Buccaneers plan on running it back, and other thoughts on the Super Bowl

Brady will be back, of course, to complete the second year of the two-year, fully guaranteed contract he signed last year. Head coach Bruce Arians, who turned 68 in October, is not retiring, either.

“Hell no, I ain’t going anywhere,” Arians said Sunday night.

But the Bucs will have to open up their checkbook if they want to keep the entire team intact. Among their unrestricted free agents: Rob Gronkowski, Shaq Barrett, Lavonte David, Leonard Fournette, Antonio Brown, and Ndamukong Suh.

The Bucs do have more than $30 million in cap space and are well-positioned to bring most players back.

“There will be dollars involved, but I think this group is so, so close that sometimes dollars don’t matter,” Arians said. “But we’re going to do everything we can to get the dollars right, too, because they earned it.”

Barrett, who played on a franchise tag this year, will be the priciest. But he said he doesn’t want to play anywhere else and “we’ll find a quick solution to this.”

Gronkowski will be a free agent for the first time in his career, but said he wants to return, and getting him back in the fold shouldn’t be complicated.

“I don’t see why I won’t be back,” he said Sunday night.

And Brown wants to return, too. As long as he has Brady in his corner, he should have a roster spot.

“It would mean everything to be back,” Brown said. “I’m just excited and super grateful.”

Other lingering items from Super Bowl LV:

▪ This game will be remembered as one team showing up well-prepared (Bucs) and the other playing as though it had no idea what to do (Chiefs).

Bucs offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich had a sound plan of running the ball and play-action, creating several easy throws for Brady. Per Next Gen Stats, Brady was 10 of 13 passing with play-action for 135 yards and three touchdowns. It was the most Brady has used play-action (43 percent) in the five years that Next Gen has tracked the stats.

The Bucs defense was outstanding under coordinator Todd Bowles, who went completely against his tendencies. Per Next Gen, the Bucs’ usage of two-high-safety to prevent deep plays (87 percent of snaps) was the most of any Bowles-led defense over the past five years. And the Bucs blitzed on just 9.6 percent of pass plays, the lowest amount for Bowles in five years.

The Bucs were still able to get a ton of pressure with their front four, with three sacks and eight QB hits. And they did a phenomenal job of holding the Chiefs to just three passes over 20 yards. Tyreek Hill had 245 yards and three touchdowns in the Week 12 matchup, but a quiet seven catches for 73 yards Sunday.

▪ The Chiefs, meanwhile, did a horrible job with their makeshift offensive line, which cost them the game. Using backups at four of their five spots, the Chiefs bizarrely didn’t provide any help against the Bucs’ terrific linemen. Per Next Gen, the Chiefs used just five men in protection on 48 of Mahomes’s 52 dropbacks.

It left Mahomes scrambling for his life. Next Gen said he ran 497 yards before throwing the ball or being sacked, the most of any quarterback in the last five years. And the Chiefs managed only 9 points on three field goals, the first time they have been held without a touchdown in 54 games under Mahomes, and their first time scoring fewer than 13 points.

“What our defensive line did last night was incredible,” Brady said. “Pat was doing everything he could to make a bunch of plays last night. He’s running around, reversing field, doubling back, tripling back, made some great throws. But in the end, it’s tough to do that consistently and play in rhythm.”

▪ Brady was guaranteed to make $25 million this year, but he made $3.375 million more in incentives. He earned $1.125 million for finishing in the top five in passing touchdowns and passing yards, and $2.25 million for leading the Bucs to the title. Brady missed out on another $1.125 million in incentives for not finishing in the top five in passer rating, completion percentage, or yards per attempt, but maybe the Bucs can make him whole.

▪ A big key for Brady and the Bucs the last two games was jumping out to big leads. The Bucs led the Packers, 21-10, at halftime and 28-10 shortly after halftime in the NFC Championship game, and took a 21-6 lead into halftime against the Chiefs. And there’s no one better at playing with a lead and closing out the game than Brady.

▪ Brady continues to put everyone to shame with his Super Bowl records. Here is where he stands relative to the person in second place:

Championships: seven (Joe Montana, four).

Starts: 10 (John Elway, five).

Passing yards: 3,039 (Kurt Warner, 1,156).

Passing touchdowns: 21 (Montana, 11).

Postseason touchdowns: 83 (Aaron Rodgers, 45).

Rob Gronkowski is now No. 2 all time with 14 postseason touchdown catches, breaking a tie with John Stallworth. Jerry Rice has 22.

▪ This championship is made even more remarkable by the fact that Brady learned a new offense this year, and didn’t have much of an offseason or training camp to work on it. He barely knew what to do before the Week 1 game at New Orleans.

“It’s like, ‘What the hell is that play?’ ‘What’s that word mean?’ And, ‘What the hell is this guy going to do on this play?’ ” Arians said. “I can’t give Tom enough credit for just hanging in there with the coaches and knowing this is going to work out sooner or later.”

▪ Believe it or not, Brady loved playing football during the pandemic.

“It was really like football for junkies,” he said. “There were not really a lot of other things to do other than show up to work and play football. It was like football camp with all your buddies year-round, so I really enjoyed that part.”

▪ The Bucs were 12-0 this year when scoring at least 30 points, and 3-5 when they didn’t. In the playoffs, the Bucs scored 31, 30, 31, and 31 points in their four games.

▪ Underdogs have now covered the spread in 14 of 21 Super Bowls this century, and have won 11 of them outright. Kansas City was a 3-point favorite.

▪ Many Hall of Fame quarterbacks changed teams at the end of their careers: Montana went to the Chiefs, Peyton Manning to the Broncos, Brett Favre to the Jets and Vikings, Warner to the Giants and Cardinals, and even Johnny Unitas to the Chargers.

But they all finished their careers elsewhere because of injuries or succession plans. The Packers had Rodgers sitting behind Favre. Manning had a neck injury, and the Colts had the rights to Andrew Luck. Montana got hurt, and the 49ers had Steve Young.

But not so with Brady and the Patriots. He is still healthy, still playing at a championship level, and the Patriots had no succession plan behind him. They parted ways simply because Brady and the Patriots no longer wanted to coexist.

That only heightens the pressure on Bill Belichick and the Krafts to rebuild the Patriots back into a winner. They had a winner leading their franchise, and let him go without having a good plan.

Ben Volin can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @BenVolin.