Buccaneers win Super Bowl in blowout

Bella Lee, Staff writer

The greatest of all time versus the greatest of this time. That’s what fans and sportscasters alike dubbed Super Bowl LV, held on Feb. 7 at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida.

It was the first Super Bowl to have a team playing on their home turf, with the Tampa Bay Bucca-neers emerging as the NFC cham-pions. Returning for their second straight Super Bowl appearance were the AFC champions, the Kansas City Chiefs.

Considering the skill sets of both the younger Patrick Ma-homes and the veteran Tom Brady, this was a game that was expected to be close. However, this was proved wrong when the Buccaneers took out the Chiefs 31-9 and won their second Super Bowl, their first since 2003.

Both teams had tough oppo-nents to get through during their chase for the Lombardi trophy. The Buccaneers snatched a win in the Wild Card Round against the Washington Football Team before eliminating the New Orle-ans Saints in the Divisional Round and taking down the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Champion-ship.

The Chiefs, who earned a first round bye due to having the top seed in the AFC, defeated the Cleveland Browns in the Divi-sional Round and ended the run of the Buffalo Bills in the AFC Championship.

Heavily favored teams, such as the Seattle Seahawks and Pitts-burgh Steelers were eliminated early in the playoffs which helped pave the way to the Super Bowl for both the Chiefs and Bucca-neers.

This year’s Super Bowl was packed with records.

Sarah Thomas became the first woman to officiate a Super Bowl, becoming an inspiration for mil-lions of girls everywhere. This was the first Super Bowl with a matchup between the two pre-vious Super Bowl MVPs, with Mahomes taking the coveted title in Super Bowl LIV in 2020 and Brady winning it in Super Bowl LIII in 2019.

Bruce Arians, the head coach of the Buccaneers, became the oldest coach to hoist the Lombar-di at the grand old age of 68. The Buccaneers had the most diverse coaching staff, with two women and four black men among their coaching team.

With this win, Tom Brady had his 10th Super Bowl appearance, 7th win and 5th MVP, the most in any of those categories for one person. He was not a force to be reckoned with during this game.

For those who are not inter-ested in sports, there were still the commercials and the halftime show to look forward to.

This year’s halftime show was performed by The Weeknd, who performed hits such as “Blinding Lights,” “I Can’t Feel My Face” and “Starboy.” Memorable com-mercials this year came from State Farm, Bud Light and Cadillac, with appearances from celebri-ties like Timothée Chalamet, Paul Rudd and Amy Schumer.

Both teams entered the season with promise, with the Chiefs fresh out of a Super Bowl win and the Buccaneers having ac-quired Brady. Although the Chiefs fell short of their potential, Ma-homes managed to play a decent game even while fighting turf toe. Familiar faces from their previ-ous teams assisted the Buccaneers in their win, like Rob Gronkow-ski, Antonio Brown and Leonard Fournette.

Both teams will surely still be turning heads next season.