Yahoo Finance Tom Brady revels in Bucs pounding of Patrick Mahomes
Tom Brady won Super Bowl MVP honors on Sunday.
But he knows that his wasn’t the most impressive performance at Raymond James Stadium. That honor belongs to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense, which kept Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and the NFL’s best offense out of the end zone for 60 minutes.
The now seven-time Super Bowl champion showed some love to that effort on Instagram Monday. And he didn’t spare Mahomes. Brady posted photos highlighting big plays from teammates like linebackers Devin White and Shaq Barrett and defensive linemen William Gholston and Ndamukong Suh.
As you can imagine, several of those images featured Bucs defenders tormenting Mahomes. Because how could they not?
‘That does not look comfortable’
How Tampa’s defense dominated
The Bucs sacked Mahomes three times on Sunday. But that stat doesn’t provide the complete picture of the constant pressure Mahomes was under. According to ESPN Stats & Info, the Bucs pressured Mahomes a Super Bowl-record 29 times, forcing the Chiefs quarterback to run for a total of 497 yards behind the line of scrimmage before he was sacked or got rid of the ball.
Kansas City played without injured starting left tackle Eric Fisher, and defensive coordinator Todd Bowles dialed up an ideal defensive scheme to take advantage of Kansas City’s weakness on the offensive line. It resulted in Mahomes repeatedly running for his football life and arguably the worst performance of his career. He didn’t stand a chance.
Brady knows what it’s like
Brady has been on the there before. He’s an unparalleled NFL champion. But he’s lost three Super Bowls as well. Two of those losses as a New England Patriot were thanks largely to a New York Giants pass rush that gave him fits and left him bruised and battered.
Getting consistent pressure is one of football most effective equalizers against even the game’s best quarterbacks. Nobody knows that better than Brady.
Super Bowl LV from Yahoo Sports:
