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Former Super Bowl champion and Louisiana native Andrew Whitworth is at home with the Super Bowl in New Orleans. Ahead of the big game, we sat down with the former NFL player turned analyst to get his thoughts on the upcoming Super Bowl matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles, the city of New Orleans, and he explained to us what a seafood boil is.
So you’ll be out in New Orleans judging Pepsi’s Super Bowl boil. What exactly are you doing out there, and what is a seafood boil?
“Listen, you’re going to New Orleans, you got to have a good time. So Pepsi is having the first-ever Super Bowl boil to crown the best Seafood boil champ in the Big Easy on February 7th at Woldenberg Park. What it is going to be an opportunity, if you’ve never had one, you get to have some. Listen, it’s going to be some boiled shrimp, Crawfish, potatoes, and corn. Man, it is unbelievable. It’s so good.”
“We’re going to have a competition. I’m going to get to be one of the lead judges, and we’re going to have a little fun and see who in the city has got the best boil, but the part of a boil that makes it special is it’s not just the food and how good they can cook it. A lot of what you do in our culture in Louisiana when you talk about boils is getting out a table and throwing some cloth over it. You pour the shrimp, potatoes, Crawfish, and corn across the table.”
“Everyone sits in a circle and eats it and just has a time. You talk, and you hang out, and that’s very much the vibe of being in New Orleans: that fellowship of over drinks and over food and how that all pairs together. For Pepsi, it’s about pairing that Crawfish bowl, that shrimp bowl, with a good cold Pepsi, having a good time, fellowshiping, and enjoying the people you’re getting to eat it with.”
Many fans will experience New Orleans for the first time during Super Bowl week. What can they expect?
“When you’re going to New Orleans, you’re talking about a place its cultural identity is hosting. You go to the South in Baton Rouge, go to an LSU Tiger game, or you go to New Orleans, go to a Saints game. The tailgating, the food scenes, the people cooking and just offering it to anybody walking by like, Hey, come try my food. They take a lot of pride in what they do and the way they serve people and creating an atmosphere where you want to have fun.
“That’s literally where Bourbon Street got its original creation of just people wanting to go there is because it was so much fun. The people were so hospitable, and so was the food, the vibe, and everything. So that’s the city of New Orleans. They are a great host. That’s why it’s always been a Super Bowl city, and it’s a good place to be able to walk around, see a lot of cool things, and maybe try some food you’ve never had before. So it’s going to be an interesting food scene for a lot of people who maybe have not tried some of the good food in the city of New Orleans they can throw down.
What are your thoughts on the Eagles going into the Super Bowl after a dominant win in the NFC Championship game?
“I think the Eagles showed exactly what I thought all year. When you got two fronts, your D-line and your O-line, they’re as good as anybody in the game. They might be the best on both sides of the football. As a collective group, they are special, and you see them take over games that way. Then on the other side of it, they drafted really well in the secondary.”
“Those two young corners have played unbelievable. They’ve gotten a lot of great play. Obviously, Jalen hurts this season. Maybe the passing game wasn’t always what people wanted to be, but they’ve been exactly what they needed to be. They went and got Saquon Barkley for a reason, and they ground and pound, good luck stopping it. It’s a great offensive line with an all-time type running back behind them. It is going to be a challenge for the game to see the Chiefs to slow this run game down because nobody else has.”
It seems like fans are always up in arms about the Chiefs and the officiating every week. Why do you think that is? Does it come with the territory of being a great team?
“Any winner in any sport, there’s always the people that are going to be after every little thing about them. We’ve seen it with the Patriots. We’ve seen it, obviously, with the Chiefs. I think that’s a lot of recency bias in the sense that you see the Chiefs a lot, and you see them in the playoffs a lot in massive games. You see them in primetime games during the season because they are one of those teams that they purposely are on TV a lot and in primetime slots. And so I just think people get sensitive to it, but the reality is, if you go and look at a lot of calls, you wouldn’t argue with them, and maybe your argument is other teams don’t get them as much, but I think that it’s just hard to prove there’s any real bias there, and I think that the Chiefs just continue to show that in big, big moments, they can be exactly what they need to and it doesn’t matter who it is. It’s not always one person for them.”
Give us a prediction, who is going to win the Super Bowl between the Eagles and the Chiefs?
“I see Saquon and the Eagles doing what they do. I really do. I’m going to be wrong again. Last year, I was wrong every single week I picked against the Chiefs, I think. Maybe I’m a good luck charm for them, but I think the Eagles are going to tweak one out and find a way to win.”
For those interested in checking out Pepsi’s Super Bowl boil in New Orleans, check out the info below.
Pepsi Super Boil
Friday, February 7, 2025 | 12pm-2pm CT
Riverwalk Gazebo at Woldenberg Park | 1 Canal Street | New Orleans, LA 70130
The Pepsi Super Bowl Boil is free for ticketed guests. A limited quantity of tickets is available at www.PepsiNewOrleans.com/SuperBowlBoil
To celebrate that famed New Orleans Food Deserves Pepsi™, Pepsi will crown the greatest local seafood boil restaurant at the first-ever Pepsi Super Bowl Boil. The seafood showdown will serve as a pregame appetizer to kickoff Super Bowl LIX weekend.
Mr. Shrimp’s Kitchen and Crawlins Seafood– who secured their spot in the championship through a fan vote – will square off as a panel of celebrity and local judges and fans taste their best classic seafood, corn and potato boils. The boils will be judged based on taste, appearance and ease of peeling and the dish which receives the most votes will be awarded the coveted title of the first-ever Pepsi Super Bowl Boil Champion. The winning restaurant will walk away with bragging rights, a one-of-a-kind championship trophy and $10,000 in cold, hard cash.
The Pepsi Super Bowl Boil will celebrate the best of New Orleans culture with music, tailgating games, a meet and greet with Whitworth, and of course, the chance to taste and help select the best seafood boils the city has to offer. The Pepsi Super Bowl Boil will allow fans to see firsthand why seafood boils pair perfectly with the brown spices and citrusy notes of Pepsi.