- Tom Brady cemented his status as the Greatest Of All Time. Not that it was actually in any doubt at this point, but he put Joe Montana further in the rear-view mirror with a near-flawless performance. 21-of-29 for 201 yards, 3 TD and 0 INT isn’t flashy, it’s just winning football.
- Patrick Mahomes is legitimately amazing and he can throw long, accurate passes from positions that no one else ever has. But I doubt he’ll have a long career in the NFL if he has to play that way.
- Shaq Barrett was the MVP, with honorable mention going to Devin White. No one, literally no one, expected Tampa to keep the Chiefs under twenty points, let alone ten. Barrett was most impactful player on the most important unit. The Buccaneers’ defense put pressure on Mahomes on 29 of 56 dropbacks, the most pressure in Super Bowl history.
- Brady greatness goes well beyond his own performance. He inspires other players to play better and in a more disciplined way. None of the three guys who scored touchdowns last night, Gronkowski, Fournette, and Brown, are even on the team if he’s not there.
- Bruce Arians may not know how to fix broken toys, but he certainly knows how to make them work again, for at least a little while.
- I suspect the pandemic helped Tampa win the Super Bowl this year, by keeping its problem players away from temptation and out of trouble.
- The NFL can change all the rules it likes. Defense still wins championships.
- Sportswriters can stop crying about Eric Bienemy not being offered a head coaching job now. Todd Bowles proved that if they want to cry about a black man not being offered a job this year, he’s the better candidate.
- I’m pretty sure Mahomes actually threw three interceptions. The officials appeared to blow an early whistle on the one where the Chiefs’ WR had his hand between the ball and the ground.
- KC fans can complain all they want, but the Chiefs deserved every single flag that was thrown with the exception of the meaningless post-TD flag on Mathieu. Tony Romo actually described a holding call as “soft” when the LT tackled an OLB and took him to the ground while strangling him with his arm completely locked around his throat. The KC defense simply refused to adjust their play to the obvious fact that the referees were calling a moderately tight game.
I never watch the halftime show so I could have missed it, but it was interesting to see that the league appeared to keep the SJW nonsense to a minimum, with the exception of a female sideline reporter warbling about how important it was that there was a female referee on the crew.
Warning: anyone who feels the need to go off-topic by talking about themselves or their disapproval of the sport, the league, or sports in general will be spammed and banned.