must do whatever it takes to try to neutralize Cox.

Otherwise Tom Brady will be running for his life all game.

Be ready for the blitz and take some shots

The Patriots’ offense will have to be ready for blitzes at all times. Even though the Eagles have an excellent defensive line, they love to send extra rushers early and often. That means everybody from the offensive linemen to the wide receivers to the tight ends to the backs have to be on the same page with Brady when the Eagles bring extra guys. All it takes is one guy not breaking off their route or staying in to help pick up the blitz, and bam -- Philly has an opportunity for a sack or to create a turnover.

The Eagles are going to need to make some big plays on defense to try to help their offense keep up with the Patriots. But blitzing always comes with risks, and I expect New England will try to make Philly pay a steep price for sending extra rushers by taking shots down the field on some of those plays.

Get outside with the running game

I expect the Patriots will try to get get outside with their running game. A play in particular that I think we will see several times is the flip play where the quarterback reverses out while the offensive line blocks in one direction, and the quarterback flips the ball to the running back who is running toward the sideline in the opposite direction. For whatever reason I noticed a couple of teams hit the Eagles with that play for decent yardage, and it makes sense for New England to try to run outside against Philly when they have beasts like Cox and Tim Jernigan lined up inside.

No matter which running plays they use to try to get them to the perimeter, it will be interesting to see what kind of damage James White and Dion Lewis can do. I expect both guys to have big days both running and catching the football out of the backfield.

Chip away with the receivers

Another thing I expect so see from the Patriots is to have their running backs and tight ends chipping the Eagles’ edge rushers before continuing out into their routes.

Sometimes those chip blocks work out well for the Patriots in more ways than just slowing down their opponent’s pass rush. The Patriots still end up getting five eligible receivers out into routes. The delay from chipping sometimes creates more space underneath when the defense is playing zone as the coverage continues to sink with the receivers who got into their routes right away. As a result, a lot of times those chippers have an opportunity to catch the ball a couple of yards past the line of scrimmage, then get up a good head of steam before they encounter their first defender.

With Philly’s pass rushers and the fact that they also run quite a bit of zone, it just makes sense that the Patriots will do a lot of chipping, and it should help them a lot.

Unleash the Gronk ... as a decoy.

As far as a way that the Patriots can attack the Eagles in the passing game, I think there is a way for them to use Rob Gronkowski as a decoy to open up the flat zone to his side.

See, on Twitter last week someone (I can’t remember who) was tweeting about Cover 3 and how defenses have started adjusting their Cover 3 rules specifically because their fear of Gronk repeatedly killing them up the seam. So when you have Cover 3 against a 2x2 formation — a formation with two eligible receivers to each side — whichever safety that is walked down has the curl to flat zone to the side they are lined up on.

The problem is that if both the outside and the inside receiver run verticals to that side, the corner usually can’t cover both. There is nobody else deep except the deep middle safety, who may not even be in the deep middle depending upon the routes he sees on the other side of the formation.

Remember all those times you’ve seen Gronk running up the seam with a defender behind him trying to catch up? A lot of times that was the result of a defense playing by the old Cover 3 rules.

With the “new” Cover 3 rules, the safety that’s walked down still has the curl to flat, except when the inside receiver goes vertical. If the inside receiver goes vertical, the safety carries him up the field. In theory, this adjustment would help to limit Gronk’s production on those seam routes while still allowing the defense to get the safety down in the box for the run.

In theory.

When I went back and watched film, I noticed that the Eagles use these “new” rules with their Cover 3 calls when they are faced with a 2x2 formation. What I also noticed, however, is that because that safety is normally the curl-to-flat player to that side, if he ends up having to carry a vertical route, nobody else tends to cover for him in the flat.

That seems like a problem to me.

So I expect the Patriots to test the Eagles’ coverage by lining up in a 2x2 formation and having both the outside receiver and Gronk, as the inside receiver, to run vertical routes to get the corner and safety on that side to bail out of there. Then they can either slip a running back out to the flat to that side or have someone run a crossing route from the other side that ends up in that flat to see if Philly has fixed that issue.

It should be easy money if the Eagles still haven’t fixed it.

Keep an eye on Brandin Cooks.

