The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have won Super Bowl LV with a decisive 31-9 victory over the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs. The outcome was pretty much never in question.
The Bucs “W” marks the seventh — yes, seventh — Super Bowl championship for quarterback Tom Brady. Brady won his previous six rings with the New England Patriots. The next-closest players are Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw, both with four Super Bowl titles.
So, not that close.
Brady, who was named Super Bowl LV MVP, had a good game, though he didn’t rack up a ton of passing yards. Didn’t have to.
Two of Brady’s three touchdown passes went to former Patriots teammate Rob Gronkowski, who came out of retirement for exactly this. Brady’s counterpart, Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes, played poorly.
To be fair to Mahomes, he was under intense Buccaneers pressure all night. The Kansas City special teams, defense and their barrage of penalties didn’t do the Chiefs offense any favors.
Super Bowl LV took place in Tampa Bay’s Raymond James Stadium, the home of the Buccaneers. Sunday marked the first time in Super Bowl history that one of the participating teams played the big game in its home stadium. Of course, due to the coronavirus pandemic, there was a limited-capacity crowd in attendance. In other words, the home-field advantage was limited. Didn’t matter.
At halftime, the score was 21-6. The gap only grew in the second half.
Despite playing at home, the Buccaneers were 3-point underdogs, according to sports books. The AFC Champion Kansas City Chiefs had a regular-season record of 14-2. The NFC Champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers finished 11-5. Also stuff that didn’t matter.
CBS is debuting new series “The Equalizer,” which stars Queen Latifah, immediately following Super Bowl LV. This “Equalizer” is an adaptation of the Denzel Washington movies of the same name.
The films, one in 2014 and a sequel in 2018, were adapted from the original CBS series in the ’80s.