Brady has that Midas touch
SUPER BOWL: TRANSFORMED TAMPA BAY INTO CONTENDERS
Tom Brady will be trying to earn more than just his seventh Lombardi Trophy when he leads the Tampa Bay Buccaneers against the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LV on 7 February at Raymond James Stadium, he’ll be trying to become his own dynasty.
At 43, Brady is one victory away from proving his ability to win titles isn’t tied to a single franchise or a sure-fire Hall of Fame coach.
He’s a win from proving he’s strong enough to go anywhere and emerge triumphant.
After all, he has already proven he can lead fourth-quarter comebacks on the game’s grandest stage, and showed that being down by 25 points late in the third quarter of a Super Bowl means next to nothing.
Brady has turned Tampa – a professional football wasteland for decades – into the undisputed sports capital of the US today.
The city in western Florida is home to the reigning Stanley Cup champions Lightning, and the American League champion Rays, and is a win away from filling the streets of Ybor City with confetti.
Tampa Bay is hosting the Super Bowl, the first one where a team will be playing for the Lombardi Trophy on their own home field.
Brady turned New England, which had never won a Super Bowl, from a mediocre franchise when he arrived in 2000, into six-time champions worth $4.4 billion, second in the NFL behind the Cowboys, when he left, according to Forbes.
Now, he has taken a Buccaneers franchise that had gone 267-424-1 for a .387 winning percentage – the worst among North American pro sports teams – in the 44 seasons before he arrived, to just their second Super Bowl and first since winning it in 2003.
Since then, the Buccaneers didn’t win a playoff game – until their saviour arrived.
Speaking after Sunday’s NFC title game, Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians referred to the “belief (Brady) gave everybody in this organisation that it could be done. It only took one man.”
But standing in Tampa Bay’s way is a quarterback who has won a Super Bowl more recently than Brady – Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes (pictured below).
He’s looking to become the first quarterback to lead his team to back-to-back Super Bowl titles since you-know-who did it with the Patriots in Super Bowls XXXVIII and XXXIX in 2004 and 2005.
“We just have to be ourselves,” Mahomes said after beating Buffalo. “I trust my guys over everybody.”
The Super Bowl odds opened with Kansas City as a 3.5-point favorite and an over/under of 57.5 points at FanDuel, which has set money lines for Kansas City at -186 and Tampa at +145.
Between now and kick-off, expect a blitz of storylines and statistics to sift through before deciding where to focus wagers.
On four occasions, the eventual AFC and NFC champions met during the regular season.
In 1990, the Bills beat the Giants, 17-13 in week 15, but then Scott Norwood happened in Super Bowl XXV.
In 1993, the Bills went to Dallas and won, 13-10, in week two, only to see the Cowboys crush Buffalo in the Super Bowl for the second straight season, 30-13.
And then there’s the Brady factor, of course.
In 2007, his undefeated Patriots beat the Giants 38-35 in week 17 and a few weeks later, David Tyree’s catch happened and the Giants won Super Bowl XLII. –