A déjà vu super Bowl for the ages
This Sunday’s Super bowl will be, as yogi berra once said, like déjà vu all over again. Again and again.
We have seen the Tom brady show before. He makes his astonishing 10th appearance in the championship game — only the actual Vince Lombardi trophy itself has been to more Super bowls.
but its déjà vu again because we have also seen the two major stories of this Super bowl before.
exactly five years ago, Super bowl 50 involved the aged Peyton Manning — then the oldest quarterback ever to start a Super bowl — attempt to become the first quarterback to win the Super bowl with two different teams. This time around, brady is the now the oldest, and he is attempting to win with Tampa bay what he won six times with New england.
Five years ago, Manning was going up against the hottest new thing in football — both on and off the field. Quarterback Cam Newton led the Carolina Panthers, a team that had the most explosive offence in the National Football League. He was the league’s most valuable player and was seen as the future of football.
The future sometimes doesn’t last very long. Newton was defeated by the (elderly) Manning that day — or, more to the point, the smothering denver defence. In any case, that was when his career began its long, downhill slide. every year, sports provides a new star. Only a few in a generation manage to burn brightly long into the night.
Manning-newton in 2016 was at the time the greatest age difference in Super bowl quarterback history; Manning was 13 years older than his rival. This time, brady is 18 years older than the stellar quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs, the 2018 MVP and reigning Super bowl champion, Patrick Mahomes. He is now the hottest new thing in football. brady, in fact, is only seven years younger than Mahomes’ father.
It is one of the most endearing and enduring stories in sports, the aging but still able legend facing down the ascent of the next generation. It’s Muhammad Ali versus Leon Spinks in 1978. It can, of course, go either way. Spinks beat Ali in February; Ali beat Spinks in their September rematch.
Longevity in sports is more remarkable than youthful prowess, which is why the dominance of Tiger Woods in his youth had to be tested against the decades-long excellence of Jack Nicklaus in determining the greatest of all time. It’s Nicklaus, and not even close, though some like to debate that.
In football, there is no debate. Tom brady — who has 21 seasons, 10 Super bowl appearances and six victories under his belt — is simply the most successful football player ever. This time, though, he does it with a new team, having ended his 20-year run with head coach bill belichick in New england last year.
That’s the other story of the week. Who was more responsible for the longest and most successful dynasty in NFL history? brady or belichick? It can only be argued after a separation, thus here we are. In their first season apart, brady is in the Super bowl and belichick missed the playoffs in New england, struggling with Cam Newton, yesterday’s man of the future.
Occasionally, sport provides this experiment. After Wayne Gretzky was traded to Los Angeles in 1988, the question arose about the edmonton Oilers: were they great without the Great One? They went on to win another Stanley Cup in 1990; Gretzky never did.
In football, the relevant example is the early 1990s dallas Cowboys, which won back-to-back Super bowls under new owner Jerry Jones and his hand-picked coach and lifelong friend, Jimmy Johnson. but Texas wasn’t big enough for both egos, even with two Super bowls. So Jones fired Johnson and brought in a manifestly less able coach, barry Switzer, just to prove that the team he assembled could win with any coach. dallas won another Super bowl; Johnson never did.
brady and belichick are not Jones and Johnson, but this experiment — which is as controlled as one can get in sports — will be looked at the same way.
I was able to cheer for brady for the first time this season. The brady-belichick Patriots were always impressive to watch, but football is a game, and games should be fun. belichick’s mastery is unmatched, but the dour taskmaster sucked the joy out of the game. every athlete will tell you that winning is more fun than losing, but belichick seemed to delight in making both miserable. brady is now more fun to watch, freed from the cramped joylessness of the grouchiest of all time.
The Super bowl is a difficult game to watch, so bloated with commercial excess that it stretches 12 minutes of action to some four hours in length. brady will now have spent an entire 40-hour week playing in the Super bowl. He has earned his rest — but not yet.