7 thoughts on Super Bowl LV
Tampa Bay's defense dominated on the biggest stage and the Chiefs couldn't give Patrick Mahomes any help. Here are some opinions on the Big Game.
Sports narratives and conversations have become increasingly focused on individuals, and the lead up to Super Bowl LV was framed around two of the NFL’s best: Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes. The greatest quarterback to ever play the game and the person with the best current chance to take away that title one day.
Sunday night was likely to be a legacy defining moment - and for Brady it was - but it also proved to be a reminder that to win a championship in the NFL individual talent even as immense as Mahomes’ can’t overcome a unified team.
Nobody expected the 31-9 blowout that occured on Sunday, and it cemented one fact that looks even clearer in hindsight. Beginning in December and carrying on throughout the start of the 2021 calendar year, Tampa Bay has morphed into the best and most complete team in the league.
When the Buccaneers signed Brady over the offseason, it was always possible that it ended with a Lombardi Trophy. But while his seventh such trophy further mints Brady’s legend, and despite what the voters decided after the game, he wasn’t the MVP of Super Bowl LV. Tampa Bay’s defense was.
So, let’s begin my 10 thoughts on the Super Bowl right there.
1. Tampa Bay had a defensive performance for the ages
Does any team play defense in the Super Bowl as well as the Buccaneers?
In their first-ever championship victory, the Buccaneers held a vaunted Oakland Raiders offense to just 21 points in a 48-21 blowout in Super Bowl XXXVII. That number is misleading, though, as Tampa Bay held a 34-3 lead late into the third quarter and allowed just nine points heading into the fourth quarter.
That defense, which featured Hall of Famers like Warren Sapp, Derrick Brooks and John Lynch, is considered one of the best the game has ever seen. Astonishingly, what Tampa Bay did against Kansas City may have topped its first defensive performance in the Super Bowl.
Nobody is supposed to shut down the Chiefs offense like that. Mahomes isn’t supposed to look that jittery while dropping back to throw the ball. The man who is considered the best quarterback in the game right now did not reach 100 yards passing until 1:07 was left on the clock in the third quarter.
Let that sink in.
That’s not an indictment on Mahomes. He did jaw-dropping, unfathomable Patrick Mahomes-type things. I mean, this pass hit its intended target in the face mask.
What Tampa Bay defensive coordinator Todd Bowles drew up made me think a lot about another Super Bowl defensive performance: The New York Giants’ in 2008. During the 2007 season, Brady absolutely tore through the NFL and earned league MVP as the Patriots changed the way offenses played the game.
New England, with Randy Moss (who caught 23 touchdowns, which is absurd) and Wes Welker as Brady’s top options, were every bit as dangerous as this year’s Chiefs. The Giants held that offense to just 14 points and did so with a dominant four-man pass rush. Traditionally a lover of the blitz, Bowles dialed up something very similar to what New York did and with similar success.
After the Chiefs dominated the Bucs’ defense earlier in the season, Tampa Bay ran more Cover 2 looks and kept as many players in coverage as possible to put a lid on Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce. The gamble there, however, is potentially allowing Mahomes to get comfortable in the pocket by sending no extra pass rushers.
Bowles needed his defenive linemen to pressure Mahomes by themselves, and they did so to a historic degree.
Kansas City entered the game without its two starting offensive tackles, and Tampa Bay took advantage. The Bucs’ pass rush helped their coverage stick with the lightning-fast Chiefs receivers long enough to render them ineffective on Sunday night.
Tampa Bay has talent on all three levels of its defense with a mix of bon-a-fide stars like Jason Pierre-Paul and Devin White, and emerging young players such as Antoine Winfield Jr. Bowles had an idea for how the Bucs could slow down the league’s most dangerous offense, but more importantly, he knew his players well enough to put them in exactly the right roles to execute his vision.
And the Buccaneers are Super Bowl champions because of it.
2. That was Tom Brady’s offense
A key curiosity for me heading into the fall was how Brady would fit into a Bruce Arians offense that was built around a vertical passing attack. At 43 years of age, would Brady be able to make all of the throws needed to make that type of offense hum?
The answer turned out to be a resounding yes, but I may have been asking the wrong question. In hindsight, I believe it was Arians’ (and offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich’s) willingness to adjust that mattered much more.
What the Buccaneers ran in the Super Bowl was a Brady offense, not an Arians one. The bread was the run game, and the butter was the checkdown pass. This wasn’t the air-it-out approach that seemed disjointed for Tampa Bay during the first half of the year.
