Tom Brady Does It Again!

Last night's Super Bowl was interesting to me on a couple of levels. I expected a good game, and got one -- but in the form of a master class of domination by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. What surprised me a little, aside from how thoroughly the Bucs smothered the Chiefs was how quickly I decided I wanted to see Brady win again.

The Saints, the team I usually root for, were out, and I respected both teams that were on the field. We were home, and I planned for an evening of cooking and chores while I checked on the television once in a while. I was -- or at least started out as -- a neutral spectator looking forward to a good game featuring the match-up between Tom Brady as the old master and Patrick Mahomes as the rising prodigy.

But even before that early, record-setting touchdown from Brady to Rob Gronkowski, I started thinking of what an incredible accomplishment it would be for Brady, against the odds and at the age of 43, to win one more ring. And there was something about the Bucs, especially in contrast to the sloppy fouls by the defending champions, that got me on board. I sensed that even if the Chiefs got back into their usual groove, the Bucs wouldn't go down quietly.

The game analysis I linked to above does a pretty good job of describing what happened that evening, on the field.

But Yahoo! Sports shows us that Brady was a leader off the field in many ways and long before these teams took the field, taking late night texts to teammates as its point of departure:

... There were further details in the texts and in conversations as the Bucs prepared for the game.

[Running back Leonard Fournette] said Brady's message to him kept harping on how Kansas City was ranked 31st in the league in yards allowed after contact. That meant they were soft. Fournette, of course, is anything but.

"He was on point, he was telling us what to expect," Fournette said. "He was telling us they weren't very good at tackling."

Put your shoulder down and break them. That's what Brady saw. Now if he could only get Fournette, and the others, to see it too.

Fournette rumbled for 89 yards on 16 carries against the Chiefs, including a back-breaking 27-yard touchdown scamper that all but put the game away. He was joined by Ronald Jones, who had 61 yards on just 12 carries to give Tampa Bay a balanced, clock-grinding offense.

Brady was also involved in player recruitment and led informal team workouts in parks while practice facilities were closed due to the pandemic.

As is so often the case with the kind of performance we saw last night, it was the tip of an iceberg of planning, hard work, and determination.

-- CAV