Did you know Cooks led the Patriots in yards from scrimmage this season, was second to Gronk in receptions with 65 to Gronk’s 69, receiving touchdowns with seven to Gronk’s eight, and receiving yardage by just two yards with his 1,082 to Gronk’s 1,084? Yet, somehow he still seems to fly under the radar.

Did I mention he also had the highest average yards per reception of his career this season at 16.6?

The dude has been balling!

Even when he isn’t catching passes, Cooks seems to have an uncanny knack for forcing defensive pass interference calls on deep balls this season. That is one way he can have an impact without even having to catch the ball. It’s almost like people keep doubting his speed ... right until he runs right by them.

Cooks is a legit game breaker. I have a sneaky suspicion that with so much attention on Gronk, the Patriots are going to feature Cooks a lot this Sunday. As productive as he has been this season, they damn sure should.

Especially if the Eagles are doubling up Gronk on the regular.

Here’s what the Patriots have to do on defense.

Defensively, the Patriots will come after Foles on third downs, right from the start.

If they have success early, they may not let up all game.

New England isn’t one of those teams that can get constant pressure with just a four-man rush anyway, so you will see extra bodies coming after Foles from all over the place. Foles is going to have to prove, again and again, that he won’t wilt under the pressure on the big stage. If he can’t deal well with that pressure, then the Eagles won’t have much of a shot at all on Sunday.

To even have the opportunity to get after Foles, the Patriotsmust stop the run.

That isn’t exactly easy when the Eagles have a veritable stable of running backs, with LeGarrette Blount, Jay Ajayi, and Corey Clement, as well as some really good run schemes they use to get those guys going.

If the Eagles can turn around and hand the ball off all day with success, you can be damn sure that’s exactly what they will keep doing. The Philly coaches aren’t fools. They realize the less they have to lean on Foles, the better.

If the Patriots are able to stop the run, it will likely be because their interior defensive linemen like Malcom Brown, Lawrence Guy, and Ricky Jean-Francois had big games stuffing the middle.

Expect the Patriots to put a target on Eagles running back Jay Ajayi.

He had four fumbles in 2016, one of which he lost; three fumbles in the regular season this year, of which two were lost; oh, and another fumble in the Divisional round of the playoffs on the first drive of the game against the Falcons. Atlanta recovered that one and turned into three points.

Ajayi had better find some stickum before the game because you can bet your ass the Patriots are going to be going after that ball every time he touches it.

As well they should.

Don’t be surprised if Ajayi fumbles again on Sunday is all I’m saying.

Sidenote: Eagles tight end Zach Ertz is not a very good blocker. If he ever has to block James Harrison on Sunday in the run game, there will be some smoke in the city!

The New England defense will also have to try to find a way to defend RPOs.

If there were a magic bullet for stopping them, they wouldn’t be so damned effective. And with how well Foles has done completing passes with RPOs the last couple of games, New England should expect a steady dose of them.

One thing that has had some success against RPOs is having the linebacker to side of the running back blitz the B gap. If the ball is handed off, then either the left tackle or left guard blocks the linebacker and leaves a defensive lineman free, or the offensive line leaves the linebacker alone and he makes an easy tackle for a loss.

If Foles keeps it and tries to throw it and that linebacker is unblocked, that could easily turn into an opportunity for an oooooooo weeeeeeeee hit. I don’t know when they will try it, but if the Eagles have some success with RPOs early, I expect the Patriots to eventually run that B gap blitz to try to slow it down.

Also, when Torrey Smith is in the game the Patriots had better know where he is and back TF off. I don’t know if Foles will be able to hit him on deep balls like he did against the Vikings, but Smith can definitely run by anybody the Patriots put on him. There’s always going to be the potential for a big play if New England doesn’t account for his speed.

The Patriots will have success employing pass rush games against the Philly offensive line when they stick with a four-man rush.

Individually, the Patriots’ pass rushers don’t strike fear into offenses the way the Eagles’ pass rushers do. Working together running those games should pay dividends because while the Eagles offensive line doesn’t have many weak points, it did have a hard time passing off pass rush games in several games this year.

Here’s what the Eagles have to do on offense.

The Eagles have to be able to run the football on offense.

Have to.

That means they’ll have to be able to push the big guys on the interior of the Patriots’ defensive line off the ball. With Stefan Wisniewski at left guard, Jason Kelce at center, and Brandon Brooks at right guard, I believe the Eagles have the personnel to move those guys.

That’s very important because while the Eagles run the ball out of a shotgun a lot, many of those runs aren’t full-on zone runs. Philly likes to get a li’l spicy with it and run all kinds of counters and belly plays out of shotgun as well. Those are power football runs that involve double teams, knocking people off the ball, and the running backs getting downhill fast. Once they get their running backs rolling, that will take the pressure off Foles and afford him the opportunity to take some shots down the field off play action pass.

Look for Blount to have a big day against his former team.

The Eagles have to make protecting the football a priority on Sunday.

I already mentioned Ajayi’s fumbling issues, but did you know that in the six regular season games where Foles actually threw at least one pass this season, he also had a fumble in every single one of those games?

Mind you, in four out of those six games he threw six passes or fewer ...

He was credited with two fumbles against the Falcons in the Divisional Round, too. Fortunately for Foles, the Eagles only lost two of those eight (!) total fumbles, but the margin of error for Philadelphia on Sunday is too damn thin for him to be playing with the church’s money.

In this game even one turnover by the Eagles could be enough to doom them. One way or another, they have to find a way to avoid the interceptions and fumbles on offense. It would be a damn shame if their defense balls out, but the offense keeps putting them in precarious positions.

Yes, the Eagles should try to push the ball down the field a lot against the Patriots.

It may seem weird for me to say this since you can probably tell I still don’t have a whole lot of confidence in Foles. Whether it’s Smith, Alshon Jeffery or even Nelson Algholor, Philly has to take some deep shots if for no other reason than to keep New England’s defense honest. And who knows, you might just get a long touchdown or even a PI out of the deal.

I would be a lot more worried about Foles getting picked off trying to throw something relatively short, rather than on on of his deep balls anyway.

The Eagles have to pay attention to Trey Flowers.

He was my Hoss Of The Week for Championship weekend. Flowers is the one guy for the Patriots who can consistently win one-on-one pass rushes, whether he is lined up inside or outside. Flowers can manhandle your offensive tackle, then slip by your center on the next play.

If the Eagles can get him blocked, then they don’t have much to fear from the Patriots’ four-man rush. For that reason, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them show Flowers some extra attention through the game.

Keep the Patriots secondary guessing.

As for the passing game, I saw on film a few ways that other teams have attacked the Patriots defense that the Eagles will probably try to copy.

One way in particular caught my eye. Several teams had success using the ”oopty oop” (four receivers to one side, one to the other) formation (shout out to Jonathan Moxon) against the Patriots.

I also noticed that the Patriots had some issues in coverage when teams used trips bunch formations (three wide receivers lined up within a yard or so of each other to one side). And wouldn’t you know it, the Eagles just so happen to have a pretty good package of route combinations out of the trips bunch set already. I expect Philly to incorporate both of those formations to try to create some confusion in New England’s secondary, especially with the crossing routes. I’d also expect a screen or two out of those formations as well.

I was reminded when watching film that earlier in the season wide receiver motion exposed some communication issues in the Patriots secondary too. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a lot of motion from Philly on offense, at least to start the game. The more they can fool the Patriots into leaving a guy wide open, the easier Foles’ job will be.

Last, but certainly not least, I expect the Eagles to use RPOs as many times as possible on Sunday.

As I already pointed out, Foles seems very comfortable making throws off the RPOs. And if he gets spooked for any reason, he always has the option of just handing off the ball off to the running back. I honestly can’t see a downside for the Eagles that would keep them running those RPOs all game.

One twist that I think Philly might try is running a sluggo, or slant-and-go, off of on one of their RPOs. They like to run double slants to one side some times, and if the Patriots get frustrated enough, the safety may start trying to jump those routes. If Smith, Jeffery, Algholor, or whoever, can hit that slant-and-go up the field, that could be an easy way for Foles to take a shot without having to worry too much about having to try to avoid a pass rush or having to go through his progressions. Just put it up and let them go get it.

Doesn’t get much easier than that. And the Eagles need to make things as easy as possible for Foles.

Here’s what the Eagles have to do on defense.

Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, run three-man rush against Brady.

Switching over to the Eagles’ defense, the first thing I want to say is my personal advice is to them, and anybody else it may concern, is that they should never run three-man rush against Brady.

Never, ever?

Never, ever.