I’m not a fan of the false causality people sometimes make between wins and high rushing totals (As a general rule, teams with the lead run the ball more to take time off the clock. That’s not the same as winning because they ran the ball more.). Anybody watching on Sunday night, though, could see that Tampa Bay centered its offense around the run.
Leonard Fournette led the way with 89 yards and a touchdown on 16 carries, and Ronald Jones chipped in with 61 yards on 12 carries.
The run game was always an important factor during Brady’s time with the Patriots, but the true signature was getting the backs involved as pass-catchers. In the Super Bowl, Brady connected with Fournette four times for 46 yards. Three of those receptions resulted in first downs.
Brady also completed nine passes to his tight ends, something that was likewise reminiscient of his time in New England. He was very willing to take what Kansas City’s defense was giving him, and the Bucs coaching staff was smart enough to stick with a patient approach in the game and let him.
3. Patrick Mahomes did everything he could
I don’t lay any blame at the feet of Mahomes for the outcome on Sunday. He didn’t play well - by his own standards, at least - but I don’t think the Chiefs did anything at all to help him.
Every single person on Kansas City’s coaching staff knows way more about offense than I do, but there seemed to be a frustrating lack of creativity from the most creative offense in the league. Perhaps that’s why even more credit should be given to the work Bowles and his unit did, yet I don’t think the Chiefs made things easier for themselves.
This is an offense designed to maximize the space on the field and exploit that space with overwhelming speed. Tampa Bay took away that space downfield by dropping at least seven men into coverage on a vast majority of plays, forcing the Chiefs to play the same type of patient game the Bucs were playing on offense.
Whether through miscommunication or a lack of execution, Kansas City wasn’t even able to make progress through short passes or checkdowns. Against a defense hell-bent on guarding the pass, there are inherintly opportunities to run the ball, but, although Mahomes and Clyde Edwards-Helaire combined for 99 rushing yards on 14 carries, they couldn’t stick with the run consistently once Tampa Bay took a double-digit lead.
I also mentioned that the Chiefs entered Sunday’ without their top two tackles, including two-time Pro Bowler Eric Fisher, who was injured late in the AFC Championship Game. Kansas City tried to slow down the Tampa Bay pass rush with pre-snap motion and run-pass options, but they didn’t commit extra blockers to keep Mahomes protected.
Mahomes can often make the plays that aren’t supposed to be even imaginable, and he did his best to do so in the Super Bowl. The Chiefs’ gamble that he could hang in there long enough to hit something downfield enought times to force the Bucs to rethink their strategy backfired, and by the time they considered re-adjusting the game script had made it impossible to do so.
I don’t put that on Mahomes, though, especially when a majority of his dropbacks looked like this:
4. What was up with Kansas City’s energy?
This ties into the previous point, but one of the most jarring I noticed on a rewatch was just how much the Chiefs sideline lacked energy. There wasn’t much cheering, motivating, nothing. Guys were just standing there.
Now, that’s probably a little bit of an over-simplification. These are professional athletes in the biggest game, and I’m sure there were players who gave a damn and things got heated. But I went back to rewatch the game not expecting to even pay attention to the sidelines, and it’s telling that I couldn’t help but notice how lifeless the Chiefs looked at times.
Contrast that with the fiery emotion coming from Tampa Bay’s sideline, led by Brady, and the outcome of Super Bowl LV makes even more sense.
5. We need to talk about the officiating
On principle, I try never to blame officiating for the outcome of games. And I don’t even think an argument can be made now that the officials decided the game on Sunday night. That would, again, be a disservice to how well Tampa Bay played.
But … what was that?
Very rarely do people complain about under-officiated football games, unless it’s something incredibly blatant like the missed pass interference call in the Rams-Saints NFC Championship Game. On the whole, if it’s officiated similarly for both teams, people praise the refs for “letting them play.”
The refs didn’t do that on the games’ biggest stage, though, and it seemed to disproportionately affect the Chiefs - at least early on.
I’m not going to argue against every penalty called on the Chiefs, because that would be absurd. But there were some truly impactful calls that could be considered iffy at best.
Chiefs safety Tyrann Mathieu looked to swing some momentum back to his team with an interception on what would turn out to be the Bucs’ second touchdown drive of the game. On the play, however, Chiefs cornerback Charvarius Ward was called for a hold on Bucs receiver Mike Evans.
By the letter of the law, sure, he probably held him slightly. But holding to that degree happens way more often than it doesn’t in the NFL, and it’s usually ignored if the defender doesn’t hold for too long or make it too obvious. I don’t think Ward did either.
