Patrick Mahomes is enjoying the honeymoon period, where his greatness is not only appreciated, it’s revered. It’s projected across the next decade of his career, as people can only assume the sun will always shine this brilliantly on Kansas City.
Tom Brady was once a great young player. Though as he’s long since shed the “young” adjective, the deep reverence would drift away with it.
This will eventually happen to Mahomes–the teflon insulation withers with each defeat; no matter the size, scale or circumstances. The worst part: the accomplishments of your younger self somehow no longer matter. In this way, Brady outran his own greatness long ago. Some of his best moments are so long ago, they don’t seem to count towards his career tally in the eyes of many. On Sunday, Patrick Mahomes isn’t trying to capture glory as much as he’s trying to elude the pervasive and heavy hand of condemnation.
Sidebar: We sit at 10-2 on outright picks and 9-2-1 ATS during these playoffs. All-time: 67-33: 25-13 Wildcard Weekend, 27-9 Divisional Weekend, 11-7 Conference Championship Weekend and 4-4 on Super Sunday.
Super Bowl LV
#1 Kansas City Chiefs (-3) vs #5 Tampa Bay Buccaneers
With Kansas City looking to become the first team to win a second consecutive title since the 2005 Patriots, it’s fair to wonder how other teams have fared in this attempt at history. The Chiefs are looking to become just the ninth team ever to do it. The last team to do it was the Tom Brady-Patriots; the last team to attempt to do it failed? The Tom Brady-Patriots.
It isn’t easy, no matter how dominant the favorite may appear. Brady’s Pats also thwarted a Seattle Seahawks attempt at pulling the trick within the last decade. As The Ringer’s Ryen Russillo always points out, “You can’t fake desperation,” and the team that won the year prior is almost never the more desperate unit. It could be the stress of defending a crown over the course of a year builds to a boiling point that cannot be outdone. Or it could just be that teams that make it to the show the first time are better at football.
The Kansas City Chiefs are going to have to play desperate if they want to defeat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, in their stadium. For a team that’s only lost once in games they were actually trying to win all year (while defeating the likes of Lamar Jackson, Deshaun Watson, Justin Herbert, Josh Allen (twice), Drew Brees, and Tom Brady), the Chiefs haven’t looked all that impressive.
Yes, they roughed up Buffalo a little bit last week, like how your big brother used to when you took his stuff without asking. But if we think back, we can recall how the Chiefs could’ve lost to the Browns in the Divisional Round. And how prior to the AFC Championship, KC hadn’t won a game by more than a touchdown since November 1. We can remember the Chiefs trailing by double-figures in each of their three playoff games last season before winning and — as mentioned on the podcast — the Chiefs looked like the inferior team for the first 52 minutes of Super Bowl LIV, before Patrick Mahomes took a 17-step drop and heaved a pass 45 yards to Tyreek Hill that flipped the contest.
Mahomes actually didn’t look particularity good in that game (especially by his space football standards): 26-42, 286 yards, 2 TDs, 2 INTs, 1 rush TD, 78.1 passer rating, 63.5 QBR. Still, Mahome-Boy was able to overcome an overall pedestrian performance to author a brilliant final eight minutes and lead the Chiefs to victory.
There’s two ways to view the Chiefs:
A) They’ve grown far too comfortable in playing slightly above average (but not great) football, knowing that they can rely on a few big plays at timely moments to pull games out of their ass.
B) They’ve become adept at locking in at crunch time and winning close games, growing their confidence as they know at a given moment they can strike quickly to extend any lead or evaporate any deficit.
