Enemy Reaction Special Edition: Super Bowl 55

Year one of “Tompa Bay” worked out pretty well for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. While Tom Brady adds to his remarkable collection of accomplishments, the Buccaneers defense really starred in Super Bowl 55. Prior to last Sunday, no Patrick Mahomes-led team had ever scored under 10 points dating back to when he was in high school. The Kansas City Chiefs had a chance to repeat and were thoroughly beaten by the first ever team to win a Super Bowl at its home stadium.

There’s not a whole lot of action to really look back on for this 31-9 blowout. No pick-sixes, no 40+ yards plays, no game-changing turnovers, but that doesn’t mean I’m not doing an Enemy Reaction. It’s not just Chiefs and Buccaneers fans we’re looking at, but their greatest rivals too!

Here’s the final Enemy Reaction of the 2020 NFL season.

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Brady to Rob Gronkowski for Tom’s first ever 1st quarter Super Bowl touchdown (7-3 TB)

Ronald Jones stuffed on 4th and goal (7-3 TB)

Tom Brady interception wiped out due to holding penalty (7-3 TB)

Brady to Gronk again (14-3 TB)

Bashaud Breeland trips Mike Evans for huge pass interference penalty (14-6 TB)

Antonio Brown scores on Tyrann Mathieu just before halftime (21-6 TB)

Playoff Lenny goes in untouched on 27-yard dash to the end zone (28-9 TB)

Patrick Mahomes picked off by Antoine Winfield Jr (28-9 TB)

Antoine Winfield Jr gives Tyreek Hill the “deuces” sign (31-9 TB)

Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports

Devin White picks off Patrick Mahomes to preserve touchdown-less defensive effort (31-9 TB FINAL)

Doesn’t this conversation sound familiar?

Hahahahahaha

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Broncos, Raiders, and Chargers fans enjoy Kansas City’s demise

Panthers fans know the feeling watching Mike Remmers get turnstiled...

Falcons fans ain’t even mad

Saints fans... not so much

And Patriots fans...

Post-Game: We should’ve seen co-MVPs in this Super Bowl win (Brandon Thornton, The Pewter Plank)

With the Brady-Mahomes Super Bowl matchup being one of the most hyped in recent memory, perhaps ever, there really wasn’t any chance the winning quarterback wasn’t taking home Super Bowl MVP. However, Lavonte David and Devin White deserved to be this millennium’s [Harvey] Martin/[Randy] White and becoming the second duo to win co-Super Bowl MVP.

This Buccaneers defense absolutely annihilated one of the most prolific offenses we’ve ever see. As far as the eye test goes, David and White were the reasons for that. It seemed like every time you looked up, one or both of them were around the ball. They jumped off the screen. We mentioned how stats are hard to come by, well, these two stud linebackers had the number as well. White lead all players with eight solo tackles and twelve total, while David was tied for second of all players with six solo tackles, which actually made up for all of his tackles. White also added in the interception late in the game that proved to be the Super Bowl dagger (shoutout Derrick Brooks).

Tom Brady is the GOAT, there is no disputing that. He also has literally every accolade one can possibly hoist upon him. The Buccaneers’ defense deserved to have the shine and have at least one of their players take home Super Bowl MVP. However like we said earlier if Brady had to have the trophy, at least let one of the defensive players share it with him. Super Bowl LV should have featured co-MVPs.

Post-Game: Self-inflicted wounds finally caught up with Kansas City (Kevin Burd, Arrowhead Addict)

Whether you thought that some of the penalties were questionable or not, the Chiefs still made way too many mistakes to be competitive against a Super Bowl caliber team. The problem is, we have become so accustomed to epic comebacks that we oftentimes forget that this team isn’t unbeatable. If the Chiefs have too many costly errors (like they did in Super Bowl LV), then they can get blown out.

Kansas City has made these same mistakes throughout the season, but it has never come back to bite them like it did against Tampa Bay. This is the worst loss of Patrick Mahomes’ NFL career and I’m sure that he will never forget it.

While it was concerning to see how many errors the Chiefs made in this game, there is no question that they will be back on this stage again. Like many have said throughout the season, the Chiefs are definitely their own worst enemy.

All of the costly penalties, dropped catches, and coaching decisions are easily avoidable, but those were the things that defined the biggest game of the season. None of these miscues take anything away from the effort that players showed, but the simple fact is that Kansas City played a bad game against the Buccaneers, and their mistakes finally created an insurmountable deficit that couldn’t be fixed in the Super Bowl.

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In some ways, the final regular season game ending in that Nate Sudfeld nonsense and the Super Bowl ending in a rather unexciting blowout were fitting ways for this wacky, difficult, and unusual NFL season to end. This postseason in particular did not have a single 4th quarter lead change and more often than not produced anti-climactic finishes. Oh well... they can’t all be classics.

This is the last Enemy Reaction for the season and indeed this is ten years under this current format. Thanks for reading every single one of them and this will be back in April for the NFL Draft. By the way... Devin White arguably could’ve won Super Bowl MVP. Remember this?

We’re fickle.

Go ‘Hawks!