Those oldies are goldies when it comes to legendary Tom Brady and his head coach Bruce Arians

The legend lives on. He belongs among the best of all times, any sports. He was not about to be run over by the young guy. At 43 years old, he has now lifted his record Vince Lombardi Trophy seven times.

Tom Brady, on his new home field, Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, arrived at the stadium on the Buccaneers’ bus, and while the 52 Tampa Bay players headed for their locker room, No. 12 didn’t need his uniform shirt as he instead strolled straight to the stadium field, looked around, waved to his family and friends already seated, and then headed to join his teammates to dress and prepare for the reigning 3-point favorite Kansas City Chiefs.

Presto, it turned into a 31-9 shellacking of the Chiefs that including pressuring Mahomes 29 times, running him down behind a stout defense powered by an aggressive front four and a crafty core of safeties. It was an impressive defense put together by former New Jets’ head coach, Todd Bowles, and a prize victory for popular head coach Bruce Arians, at 68 the oldest to ever come away with perhaps the biggest show in sports.

“It was a total team victory,” said Arians after he was doused with team color blue. “To me, the biggest time for us this season came after we fell behind, 17-0, at halftime against Kansas City and lost by two. Then we had a bye week, the last of the season for any team, had our usual practice at the high school field, and never lost again.”

His 95-year-old mother watched from the stands. For myself, not being secretive, I’m now in my low 80s, which brings a good feeling to see Brady and Arians, who total 111 years, emerge victorious.

These two “oldies”, from the earlier loss in Kansas City, had won their last seven, and it there was any reason why the Chiefs (15-3), and with the best record in the National Football League, were only a 3-point favorite versus the 12-5 wild card Bucs, just point to Brady, who put this team together with the addition of former New England Patriots’ teammates, Rob Gronkowski and Antonio Brown. Gronkowski had retired after the 1999 campaign, and Brown was hanging on a thread after behavior problems with three other teams.

The Buccaneers’ front office also brought in pro-bowl linebacker Jason Pierre-Paul, who is now 3-0 in Super Bowls while playing on the two New York Giants’ team that defeated Brady and New England. Wide receiver Mike Evans and running back Ronald Jones came off early-season injuries, and Evans and Chris Goodwin became Brady’s top targets and Jones and Leonard Fournette became the main running backs. The Bucs also brought in defensive end Ndamukong Suh from the Miami Dolphins.

From the outset, Mahomes, MVP of last year’s Super Bowl win over the San Francisco 49ers, was having difficulty finding his way around and Brady took over. Once, only once, was he sacked. It came early, not long before he found tight end Gronkowski, first on an untouched 10-yard pass along the sideline, and then on a 24-yard toss into the end zone, also untouched.

The first brought a 7-3 lead after the opening quarter when KC made its first of three field goals. That was it for the Chiefs, who never made it into the end zone. In the second quarter, Brady’s next touchdown pass to Gronkowski was his former teammate’s fifth of the Super Bowls, 2nd all-time.  Next came the short low TD pass to Brown in the front of the end zone, Ryan Succop added a third PAT, and again Kansas City had to settle a for field goal and trailed 21-6 at halftime.

After the intermission, the Chiefs still had no answers, again booted a field goal, and Fournette, an All-America at LSU who hadn’t reached his potential after being the 1998 fourth pick in the college draft by the Jacksonville Jaguars, showed his new-found worth with Tampa Bay by dashing 37 Yards down the right sidelines and into the end zone, also, like Gronkowski, untouched. A Buccaneer field goal followed the one kicked by Kansas City, and it was the final score, 31-9, through a scoreless final quarter.

Mahomes had one last try, when with 1:14remaining, fired a pass into the end zone that was picked off by Devin White. One tout by Tampa Bay’s Antoine Winfield on a dropped KC pass late in the contest brought a 15-yard penalty on 4th and 33 on the Chiefs, and as Brady went to line up again, he scalded Winfield and said, “That was not needed.”

Mahomes, who had injured his toe against the Cleveland Browns in the playoffs, said it had no effect on what transpired.

“No, I had no problem in practice or in the game before this one,” he said. “They just put the rush on me, kept me from making plays, kept my best receivers in tact with two defenders on each one. They just had a great game plan and I give them all the credit. And I add, Mr. Brady was remarkable. He got excellent protected from his line, found his receivers and his team’s running game was also a big contribution. We were, you can say, stream rolled.”

He’s right, billed and figured to be one of the best of all Super Bowls, it became a laugher, a mixture of Bucs’ strength along both lines, a team with confidence, a team with Brady. He came from 19 years in New England’s winter land, winning six of nine Super Bowls, and in the first-ever big show at the home of a participant, won in number 10.

After the graffiti fell, the planes flew over and Brady was now hoisting another trophy wearing his Tampa Bay undershirt, he said: “It was just a great effort from a great cast of guys. We had great togetherness, great practices, and lots of fun. We came into this game knowing why we had lost to them in game 12. After winning in the dome in New Orleans, we had only the Chiefs in mind. We knew what we had to do, and did it. I’m very proud of all these guys?”

From that defeat, Brady and company turned back the Saints for the first time in three starts, defeated the Packers on the road, and now handed Mahomes his worse loss, never before being held to only eight points. It was the worse setback for Kansas City since 2017.

For Brady, he has now reached the top of the heap once again. The first time he won a Super Bowl, it was over St. Louis in 2001.

This time though, it was not as close as the other six. Three were won by last-play field goals against the St. Louis Rams, the Carolina Panthers and Philadelphia Eagles, one when the Seattle Seahawks, down by four points and with the ball at the New England 5 with time running down, tossed the ball into the end zone and the Patriots intercepted it. Then there was the game versus the Atlanta Falcons when the trailed 21-3 at the half, rallied to force overtime at 28-all. and won 34-28. And in the most recent tilt against the Los Angeles Rams in 2019, it ended at 13-3.

After his next-to-last marvelous season in New England, he said he had plans to play until he reached 45. Who knows, now he might have upped that to the dismal satisfaction of his opponents. For Tampa Bay, it was its first Super Bowl since the 2003 48-21 romp over the Oakland Raiders. The next two years, Brady won the trophy back-to-back.

One more thing, don’t ever say things like a no-it-all, such as so-and-so would wipe out so-and-so or no way that so-and-so wasn’t going to lose to so-and-so. Better to switch to, it could be a good game, could be, not will be.

EXTRA POINTS: Penalties more than added to the Kansas City embarrassment, most of them on defensive holdings on receivers. In all, 11 for 120 yards. The nine points were a team low for this season. Mahomes was a disappointing 26-for-48 passing for 270 yards, with a total of 350 on 80 yards rushing. He ran the ball seven times for 37 yards when he had no where else to go. He was intercepted twice.

Brady, in turn, was good for 21 completions on 29 attempts for 201 yards, and a total of 340 on the ground game led by Jones and Fournette. who who carried 15 times for 103 yards, and Gronkowski caught six passes for 67 yards. Along with Payton Manning, Brady became the first quarterback to win Super Bowls with two different teams. The Bucs had only four penalties for 39 yards. His fifth MVP put Brady three ahead of Joe Montana. It was also the first time his team scored a first-quarter touchdown in the Super Bowl, and he was pressured only four times.