As difficult as it is for some to see the Buccaneers beating this Chiefs team, it’s equally difficult to see Mahomes and Kansas City duplicate Super Bowl LIV’s performance and beat this Tampa team. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a complete football team–finishing the season eighth in points allowed, sixth in total defense, fifth in takeaways, fourth in sacks, seventh in total offense and third in scoring (Kansas City finished 11th, 16th, 10th 19th, 1st and 6th respectively–yes, Tampa scored more points than Kansas City). And unlike the 49ers, the Bucs will have the greatest big-game quarterback in NFL history under center. If there’s a big spot on Sunday, or the game hangs in the balance, the Chiefs’ opposing quarterback is far less likely to do this, and far more likely to do this. Pro Football Focus even concedes that the majority of the top 15 (and even 30) players in this game are Buccaneers.
It’s tricky though–because Mahomes has become the most accomplished 25 and under QB of all-time, Travis Kelce is quickly becoming a top five tight end ever and Tyreek Hill a top five deep-threat receiver ever. Those three guys may be enough to tip the scales in KC’s favor. Much like the mid-2010s Golden State Warriors, it only takes one avalanche of plays, or sometimes just one or two plays at all, to totally turn a game on its ear. We also witnessed this in the first Chiefs/Bucs contest this year.
Hill racked up over 200 yards receiving in the FIRST QUARTER! KC looked beyond unstoppable, jumping out to an early 17-0 advantage, anchored by Tyreek TDs of 75 and 44 yards. But if you step back a bit, Tampa outscored KC 24-10 in the remaining three quarters. Though massive chunk plays are the Chiefs’ calling card, it’s fair to wonder if Tampa Bay somehow eliminates those two monster plays, what would this game have looked like? It’s the type of game Tampa needs to play on Sunday if they wish to be crowned champions.
As mentioned on the podcast, Brady must eliminate the “please-don’t-sack-me” plays that often result in interceptions as well. In the first meeting, he threw his best pass of the season while getting drilled, only to be hilariously picked off on a similar play trying to avoid a hit on the very next snap. A risk-averse Bucs team will not win (ask Buffalo), but they’ll need to be calculated in how they gamble. Expect multiple fourth down attempts just to keep KC’s offense off the field, and fewer field goal attempts than normal.
Rob Gronkowski should be let loose as a weapon in the receiving game. When playing teams with elite pass rushes (Washington and New Orleans), Gronk was consistently left in as a blocker. Needing to score more on Sunday, Bruce Arians & Brady will take the training wheels off their trusted tight end (he had six grabs for 107 yards in the first matchup).
Ultimately, like most playoff games, Super Bowl LV will be won at the line of scrimmage. The Chiefs will be without their top two tackles. Similarly, the Packers were without their starting left tackle for the NFC Championship game and Tampa was all over Aaron Rodgers as a result. Assuming Todd Bowles, doesn’t get blitz-happy (maybe he goes the Bills route and trots out six or seven defensive backs) and doesn’t throw single-coverage at Hill to start the game again, the Bucs defense is equipped to slow either Hill or Kelce. And nothing will work more in their favor than not being afraid of the Chiefs–having already faced them once (and played them competitively), the fear factor should be voided.
Upsets aren’t always easy to predict. Picking against the defending champions whose QB won 25 of 26 starts doesn’t feel great. But we’ve identified four upsets in the 2021 playoffs and we’re 3-1 on those picks, and Tampa Bay has more ways to win this game. We may have a classic on our hands–if there’s a game to be won down the stretch in the Super Bowl, there’s no quarterback you’d rather have than the man with six Super Bowl-winning drives in the fourth quarter and overtime. Not even Patrick Mahomes.
Tom Brady has been doing this for so long, people have forgotten how astounding he’s been in these moments. From the Snow Game against Oakland, to winning the AFC on the road with the flu, to winning a Super Bowl as a 10-point underdog, to erasing two 14 point deficits to Baltimore, to trailing 28-3 to Atlanta–this is what Brady does. It’s what he’s always done. Tampa is the deeper team–a pick for Kansas City basically means you think Mahomes is so much better than Brady, it will cover all of KC’s shortcomings in this matchup. And frankly, that’s disrespectful to the GOAT.
Congratulations, Tampa Bay.