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Chris BermanNFL Studio Host, SportsCenter Anchor, Baseball Commentator
Chris Berman returns to the Swami Sez NFL Super Bowl LV between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday.
Odds courtesy of Caesars Sportsbook by William Hill.
Kansas City Chiefs (-3, 56) vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Needless to say, the stories are as juicy as they are for this 55th edition of the Super Bowl. My favorite is that Patrick Mahomes and the bosses are trying to rehearse as champions and join that exclusive club, and the guy guarding the castle to make sure they don’t pass is the last guy to do it, GOAT himself, Tom Brady, with the New England Patriots 2003-04.
Brady being here for the 10th time – we’ll probably never see that again, unless he happens to involve the guy he’s playing against. This game is the bearer of the past and present standard against the present and possible standard bearer of the best defenders who have ever played the game.
When you look at the bosses, this is a team with unquestionable talent. In the two playoff games this year, Travis Kelce and Tyreek Hill have about 40 catches and 400 yards combined – that’s ridiculous. In addition to talent, this is a team that has fun playing, which comes from their head coach, Andy Reid. Sometimes this season they had so much fun that they took their foot off the gas and, as in the previous victory over Tampa, could have won by more than 20 points, but instead they had to kill. the clock with three.
Until the Buffalo game, the bosses hadn’t played a full 60-minute game since early November. If I can do that again, play all 60 minutes, then I think it might be too much for Tampa Bay to handle – despite the very magic of the big one, Tom Brady.
Tampa Bay, with the captivating core of Chris Godwin, Mike Evans and Rob Gronkowski, is one of the few teams to have as many linebackers as the Chiefs. Add to that, you have Leonard Fournette, who drove the best he had all year against the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship Game, an added dynamic that gives the offense a sense that he can – just can – change points with bosses, which very few teams can say they can. The pieces could.
The loss to the Chiefs on the Thanksgiving weekend put the Bucs at 7-5 entering the last break of the season. For a veteran team to have a goodbye that at the end of the season was perfect and responded. I told Primetime, this will be the most important goodbye of all 32 teams. Here, Swami understood. Bucs haven’t lost since. The new songs shook and the team put it all together. Normally, you don’t rest in week 13 and that paid off. That cannot be overlooked.
KC has three differences in defense in Chris Jones, Frank Clark and Honey Badger, Tyrann Mathieu. Can I put enough pressure on Brady to make him feel a little anxious? I’ll try to see if I do it in the first quarter, which could set the tone for the game. If Brady feels comfortable, Bucs can exchange points with bosses. But don’t underestimate the defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, whose moment of sending a defender or a corner defender can be perfect. He’s already beaten Brady in a Super Bowl once. He can keep you unbalanced.
The seventh front in Tampa Bay is very good. Jason Pierre-Paul had a nice year, and defenders Devin White and Shaq Barrett face a team without the two initial approaches. Ndamukong Suh and Lavonte David can also play at sea. Will they be able to dictate the game on their own? The bosses must feel that if Muhammad gets some time, he can beat the secondary, as they did in the first game.
Another observation during the season: just as the doctor ordered the Bucs goodbye late, the bosses also received an unexpected break. Sure, they were the pre-season favorites to repeat and get attention, but the early loss of the Las Vegas Raiders was a disguised blessing. All talk of going undefeated went to the Pittsburgh Steelers, who started 11-0. Add to that Brady being in another Super Bowl, and that’s at least as big a story as the bosses trying to repeat. Slightly less spotlight than expected never hurts.
In this first Super Bowl played on the conference champion stadium, if the Bucs come out of the locker room 30 minutes before the launch of the Creamsicle uniforms, it’s all over … Tampa wins and Tom gets the seventh ring. But they are not allowed, even if they want to. Seeing that this will not happen, I will go with the champions to repeat, and Andy Reid and his team will join that elite group that repeats. You know them: Packers, Dolphins, Steelers (twice), Niners, Cowboys, Broncos and Tom’s Patriots. Each decade had at least one repeated champion – in the ’60s,’ 70s, ’80s,’ 90s and 2000s. Then the bosses won it in 2019, so we’ll call it back-to-back in that decade as well. and the trend continues.
Swami Sez: Chiefs 30, Bucs 20