Matchup of QBs hard to match
There has never been a Super Bowl matchup of accomplished quarterbacks quite like the one coming up next week between the Buccaneers’ Tom Brady and the Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes.
This will be the sixth Super Bowl matchup between former AP NFL MVPs, the second between former Super Bowl MVP winning quarterbacks and the first between players who had previously won both awards.
Brady has won a record six Super Bowl titles, four Super MVPs and three league
MVP awards since becoming starter for the Patriots in 2001.
Mahomes is just getting started in his career and already has one league
MVP and one Super Bowl
MVP to his credit and is back in the title game for the second time.
The first Super Bowl matchup of former league
MVPs came in the 1976 season when the Raiders’
Ken Stabler (1974 winner) beat the Vikings’ Fran
Tarkenton (1975 winner).
The Broncos’ John
Elway was part of the next two MVP matchups, losing to the 49ers’ Joe Montana after the 1989 season and beating the Packers’ Brett
Favre eight years later.
Then it happened again in back-to-back seasons in 2015 and 2016 with the Broncos’ Peyton Manning besting the Panthers’ Cam Newton and Brady beating the Falcons’ Matt Ryan.
Brady was also part of the only previous matchup of Super Bowl MVPs losing a rematch to Eli Manning and the Giants following the 2011 season.
This will also be the second time in NFL history that the past two championship quarterbacks are facing off in the title game.
The only other time it happened came in 1943 when Washington’s Sammy Baugh faced the Bears’ Sid Luckman. Baugh had won the title with Washington in 1942 and Luckman with the Bears in 1941.
Brady is also the fourth quarterback to start Super Bowls for two franchises, joining Peyton Manning (Colts and Broncos), Kurt Warner (Rams and Cardinals) and Craig Morton (Cowboys and Broncos).
Celebrate at home: The Bucs will be the first team to play the Super Bowl at their home stadium, although two others got to play for the title in their home markets.
In the 1979 season, the Los Angeles Rams went to the Super Bowl against the Steelers at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, where they lost 31-19.
Five years later, the 49ers won the title just a few miles south of their home at Candlestick Park with a 38-16 win over the Dolphins at Stanford Stadium.
With a win Feb. 7, the Bucs will be the first team in the NFL, NBA, NHL or Major League Baseball to win it all at its home venue since the Warriors did it in the 2017 NBA Finals against the Cavaliers. Every title since then was clinched on the road or in a neutral site at the Super Bowl or in a coronavirus bubble.
The last time the NFL champion finished the season by winning a title at its own stadium came in the 1965 season when Vince Lombardi’s Packers beat the Browns 23-12 at Lambeau Field in the final season before the first Super Bowl.
The Bucs were the first team in 10 years to make it to the Super Bowl despite not winning their division.
They’re hoping to follow the path the Packers took in the 2010 season when they finished second in the NFC North but went on to win the Super Bowl against the Steelers.
The Packers were the sixth wild-card team to win it all, joining the Raiders (1980 season), Broncos (1997), Ravens (2000), Steelers (2005) and Giants (2007).
No team has even made it to the Super Bowl after playing in the wild-card round since 2012 when the Ravens and 49ers did it.
The Ravens won that game 34-31.
Going wild:
Keep it close: No one has been able to blow out Patrick Mahomes since he took over as Chiefs starter in 2018. Mahomes has lost just nine games as a starter with the most lopsided being a 40-32 defeat to the Raiders in October for his only loss in his last 26 starts.
He has also lost twice by seven points, twice by six, three times by three and once by one point.
The last time Mahomes lost by more than one possession in a game came in his final year in college at Texas Tech, when the Red Raiders fell 66-10 to Iowa State on Nov. 19, 2016.