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| Brady is Back |
Sunday night saw America's top sporting event take place in Tampa, Florida. The teams were the Kansas City Chiefs looking to repeat winning a Super Bowl back to back for the first time since the New England Patriots did in the 2003 and 2004 seasons. Their opponents were the home team Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and the quarterback who did the repeat win with those Patriots Tom Brady. The Buccaneers had become the first-ever team to play in their home stadium in the Super Bowl's history after 54 years of it being considered bad luck. One of the biggest headlines was that Sarah Thomas would become the first-ever woman to officiate a Super Bowl. Also because of the pandemic, the NFL allowed 7500 people in and 17,500 cardboard cutouts making it the least attended Super Bowl ever with the lowest being at the first-ever Super Bowl which had just under 62,00 fans in attendance.
The Chiefs came in with a 14-2 record, but they didn't have the confidence of a team that were champions and had only taken the top spot after the Pittsburgh Steelers fell down the rankings after going 11-0. While Patrick Mahomes and the offence had been on an elite level all season. However, their defence hasn't been as good as last year, ranking 16th in the league and looking to make history. During the divisional round against the Cleveland Browns, Mahomes picked up a turf toe injury, so there was concern about his injury.
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| From hosting Wrestlemania to Super Bowl |
Meanwhile, the Buccaneers going to the Super Bowl after winning their first playoff games since winning Super Bowl 37 and went from a 7-9 record in 2019 to an 11-5 record in 2020. The reasons were acquiring Tom Brady in free agency and then trading for Rob Gronkowski bringing Gronk out of retirement and spending time in the WWE and signing Leonard Fournette, Antonio Brown and Ryan Succop bolster an offence with Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and Cameron Brate. He also joined the team that had a defence looking to win now. The only member of the Buccaneers team apart from Brown, Gronk and Brady were Jason Pierre-Paul who was part of the New York Giants that defeated Brady's Patriots in Super Bowl 46.
The road to the Super Bowl in the playoffs for the Buccaneers was a long one as they had to go on the road 3 times having beaten the Washington Football Team in Washington then go to New Orleans to take on divisional rivals Saints and beat Drew Brees then had to hang on to beat the Green Bay Packers in the NFC championship. On the other hand, the Chiefs had a more relaxed trip having to play all their games at home defeating the Cleveland Browns in the divisional round and then the Buffalo Bills in the AFC Championship.
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| Rough night for Mahomes (red) |
The Chiefs won the toss and elected to kick-off, and after 2 consecutive drives ending in punts, they were the first to score with a Harrison Butker field goal. Then Brady ended a bit of history for him by scoring the first touchdown in the 1st quarter of the Super Bowl in his career by throwing an 8-yard touchdown pass to his most reliable target Rob Gronkowski. That broke the record of post-season touchdowns by one quarterback to receiver set by Joe Montana and Jerry Rice. Then in the second quarter, Brady found Gronkowski again to make it 14-3. Kansas got another field goal to make it 14-6 with a minute to go. Then right on halftime Brady threw his final touchdown pass to Antonio Brown to make it 21-6 Tampa Bay at halftime. The annual Halftime Show was done by The Weekend, and instead of performing on the pitch, he started in the stand by the famous Pirate Ship at one endzone then moved down to the pitch.
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| Mahomes putting himself on the line |
The second half started off brightly by the Chiefs driving to Tampa's 34-yard line but had to kick another field goal to make it 21-9. Then Tampa scored their final touchdown by Leonard Fournette running in the ball himself with 7:45 left in the 3rd quarter. It was then that it was spiralling out of control for the Chiefs. Mahomes threw 2 interceptions in a courageous last stand for the defending champions and some exotic scrambles and even recreating a scene from the Dodgeball movie. The score ended up being 31-9 courtesy of a Ryan Succop field goal.
The MVP award went to Tom Brady after going 21/29 and 201 yards throwing and 3 touchdowns. Mahomes went 26/49 and 270 yards throwing and 2 interceptions. However, the most telling thing for the Chiefs was the penalties, 11 penalties for 120 yards.
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| Brady and Gronk do it again. |
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