Tom Brady secures his 7th Super Bowl ring, KC Chiefs drown in sea of penalties

Super Bowl LV opened with charm, celebration, reverence, and triumph.

Acknowledging the year we've had as a nation was not only necessary but so gracefully done. Tickets were given out to frontline healthcare workers; veteran James Martin, educator Trimaine Davis, and nurse manager Suzie Dorner were chosen for the coin toss and honored with a poem (Chorus of the Captains by Miss Amanda Gorman); and the President and First Lady addressed the nation regarding COVID-19, the lives lost, and our unwillingness to give up in the fight.

The National Anthem, presented by Jazmine Sullivan and Eric Church, was just beautiful, as was H.E.R.'s performance of "America the Beautiful." Most players chose to stand, some saluting the flag and some with their hands behind their backs and their heads bowed. It was a beautiful and sobering moment.

I'm not going into detail on the half-time show in this post, but I was thoroughly impressed with the Weeknd's talent (which wasn't ever in question anyway), the choreography, and lack of "wardrobe malfunctions" or provocative dancing. I'm not a parent but if I was, I'd easily let my kids watch it.

Upon the coin toss, Kansas City opted to defer, and the Buccaneers started with the ball.

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Back in 2014 I watched the Broncos choke to the Seahawks in a 43-8 Super Bowl XLVIII, which is ranked by USA Today as the worst Super Bowl in history. It was also the first to see one team score over 40 points while keeping the other team under 10.

Leading up to yesterday, the Chiefs were 14-2 and the Buccaneers had risen up from the wild card round of the playoffs. Despite having Tom Brady at the helm, they were technically the underdog to our defending champions in KC. I knew the Buccaneers had a chance of beating the Chiefs, especially with home field advantage, but I had no idea the game would be so one-sided.

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Exactly how many penalties did the Chiefs rack up?

Eleven. Eleven penalties, six of them from their defense. Chiefs fans and players alike raised their eyebrows at the number, feeling it excessive on the part of the refs. Boomer Esiason chimed in on the half-time report, saying, “I feel like the referees are way too involved here. They’re throwing too many flags that are leading to points for Tampa Bay.”

Chiefs DT Chris Jones said, "This is the Super Bowl. Usually you let the guys play, especially in the biggest game of the year.”

But their head coach, Andy Reid, had different sentiments. "You can't have that," he said, "You can't have penalties, not that many...You're taking space away from yourself. Either defensively or offensively. It is uncharacteristic, and it's too bad it happened today."

Despite those remarks, I don't think the penalties are necessarily uncharacteristic for the Chiefs. It seems like every game I watch, they're getting called multiple times for holding. Upon further stat research, I learned they were ranked 4th in the NFL for racking up penalties. Their grand total for the 2020 season was 105.

I've said before that refs have the worst job of the game, constantly questioned by spectators, and everyone's going to have a different opinion on whether the calls were legitimate. It's true that Kansas City lost the most yards from penalties in Super Bowl history (90 in just the second quarter), but were the calls really excessive or was Kansas City's defense playing with an inferiority complex?

Patrick Mahomes accepted defeat with class and acknowledged their technical mistakes, saying “I just don’t think we were on the same page as an offense in general. I wasn’t getting the ball out on time. The receivers were running routes not exactly where I thought they were going to be at. And the offensive line, they were good at some times, and sometimes they let guys through. When you’re playing a good defense like that, you’ve got to be on the same page as an offense. And we weren’t today. And that’s why we played so bad.”

If you watched the game, you see what he's talking about; but I don't believe Mahomes is at fault here. If the offensive line hadn't "let guys through" as much as they did, and if he wasn't left in the position to run the ball over and over because his weapons weren't open, the score might not have been 31-9.

Mahomes was sacked 3 times but ran 497 total yards before being sacked or passing. That's the most for any quarterback this season. He passed with the same finesse he usually does and, as previously mentioned, ran the ball an ungodly amount of yards only to be sacked or watch his teammates literally drop the ball. I don't want to be ugly here because the Chiefs are a fantastic team; but Patrick is not the reason they lost that game. I understand the quarterback accepts glory for their wins and responsibility for their losses, though, so Mahomes handled himself exactly as he should have with his comments.

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Tom Brady: officially the GOAT?

I think it's safe to say that with 6 Super Bowl rings he was already the G.O.A.T. but, if that wasn't enough, he's secured the title now. He might be one of the greatest athletes of all time. Anyone who wins 7 championships and 5 championship MVPs in their respective sport deserves respect.

For the first time ever, Tom Brady threw a touchdown in the first quarter of a Super Bowl. It's only fitting that Rob Gronkowski, former Patriot alongside him, caught the pass. Brady followed that up with 2 more scores before the half closed. He wasn't intercepted once, and he made 3/5 of his attempted red zone scores.

This momentous victory made him the second quarterback ever to win a Super Bowl with two different teams (the first was Peyton Manning, who's now an official Hall-of-Famer). Following the contest Brady said, "I'm just really proud of all the guys, proud of all the coaches, the effort we put in. We knew we were playing a great football team tonight, and we got the job done."

And let's not forget their superstar defensive line, which hasn't disappointed once during this playoff run. They nailed something that Cleveland wasn't able to pull off in Divisionals: double-covering TE Travis Kelce and WR Tyreek Hill. In the end, Kelce's pass reception was 67% (it's usually in the 80% range) and Hill's was 70%.

I want to mention that all 3 of the Buccaneers' coordinators are black, and 2 of their full-time coaches are women. I think that's pretty dang cool, especially in the light of such a historic Super Bowl win: the first played during a pandemic, first with home field advantage for one of the teams, and first win for head coach Bruce Arians.

Arians, 68, is the oldest head coach to ever win a Super Bowl. And he's not planning on retiring any time soon. “I’m coming back to try to get two," he said, "And then we’ll see after that. This football team, I love these guys. We have a great staff and great team. Hopefully Jason [Licht] and I can come up with a plan to keep most of them and try to repeat.’’