Oh, they might get away with it a time or two, but why even tempt fate? Sooner or later Brady is going to take advantage of that extra time you afforded to him with your crappy three-man rush and drop a bomb on you.

For who, for what?!

The Eagles should’ve taken all of the three man rushes notes out of their playbook before they headed to Minnesota and had a bonfire with them.

Just my opinion.

The Eagles are probably going to get off the bus blitzing.

Hell, I would.

Scared money don’t make no money, and if you want to have any chance of slowing down Brady enough to beat New England, you have to get people in his face. Ideally that pressure would come from the middle, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers.

Let me say this too. Everybody says “Well, you have to pressure Brady up the middle. He doesn’t like that.” Uhmm, duh!

Most quarterbacks don’t like to face pressure up the middle, so Brady isn’t exactly unique in that regard. The problem is, as anyone who has faced Brady will tell you, its much easier said than done!

I know folks might not want to hear it, but even when you do get pressure on Brady up the middle, it stillmight not matter. Brady was sacked a total of 35 times this season. There was only one game all year where he wasn’t sacked at least once and the Patriots still only lost three games. Hell, Houston sacked him five times and still caught that “L” for their trouble.

Just pressuring Brady alone does not guarantee you victory.

But it damn sure helps!

That’s why I expect Philly to send pressure after him on the regular. Even if the Eagles don’t sack him, they can knock him around and try to get him actually feeling like he’s 40 for a change. When they blitz, I expect them to overload one side and try to get free rushers running at Brady to force quick throws. Whether that means Malcolm Jenkins coming off the edge or setting up Cox with a one-on-one in the middle with the center by covering up both guards, Philly will find a way to get quick pressure on Brady.

But, again, it may not matter.

Brady is a damn machine. He stands in there and delivers even when he knows he’s going to get smashed, then gets up and does it again. You can’t just assume that pressure alone will be enough.

When you blitz the Patriots can matter as much as how you choose to blitz them.

They like to throw a lot on first down with play action passes, so I could see the Eagles blitzing quite a bit on first downs.

The Miami Dolphins blitzed on nine out of 25 non-penalized first downs and on seven out of 20 non-penalized second downs in their Week 14 upset. Of the nine first down blitzes, the Patriots gained yardage on six of them, but the longest gain was just 8 yards. There were also three incompletions and Brady was pressured on two of those. I’m not saying that’s the recipe to beat Brady, because I’m not sure that such a thing actually exists, but it definitely worked out pretty well for Miami.

If I were the Eagles I’d also strongly consider checking to a blitz sometimes when the Patriots have the ball on the left or right hashmark and go with an empty set formation with three receivers to the field and two into the boundary.

It’s not 100 percent, but the center tends to slide to the field and the trips side the majority of the time. That means if you have whoever is covering the inside receiver on the two-receiver side blitz from where they are aligned in coverage, there won’t be anybody to block them if you also have two pass rushers on that side of the center like the Eagles normally would. You could send that guy off the edge or in the B gap and Brady wouldn’t have much time to make a decision and get the ball off.

Just a thought.

Oh, and if an Eagles linebacker gets fooled on a play action fake, the best thing for him to do is keep going and rush the quarterback. It is rare that a guy gets caught up into the line of scrimmage and is then able to turn and run and make a play on wherever Brady throws the ball. Might as well try to get a hit on him instead of wasting your effort.

When the Eagles stay with their four-man rush, what I would do would be tell the interior rushers, power rushes only this week.

The Patriots tend to slide their center most of the time away from the back in one back sets when the running back is off-set on one side, or the other. That means the Eagles should know which defensive tackle will have the one-on-one and which will face a double team in those situations.

They should have the defensive tackle to the double team rush the inside half of the guard and try to rip off after he has pushed the guard back a couple of yards. The tackle with the one-on-one can have a little more freedom, but they still need to use some kind of power rush, regardless.

The big thing is to get both guys in the middle pushing the pocket back on damn near every passing play. Patriots offensive linemen want those guys to try go outside and try to get up the field. Those offensive linemen know that Brady doesn’t like pressure right up the middle and that he also likes to step up in the pocket at times to deliver the football. So if they can get a defensive tackle to do, say, an arm over outside, then ride him upfield and past Brady, they can assure that Brady will have a passing lane to step up into inside of them.

