Passing the torch
Brady takes on Mahomes for the Super Bowl title
The NFL does not have scriptwriters, but if it did, then they would be in high-demand in every single studio in Hollywood.
This season will end with a Super Bowl between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the reigning champion Kansas City Chiefs at the Bucs’ home stadium in Tampa, Florida.
As if that was not enough, there is the added intrigue of the two teams’ quarterbacks: Tampa Bay’s Tom Brady – the man who will soon have been to a record 10 Super Bowls, all of them prior to this with the New England Patriots, winning six of them – and Patrick Mahomes, the Chiefs QB who won his first Super Bowl ring last year in his first appearance in the big dance.
Brady, as if it needed said, is American football royalty.
He was the face of the franchise in New England, the on-pitch personification of legendary coach Bill Belichick. While the six-time Super Bowl winning coach is still on the sidelines, Brady walked away at the end of the final contract of his 20-year career with the Pats.
He left and signed for Tampa Bay last March.
The march since has been to his 10th Super Bowl and Brady has enjoyed every minute of it.
“It’s been a great journey thus far. We put the work in and a lot of guys just embraced everything that [happened] when B.A. (Bruce Arians) got here last year,” he said after the Buccaneers beat the Green Bay Packers in the National Football Conference Final on Monday.
“There were a lot of great things that were happening and a lot of great, young players. I just made the decision [to sign for the Buccaneers]. I love coming to work every day with this group of guys and worked really hard to get to this point. It’s a tough game – we’ve had a few tough games in a row and the next game will be really tough, too.”
Goal of the season
Brady’s coach in Tampa, Bruce Arians, who laid it out that his side under arguably the best quarterback to ever play the game, was to bring home the Vince Lombardi Trophy. They can literally bring it home with the Super Bowl in their own stadium.
“So many teams don’t get a chance because they don’t get the Super Bowl in their stadium,” Arians said. “It was obviously the goal of ours to start the season, but getting to the Super Bowl wasn’t what our goal is. Our goal is to win it.”
Brady said similar. He is not there to make up the numbers, even at 42 years old.
“We know what we’re playing for and we’ve got two weeks to prepare. It’s going to be a great opponent. It will be a really exciting couple of weeks for us,” he said.
Brady might be excited for Super Bowl LV as he has been here before, more than anyone in fact.
In 2019, when he was 41, he appeared in a third straight Super Bowl and he has won six Super Bowl MVPs.
His mantle was picked up in 2020 by a certain Mahomes, the Super Bowl winning quarterback of the Chiefs. Mahomes is gunning for another. “The job’s not finished,” Mahomes said, after passing for three touchdowns in a 38-24 win over the Buffalo Bills to reach his second Super Bowl.
“We’re going to Tampa to try to run it back... We’ve just got to be ourselves,” the quarterback said after the Chiefs were handed the NFC trophy. “I trust my guys over anybody to go out there and be ourselves.”
“Our goal from the beginning of the season,” Mahomes said after the win, in words eerily similar to those of Brady, “was to win the Super Bowl, not to get to it.
His coach Andy Reid certainly backs the Chiefs for another.
“We’ve got the Lamar Hunt Trophy again in Kansas City,” Reid said of the AFC trophy named after the Chiefs founder.
“Now we’ve got to go get the big one and bring home the gold.”
Respective history
Brady and Mahomes have their own history.
Reid mentioned that in his postgame victory after sealing a trip to Tampa, talking of the 2018 playoff meeting between the Pats and the Chiefs which Brady won to take his team to yet another Super Bowl – and yet another Super Bowl win.
“You remember when Tom came into the locker room after the championship game and talked to Patrick, and Patrick responded like a young guy would respond to the GOAT.
“We look forward to the opportunity to play them, and Pat does with Tom, and I’m sure likewise Tom does with Pat. So, it should be a heck of a football game.”
Indeed. Mahomes is no longer just cast as the fanboy he was seen as when he spoke to Brady post-game.
“Listen, you guys are seeing him grow right in front of you,” Reid said of his star, noting that as an “old guy” he had coach “a couple pretty good quarterbacks” in his time.
Perhaps Mahomes will outdo even the master, but first he must get past him and his Tampa Bay Buccaneers on February 7.
He knows what he is up against, describing the matchup with Brady and the Bucs as “special.”
“Being able to go up against one of the greatest, if not the greatest quarterback of all time in his 150th Super Bowl,” he joked.
Joking aside, it might feel like that such is Brady’s familiarity with the Super Bowl. Mahomes was single minded nonetheless.
He knows that he can match a Brady record by beating him – the older man is the only quarterback to win two Super Bowls in his first four seasons in the NFL.
“I mean it’s going to be a great experience for me. To go out there and get to have a chance to repeat and get to do it against the best, I mean it’s something special and I’m excited for the opportunity.”
Opportunity knocks on February 7.