The Matchup That Will Decide Super Bowl LV
Kansas City's offense is a well-oiled machine. What if that machine were to be disrupted?
Super Bowl LV kicks off at 6:30 PM ET this Sunday. By now, if you don’t know who’s playing in it, you’re not a football fan. If you don’t have the halftime performer’s hit song in your head, you’re like me and can zone out commercials. For the record, the performer is The Weeknd and the song “Blinding Lights.” The game is not a unique matchup this season. In fact, Kansas City traveled to Raymond James Stadium in Week 12 of the regular season and defeated the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 27-24 off the back of 203 receiving yards by Tyreek Hill in the first quarter. The intense feeling of déjà vu places second only to the fact that not only are the Bucs the first ever team to play a Super Bowl in their home stadium, but of all the quarterbacks who could start for a team playing in the Super Bowl as a de facto home game, it’s Tom fucking Brady.
No matter what any star-humping national media talking head wants you to believe, Tom Brady will not be as big a factor in this game as you might think. At age 43, he will be starting in his tenth Super Bowl game, but his skills have seen a sharp decline in the last few years. The difference between last year and this year is the team built around him. The 2019 Patriots were carried by defense. The offense took a major hit when Rob Gronkowski retired and left Brady with Julian Edelman and James White as his only reliable skill position players. As a result, the offense struggled at times, no more so than at home against an opportunistic Tennessee Titans team that upended them in the wild card round of the playoffs. This year? Brady has Gronk back, but he might be the fifth or sixth most important option on the offense. Chris Godwin and Mike Evans are as effective a one-two punch at receiver as you can get in the league, and Scotty Miller is a sneaky-fast deep threat. Cameron Brate may be the team’s top tight end this year, and you can’t discount Ronald Jones and Leonard Fournette coming out of the backfield. Top it with a revamped offensive line featuring rookie stud Tristan Wirfs at right tackle, and the Bucs could probably have gotten to the Super Bowl if they kept riding with Jameis Winston. I’m not saying Brady is cooked, but there have been times this year when he has looked less than the Touchdown Tom people have warned us not to count out. Those times have been recent too, like, say, in all three playoff games this year.
The Bucs have a steep hill to climb in order to prevent Kansas City from claiming its second consecutive NFL Championship, not because the offense will have trouble scoring against the defense at times, but because Kansas City is so potent on offense. Danny Heifetz of The Ringer examined how the team presents a “three body problem” for any defense to overcome. Led by Patrick Mahomes, the Andy Reid-and-Eric Bienemy-coached offense can score from any part of the field with any play. You know what’s coming, but you can’t stop it. If you double team Hill, Travis Kelce will win his one-on-one matchup with whatever hapless soul is covering him. If you double Kelce, Hill will burn his cover assignment. If you double both, either some other sure-handed, speedy option will find his way to get the ball, someone like Mecole Hardman, Clyde Edwards-Helaire, LeVeon Bell, Sammy Watkins, Byron Pringle, or Demarcus Robinson, or Mahomes will take off and scramble for a chunk of yards.
However, there is one theoretical way that you can slow down the Kansas City offense, and I’d argue it’s how the Bucs were able to stymie a Saints offense that was still situationally dangerous and fluster a Green Bay offense that had to that point ravaged any defense put in front of it. Where Super Bowl LV will be won is in the matchup between the Tampa Bay pass rush and the Kansas City offensive line.
The Bucs’ defense has succeeded this year mainly by harassing the other team’s quarterback and disrupting plays before they had a chance to develop. Sure, Carlton Davis may have gotten the most press by holding Michael Thomas to zero catches in their divisional round victory over the Saints, but that was only one facet to how his greater unit was able to harangue Drew Brees in what is now known as his final start in his illustrious career. Led by Shaq Barrett, the Tampa defense has notched seven sacks in three games, and the group has generated even more pressures. Even though pressures and hits that don’t result in sacks don’t show up on every stat sheet, they tend to be the reason for many incomplete passes, intentional grounding and holding penalties, and check-down throws that generally earn fewer yards than the intended target would have netted.
Generally though, the best Reid-coached teams have strong offensive lines that are able to withstand even the most ferocious of pass rushes. The problem here is that the Kansas City offensive line is depleted. They’ll be missing both their regular tackles, one of their guards has fanned out to replace the right tackle, and the only member of that line who will start at the position they started on opening day will be the center, Austin Reiter. If you’ve been paying attention, part of why the Bucs have feasted is because they’ve taken on teams with injuries along the offensive line. The Saints starting left tackle Terron Armstead was hampered by an elbow injury and wasn’t as effective as he’d been most of the season. The Packers lost David Bakhtiari to injury in their final regular season game. He’s regarded as one of, if not the, best left tackle in the league. The Bucs have gotten really lucky in the playoffs to have men down at key positions on the other team.
That is not to denigrate their run, however. Every team needs a combination of skill and luck to win a Championship. The Eagles would not have won Super Bowl LII without heaping amounts of luck during the season. They needed a little bit of luck on the final play of the divisional playoff victory against the Atlanta Falcons. They needed a hell of a lot of luck in the Super Bowl, both with Corey Clement’s third quarter touchdown being ruled a touchdown before review made it impossible to overturn (thus making the original call on the field stand) and with Zach Ertz’s goal line fumble bouncing back to him on his fourth quarter score. The Bucs will need luck to overcome Kansas City, and they already have some of it in the bag with the injury situation along that offensive line.
Will it be enough though? Any other team can be mortal with injury concerns along an important position group like the offensive line. Kansas City feels, in a word, different. How much time does Mahomes need to find an open receiver? Kelce is a matchup nightmare for anyone trying to cover him. He can post up on smaller defensive backs and blow by bigger linebackers. Hill is the fastest player in the league and can get open before Barrett or Jason Pierre-Paul win their matchups at the line, no matter how quickly that happens. You keep thinking of theoretical reasons to beat Kansas City, but those reasons evaporate quickly when they snap the ball and your defense has to play in real time against an offensive machine that is as close to perfect in execution as possible.
Still, sports are not played on paper, and no team should ever surrender hope. I’m not sure the Bucs can beat Kansas City, even in a rematch that is once again played on their homefield. If they do win, though, it will be because the pass rush harassed Mahomes enough to allow the offense to outscore them. It’s easier said than done.
My official Super Bowl prediction is Kansas City 41, Tampa Bay 33. MVP Travis Kelce.