Super Bowl LV will be a match between old and new QB stars
Fred Jeter | 1/28/2021, 6 p.m.
The Greatest of All Time vs. the next Greatest of All Time — Tom Brady vs. Patrick Mahomes.
That’s one way of billing the Sunday, Feb. 7, Super Bowl LV between Brady’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers (or is it Tampa Brady Bucs?) and Mahomes’ defending champion Kansas City Chiefs.
Here is a quarterback matchup straight from a Hollywood script writer. At 43, Brady won the most-ever six Super Bowls as quarterback of the New England Patriots.
This is his first season in Tampa.
Mahomes guided Kansas City to last year’s Super Bowl crown and is now looking for his second at age 25. If anyone is to ever break Brady’s mark, Mahomes, who is young enough to be Brady’s son, might be the best bet.
Both were brilliant, as usual, in their conference finals last Sunday.
In outdueling the Green Bay Packers’ Aaron Rodgers, Brady beat the top-seeded Packers and frosty 20-degree weather at Lambeau Field in the Buccaneers’ 31-26 NFC victory last Sunday. Brady passed for 280 yards and three touchdowns and was nimble enough as a middle-aged man to only be sacked once.
Mahomes, coming off concussion protocol, tossed for 325 yards and three touchdowns in the Chiefs’ 38-24 AFC win over the Buffalo Bills at Arrowhead Stadium. Mahomes is only the third Black quarterback to win a Super Bowl, following Washington’s Doug Williams in 1987 and Seattle’s Russell Wilson in 2013.
Other story lines:
No frills: The Super Bowl generally is a weeklong party with media and fans converging on the host city. That won’t happen this year because of COVID-19 protocol. The Chiefs will not arrive in Tampa until Friday before the game at Raymond James Stadium. There will be no Media Day or conference parties.
The crowd will be capped at 22,000, making it the least at- tended Super Bowl.
Home sweet home: This marks the first time any team will play the Super Bowl in its own stadium. There have been close calls before. In 1980, the Los Angeles Rams reached the Super Bowl at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. In 1985, the San Francisco 49ers played in the Super Bowl at nearby Stanford Stadium.
Ladies and gentlemen: For the first time, there will be a female official. Sarah Thomas will serve as down judge. Thomas, 47, is married and has three children. When she joined the NFL in 2015, she was the league’s first female on-field official. She has broken several barriers in the past. She was the first woman to officiate a major college football game (2007, Memphis versus Jacksonville State), the first woman to officiate a bowl game (2009, Little Caesars Pizza Bowl) and the first woman to officiate in a Big 10 stadium (2011, Northwestern hosted Rice).
Local angles: There are no players from the 804 area code on either team.
However, Tampa’s right guard, Aaron Stinnie, is the son of former Virginia Commonwealth University basketball great Phil Stinnie. Aaron, No. 64, played at St. Anne’s-Belfield School in Charlottesville and then at James Madison University.
Tampa Coach Bruce Arians, 68, is a former Virginia Tech quarterback. Running a Wishbone attack in 1974, Arians set a Hokies’ quarterback record with 11 touchdown runs.
Also, Coach Arians was the first white player at Virginia Tech to have a Black roommate — James Barber, the father of Ronde and Tiki Barber.
Frequent host: This will be the fifth Super Bowl to be held in the Raymond James Stadium in Tampa. The most recent was in 2009.
The Buccaneers were 5-3 at home this season before winning three straight playoff road games.