The other, and in my opinion more notable, aspect of this play is the tip at the line of scrimmage. It happens pretty much simultaneously with Evans breaking off his route, and presumably when the hold occured. By NFL rule, however, once a ball is tipped, everything is fair game. Coupled with the degree of the hold, this seems like a pretty strict call, and it cost the Chiefs dearly.
Another similarly iffy call was made on Tampa Bay’s next and final drive of the first half, and it again led directly to a touchdown. With 13 seconds and no timeouts remaining, Brady fired a pass into the end zone that drew a quick pass interference from Mathieu and set the Bucs up at the 1-yard line with 10 seconds left.
While this was an easier call and more blatant interference, they won’t usually make such a call on a ball that’s uncatchable. And for anybody without superpowers, it’s tough to believe this ball had a chance to be caught.
And then there was this weird moment where Brady sprints after Mathieu after his touchdown pass to Antonio Brown at the end of the first half and a personal foul is called on the Chiefs safety. It’s tough to tell what exactly Mathieu did wrong here.
Again, I’m not saying this game was decided by the officials. The Chiefs had a big enough hand in thier own demise on Sunday, and the Buccaneers deserved to win the game. But it’s worth scrutiny and should be discussed.
6. Touchdown time machine
The 2021 season saw the resurgence of some members of the NFL’s old guard such as likely MVP Aaron Rodgers and Brady down in Tampa, but it was mostly about the emergence of the next generation of stars.
The four AFC teams to make it past Wildcard Weekend were led by Mahomes (25), Baker Mayfield (25), Josh Allen (24) and Lamar Jackson (24). Justin Jefferson broke Randy Moss’s rookie receiving record in Minnesota and Justin Herbert looked like a future star at quarterback in his first NFL season.
I’m not going to name every single talented young player in the league, but it’s safe to say the NFL is in tremendous hands moving forward. Given how much of this year was defined by first-, second- and third-year guys making the leap, I found it amusing that the Super Bowl was won on the backs of names we’ve known for a long time.
Rob Gronkowski, the 31-year-old tight end who came out of retirement to join Brady in Tampa, caught the games first two touchdown passes and led the Bucs with six catches for 67 yards.
Antonio Brown, who at 32 joined the Buccaneers with the season in progress, caught five passes for 22 yards and a touchdown.
Leonard Fournette, a former top-five pick cast away by the Jacksonville Jaguars before the season, put the game away with a spectacular 27-yard touchdown run in the third quarter.
Finally, Brady continues to be accomplishing things in the tail end of his career that not even someone like Roger Federer could.
7. Super Bowl commercials have jumped the shark
Think back to any of your favorite Super Bowl commercials over the years.
Perhaps it’s the E*Trade baby from 2008 or the Budweiser “Hero’s Welcome” spot from 2014. Maybe you’re a fan of the classics like the “Where’s the beef?” ad from Wendy’s in 1984 or the iconic “1984” ad from Apple that same year. Some my prefer more modern commercials like the legendary Old Spice ad from 2010 or the adorable one from Volkswagon that was better than any part of The Rise of Skywalker.
Each of those ads have something in common: They don’t rely on celebrity endorsements. They are cleverly written or emotionally moving. On Sunday night, those ads were very few and far between, if they even existed.
Instead, we got a veritable army of celebrities and cartoon characters climbing Paramount Mountain to promote the new Paramount+ streaming service. Matthew McConaughey channeled his inner Flat Stanley for a Doritos 3D commercial that also randomly featured Jimmy Kimmel and Mindy Kaling. And Ashton Kutcher, Mila Kunis and Shaggy singing his biggest hit in a Cheetos ad.
Now, just because an ad relies on star power doesn’t inherently make it bad. Two from this year used the unique energy of their celebrity spokesman to further the commercial instead of distracting from it. Will Ferrell’s zany and pro-America energy was perfect for a purposefully over-the-top GM ad. Likewise, reigning “Sexiest Man Alive” Michael B. Jordan’s talents were put to use in possibly the best ad of the night for Amazon Alexa.
More celebrities seem willing to sign up for Super Bowl commercials than ever before and more companies seem to be willing to sign that check to rely on a big name. Perhaps the pandemic forced companies to limit the size and scope of their ads, choosing to go with a known face over a unique idea. That, I think was the wrong approach.
Adversity can sometimes bring out more creativity than ever, and I’m sad that this year’s crop of commercials didn’t reflect that. Hopefully that will change moving forward.
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