Buccaneers fans are jonesing for back-to-back Super Bowl championships—but can storied quarterback Tom Brady deliver?
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Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady will enter the Pro Football Hall of Fame in a few years as one of the greatest, if not the greatest quarterback in National Football League history. But all the records and all the accolades that have been bestowed upon him are just an ode to past glories.
The challenge Brady, 44, and the Bucs are facing this season is one of the most difficult in all of pro football: winning back-to-back Super Bowl championships.
The feat has been accomplished just eight times in the Super Bowl’s 55-year history. Not surprisingly, it was Brady’s New England Patriots that were the last to win consecutive championships when they defeated the Carolina Panthers 32-29 in the 2004 Super Bowl and the Philadelphia Eagles, 24-21, the following year.
That was nearly two decades ago, though — long before anyone was calling Brady the GOAT, the greatest of all time.
Other teams that repeated were the Green Bay Packers (1967-68); Miami Dolphins (1973-74); Pittsburgh Steelers (1975-76); Pittsburgh Steelers again (1979-80); San Francisco 49ers (1989-1990); Dallas Cowboys (1993-94); and Denver Broncos (1998-1999).
Brady hears optimistic Bucs fans — still breathless from the Super Bowl victory this past February, no doubt — speaking of winning two straight like it is a fait accompli.
“I think the assumption [that it won’t be hard] comes from the belief that it will just be exactly like it was last year,” Brady said this summer. “The reality is everything is different. The teams will approach you a little bit differently.”
Brady knows Super Bowls. He’s played in ten of them, winning seven titles and five Super Bowl Most Valuable Player awards, but only once has he won consecutive championships.
“You’ve got to stay focused on what’s really important,” Brady said. “How do you improve? How do you get better from week to week, day to day? Improve your routine, improve your communication with your teammates [and] with your coaches. Not allow your mind to really fall into this position that you make this assumption that just because you did something in February that you’ll do it again next February because that’s not the reality of football — it’s way too competitive. A lot of games we won last year were very razor-thin margins; one or two plays make the difference in every game.”
Many factors can derail a team: injuries, the loss of key players to free agency, off-field turmoil and plain bad luck.
Although the likelihood of repeating is low, the Bucs have a few things in their favor.
Tampa Bay plays in a weak NFC South division where it will face the Atlanta Falcons and Carolina Panthers (9-23 combined last season) and the New Orleans Saints, who are without quarterback Drew Brees after he retired in March.
The Bucs are returning all 22 starters, the first defending Super Bowl champion in the salary cap era to do so, according to the team.
And of course, Brady is back at the helm.
Jay Kornegay, executive vice president at SuperBook Sports operations, said the early money was on the Bucs to repeat, with the odds at 9-2. But he cautioned that those odds would change once the season was underway.
“The division is weak, and there is uncertainty throughout the NFC from the Saints without Brees, to the off-season issues with Aaron Rodgers wanting out of Green Bay. Of the top four contenders in the NFC, in our view, the Bucs have the fewest question marks surrounding them,” Kornegay said.
“What we can’t measure yet is their motivation and desire. That’s the biggest obstacle to repeating. They were really hungry last season. But winning brings a certain satisfaction. Will they be able to get the same level of intensity this year? I’m not saying they can’t, but it’s the biggest obstacle to repeating in sports.”
Injuries are a close second, experts say. Sportsbooks keep a close eye on injury reports because of the impact they can have on scoring. It can move the line, and the fates of promising teams, quite significantly.
“Brady’s arm isn’t what it used to be, but it was enough last year to complement the Bucs’ running game and their defense,” Kornegay said. “If you get injuries, though, or the defense is subpar, they’ll end up in more shootouts, allowing more points and putting more pressure on Brady to throw for more yards. If the running game suffers injuries or declines, the defense doesn’t get the rest it needs. The play or health of one unit, affects the performance of another. And remember, these guys are already going to have targets on their back because everyone wants to knock off the champ.”
There are a number of ways returning Super Bowl winners can go from champs to chumps. Consider the three previous Super Bowl winners and how injuries, a shocking performance and a few ill-advised turnovers blew their chances to repeat.
The Philadelphia Eagles beat Brady and the New England Patriots, 41-33, in the 2018 Super Bowl. Starting quarterback Carson Wentz tore knee ligaments on Dec. 10, 2017, and backup Nick Foles became an unlikely hero, leading the Eagles to the championship.
Wentz returned to the lineup the following season, but suffered a stress fracture in his back in mid-December that sent him to the bench. Foles reclaimed the starting job, but was unable to summon the old magic. Philadelphia was eliminated from the playoffs in a 20-14 divisional round loss to the New Orleans Saints.
The Patriots returned to the Super Bowl in 2019, beating the Los Angeles Rams 13-3 in the lowest scoring Super Bowl ever.
New England went 12-4 in the 2019 regular season and won its 11th consecutive AFC East title. But the Patriots’ top-ranked defense buckled in the wild card round, allowing Titans running back Derrick Henry to rush for 182 yards and a touchdown in the Titans’ 20-13 victory.
In the 2020 Super Bowl, the Patrick Mahomes-led Kansas City Chiefs scored 21 points in the final 6:13 to beat the San Francisco 49ers, 31-20.
The Chiefs returned to the Super Bowl last season, but what was billed as a shootout between the Chiefs’ youthful quarterback and the more experienced Brady was largely decided by the Buccaneers’ determined defense. Mahomes, 25, passed for 270 yards, no touchdowns and two interceptions. Brady passed for 201 yards and three touchdowns, but made no turnovers in a 31-9 win that earned Brady his fifth Super Bowl MVP award.
Johnny Avello, director of race and sportsbook operations at DraftKings, had the Kansas City Chiefs favored at 5-1 this summer and agreed with Kornegay that motivation and complacency are the biggest factors in a team’s ability to repeat. But, he cautioned, never underestimate Lady Luck.
“In last year’s NFC Championship game, Brady threw three picks in about 10 minutes and they were lucky to hold on for the win. Sometimes, it is just about things going your way,” Avello said. “I thought they were fortunate to even get to the Super Bowl last year. I’m not expecting them to get there again.”
Only a few professional franchises have ever been dominant enough in their sport to be a surefire bet at winning consecutive championships. Avello pointed to teams like the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers in the National Basketball Association and New York Yankees in Major League Baseball, where players at every position were among the best in the league.
“I don’t see any of the teams today having that type of presence on the field,” Avello said. “I think there is more parity now than there’s ever been. And that makes it much harder to win championships back-to-back.”
Brady knows it will be difficult, but he thinks the Bucs are just reaching their peak.
“[Coach Bruce Arians has] done a great job of keeping us focused, keeping the intensity there,” Brady said. “I feel like we’re not finished projects. It was really our first opportunity to play together last year, and there’s a lot of opportunity for us to grow into something that could be very different.”
Perhaps. But I’m not sure I’d put money on it.
We should note that this article came in to our editors early in the NFL season. As of this writing, Tom Brady just advanced to the second round of the NFL Playoffs, with his Buccaneers having summarily destroyed the once vaunted Eagles by a score of 31-15. And it was not nearly that close. …
We’re not saying Tom Brady has a portait of himself hidden away in an attice somewhere, but he might. Should you insist on betting against him, you’ll be much better off wagering with a significant other in one of those, “If we win, you kiss me. If you win, I’ll kiss you,” sorts of bets.