If the Eagles defensive tackles can consistently push the pocket into Brady’s lap all game, then their edge guys like Brandon Graham, Vinny Curry, Chris Long and rookie first-rounder Derek Barnett are gonna eat! If Brady can’t step up, he won’t have anywhere to hide when those edge rushers come around the horn.

Power rushing inside should also put those defensive tackles in position to knock some of Brady’s short passes down as well. Sometimes a pass knocked down is even better than a sack.

Not really, but y’all feel me.

If the Eagles take this approach the Patriots won’t be able to handle Cox’s power rushes one-on-one anyway when they only rush four. Cox could have a monster game on Sunday, and frankly the Eagles need him to if they are to have any chance at victory.

I’d also have nose tackle Tim Jernigan in there on passing downs a little more than usual because he’s strong as a damn ox and can definitely get some good push inside, even against at double team.

But that’s just me.

Just tackle Brady, don’t go for the kill shot.

Last thing as far as pressuring him goes, I saw guys miss Brady repeatedly on film because they were trying to go for the kill shot.

At times Brady looked like he’d slathered his uniform in the same kinda Crisco the city of Philadelphia used to line the light poles before the NFC Championship game. He slipped out of the grasp of wayward pass rushers who appear to have him dead to rights. It’s better just to make a sure tackle on Brady than going for the big hit only to end up on the ground looking up at the referee signaling for a first down.

I’m just sayin’!

Eagles defenders will have their chances to take Brady down, no doubt, but they had better make them under control or he will turn them into yet another victim.

The Eagles will be on alert for trick plays all game.

You don’t normally think of the Patriots of having a “gimmick” offense, but they do all kinds of trick plays almost every single week. From double or triple screens to flea flickers to double passes, the Patriots will find a way to stretch the limits of the playbook to try to use the Eagles’ aggressiveness against them.

Every player just has to concentrate on doing their job and not trying to do somebody else’s. I believe the Eagles will be as prepared as you can possibly be for whatever shenanigans the Patriots throw their way.

Keep a safety over the top of Gronk as much as possible.

He is just unfair when he is running down the field. There is no such thing as having good position on him underneath because he is so damn big. If Gronk gets loose, nothing else will matter, so I’m expecting the Eagles to try to mix in some quarters coverage to help them stay strong against the run, while still having someone in position to stay in front of Gronk on any deep pass.

That Cover 3 adjustment I talked about earlier should make a huge difference in limiting Gronk’s big plays. That is, if the Patriots don’t counter by slipping somebody in that flat like I talked about earlier. At the very least, it will give the Eagles a chance to match up with him without having to switch to a different coverage.

With all of the pick plays, motion, and shifts the Patriots can do I wouldn’t think the Eagles would play a lot of man-to-man in this game, but I can’t be sure about that. If they do go man, it will be interesting to see who draws the assignment of trying to cover Gronk.

Here’s why the Patriots will win ... and it won’t be close.

Having said all that, I’m going to go ahead and pick the Patriots to win their second Super Bowl title in a row in a game that won’t be close by the time the clock strikes zero. The primary reason for this prediction, as you may have discerned by now, is that I still can’t trust Nick Foles.

I can’t.

For Brady to play well enough for the Patriots to win would be par for the course for him at this point in his career. Even when he has an “off” day, Brady has the ability to get it going in the fourth quarter and play well enough that the Patriots still end up winning in the end.

Just ask the Falcons.

For Foles to play well enough to win, however, he’ll have to do something extraordinary for him. Even after his strong showing against the Vikings, I just don’t know if Foles will take care of the ball well enough or make enough big throws down the field to give the Eagles a legit chance to win.

I can see a way for the Patriots to win even if their defense struggles, but I can’t see a scenario where the Eagles’ defense is anything less than dominant for Philly to pull off the victory. That’s just way too much pressure for that side of the ball to shoulder for the Eagles. Even for a defense as good as Philly’s. And, one last time, even if the Eagles defense is dominant, there’s still no guarantee that it will be enough.

I do think the Philly’s defense and its running game will help keep the score close for most of the game, but I expect New England to mash the gas and pull away in the fourth quarter.

This prediction may seem a little obvious, but let me say clearly that the Eagles will have plenty of opportunities to win this Super Bowl on Sunday, and if Foles plays like he did against Minnesota, Philly may just pull this one out.

I just don’t think he will.

Sorry, not sorry.

Patriots 27, Eagles 10