Analysis: Despite new team, veteran QB is lights out
The more things change for Tom Brady … Instead of hugging Bill Belichick and Josh McDaniels, he embraced Bruce Arians and Byron Leftwich.
Instead of celebrating with Julian Edelman and James White, he shared joy with Mike Evans and Leonard Fournette.
And instead of bringing a Super Bowl title back to New England, he delivered one to Tampa Bay.
The more things stay the same for Brady …
He played lights out in the sport’s biggest game, completing 21 of 29 passes for 201 yards and three touchdowns.
He found buddy Rob Gronkowski for two first-half touchdowns.
And he won for the seventh time in 10 Super Bowl appearances as Tampa Bay throttled Kansas City 31-9 on Sunday night.
Score one for the traditional pocket passer. Turns out, it’s not an endangered pro football commodity in this era of emphasizing escaping over accuracy.
Score one for Brady … and Arians/Leftwich, who obviously spent the last two weeks finding ways to get Gronk more involved … and Gronkowski, who came out of retirement to reunite with Brady and still looks like he has great wheels … and defensive coordinator
Todd Bowles, who withstood the temptation to send extra rushers and relied on a fourman pressure to create chaos.
“We ended up playing our best game of the year,” Brady said after being named MVP and joining Peyton Manning as the second quarterback win Super Bowls with two franchises.
This wasn’t a fluke. It was a thoroughly administered buttkicking, the biggest blowout since Seattle pasted the Broncos 43-8 seven years ago.
Two months ago, the Buccaneers wheezed into their bye week with a 7-5 record. Did they have an offensive identity? Would Brady crawl to the finish line? Would this grand experiment of bringing Brady south flame out?
Yes, no and no. The offense got cooking (31 or more points in their last seven games), Brady had a 98.1 playoff passer rating. And the Buccaneers won three road games to reach the home-field Super Bowl.
“We had a tough month of November,” Brady said. “But (Arians) had all the confidence in us, the team had a lot of confidence and we came together at the right time.”
Sunday night was like the Super Bowls of the 1980s and ’90s, when the NFC was dominant, posting wins of 22, 45 and 23 points by San Francisco, 32 and 13 points by Washington, 35 and 17 points by Dallas and 36 points by Chicago.
Back then, you always hoped for a close game, but knew the Cowboys and Redskins, 49ers and Bears were simply better.
Sunday night was a startling result even if we picked Tampa Bay to win.
The Chiefs played so out-ofcharacter in that they had no answers. They didn’t score a touchdown. They couldn’t get Tyreek Hill involved. They stunk on third down (3 of 13). And they hurt themselves (11 penalties — 120 yards).
By the time Kelce started picking up empty-calorie yards, Gronkowski had his two touchdowns. He finished with six catches for 67 yards; he had two catches in the Bucs’ first three playoff games.
Brady had to be in-shock on the sidelines as he watched the Buccaneers roll. In his first nine Super Bowl appearances, he averaged 43.6 pass attempts. All were down to the wire. All required many of his powers. Not this time, though. The 29 attempts were the eighth-fewest of his 45-game postseason career.
Brady, whose 125.8 rating was his best in a Super Bowl, had already clinched my vote as best player in NFL history and a seventh championship breaks a tie with Michael Jordan. Brady may be the best U.S. team sport player in history.
What to make of the Chiefs’ showing? Brady and New England (2003-04) remains the last team to repeat as Super Bowl champions.
Mahomes, with a gimpy turf
toe, was consistently on the run, either to gain yards (33 yards on his first five carries) or to avoid sacks. The four-man pressure allowed Bowles to keep his safeties and linebackers in the middle of the field to account for Hill (three catches for 34 yards in the first 3 1/2 quarters).
The Chiefs’ offense is too good not to rebound.
But Sunday night was all about the Buccaneers’ offense in general and Brady/ Gronkowski in particular, two old buddies who reunited in Tampa Bay and led the previously-irrelevant franchise to a Super Bowl title.