By Tyler Banks
It’s been two years since the undisputed GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) of the NFL, Tom Brady, has reached the top of the mountain and won the Super Bowl. He reclaimed the throne once more as the most prominent quarterback in football history on Sunday night by eliminating the former champion, Kansas City Chiefs, 31-9.
This would be his seventh championship in 21 years, sixth as a part of the New England Patriots, and his first season as a part of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Brady took home the Lombardi trophy alongside his Super Bowl MVP with 201 yards, 3 touchdowns, and 0 interceptions on 72% efficiency with a 125.8 passer rating. But he wasn’t alone. When accepting his fifth Super Bowl MVP, the No. 12 quarterback captioned his team’s triumph.
“I’m so proud of all these guys out here. Everything we dealt with all year — we had a rough month of November, but BA [Bruce Arians] had all the confidence in us,” he said.
“The team had a lot of confidence. We came together at the right time. I think we knew this was going to happen tonight, didn’t we? We ended up playing our best at the end of the year.”
The veteran players (of the league) Leonard Fournette, Rob Gronkowski, and Antonio Brown stepped up when their team needed it most. Fournette broke out for 89 yards and a touchdown on 5 yards a carry. Gronk had 6 receptions for 67 yards and 2 touchdowns and Antonio Brown, the player that a lot of people had given up on, ended the game with 5 catches for 22 yards and a touchdown.
Yet, an even greater reason for the Buccaneers’ success was their stellar defense. The All-Pro level defense held the top 5 offense in the league to 9 total points. Patrick Mahomes, the league’s arguably best quarterback, was forced into playing a pedestrian game in which he sported stats of 270 yards, 0 touchdowns, 2 interceptions on 53% efficiency with a 52.3 passer rating.
Throughout the game, the Chiefs weren’t able to generate any sort of offense, only accounting for yards in short bursts. However, the overall game showed nothing but struggle on the offensive and defensive side of the ball for Kansas City. This is arguably the Chiefs’ worst game ever as a part of the Mahomes era — and the Buccaneers’ best game as a part of the Brady era.
Entering this season, many people doubted Tom Brady’s ability to succeed without the coaching of Bill Bellichick. Despite proving time and time again that he was elite, the world stool chose to look at him as some average joe.
Still, tonight was Brady’s homecoming. Because finally, all that could be heard from ear to ear was pure ecstasy. The roar of the crowd, the excitement of teammates and, in his hand, a 7th Lombardi.
