Tom Brady’s WFH Super Bowl

Tom Brady will get to sleep in his own bed the night before Super Bowl LV

I guess it makes sense, amid an unprecedented, upturned, stay-at-home year, that we get this: Tom Brady, logging in for a work-from-home Super Bowl.

To be clear: Super Bowl LV will not literally be WFH. Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will not send a link to play the Kansas City Chiefs via Zoom, or Google Hangouts, on Monday, February 8.

Still, what’s going to happen hasn’t ever happened: a Super Bowl participant (Tampa Bay) playing in its comfy home coliseum (Raymond James Stadium).

Brady can wake in his own bed, in his own plush jammies, wander out to the kitchen, pour himself a delicious glass of water, eat two raw almonds, stare out at that orange and cerulean Gulf Coast sky, and know he can park in his own parking space, and get dressed at his own locker.

As middle-aged conveniences go, it’s pretty dreamy.

And yet what’s coming for the Bucs is a handful: the Chiefs, defending Super Bowl champions, looking very much like themselves again after a 38-24 thumping of Buffalo in the AFC title game. Patrick Mahomes, lost to concussion protocol the prior week, threw for 325 yards and three touchdowns, returning to resemble the agile wonder who makes the Chiefs the most potent team in the sport.

The Chiefs appear to be the Chiefs, all over their opponents in a hurry. Mahomes is cooking, head coach Andy Reid seems to have settled on a sideline face mask, and a buoyant fan base is eager to hastily add a third Super Bowl title after waiting 50 years to execute the second. The Chiefs beat the Bucs 27-24 in the regular season, and the oddsmakers think they’ve got enough: despite Tampa Bay’s home-field advantage, Kansas City is installed as favourites.

On the other side will be Brady, here again, at 43, for the 10th time in his career. Chew on that fact for a second, because it, too, is remarkable, as Brady’s gotten here not with his New England friends, but an entirely new outfit. It still feels strange watching him out there, in Buc red and pewter. For Patriots fans, home in the cold after a 7-9 campaign, it’s like seeing Dad go camping with a new family: It’s nice that he’s doing fun things, but couldn’t we all go?

Brady’s arrival at LV will fan that futile debate over who’s more responsible for the New England dynasty, him or coach Bill Belichick. I’m not sure the query is fair, Brady and the Grumpy Lobster Boat Captain both seemed essential, but I’ll say this: Brady knows how to elope. He swapped mittens for shorts, got a flurry of new weapons, and head coach Bruce Arians keeps it loose, a vibe unknown in New England. Tampa Bay even coaxed Rob Gronkowski out of retirement, to block, catch and serve as Brady’s loveable attache.

Still, it was a gamble. Sports legend/new town epilogues can become an exceptionally bad idea. This could have been Brady’s sad, South Florida denouement — now it’s looking like a career revival. To be fair, it didn’t always work during the regular season, as Brady struggled to connect. In November, he threw three interceptions in a brutal 38-3 loss to New Orleans on national television, and the buzzards buzzed in: Brady’s not the same, he looks timid, they’re not on the same page, it might end poorly.

And yet here’s a truth about Brady: he feasts on that sort of scepticism, even now. Here’s a man with six Super Bowl rings, still fuelled by the six college quarterbacks taken before him in the 2000 NFL draft. This Tampa Bay title run was anything but assured; the Bucs had not triumphed in a playoff game since 2003. A wildcard playoff team, they needed three straight road wins to get this cushy home date, and none came easy, including this week’s NFC championship conquering of Green Bay at Lambeau.

Brady has had his struggles along the way. He threw three interceptions to go with his three touchdown passes versus the Packers, and the Packers gifted the Buccaneers with a sideline howler, when, facing fourth down, behind eight points with just over two minutes left, Packers coach Matt LaFleur decided to kick a field goal instead of going for a game-tying touchdown and 2-point conversion.

And yet Brady was enough of himself to close it out when it mattered. It means something, in those final minutes, to have a player who’s been there, frequently, and isn’t undone by the moment. Arians spoke after the game about how the quarterback’s arrival had transformed the club into believers.

“It only took one man,” he said.

And now the biggest game, at home. What a sports run for Tampa: the NHL Lightning are Stanley Cup champs; the baseball Rays got to the World Series; now the Bucs get an in-town Super Bowl. It won’t be the usual drill — the NFL is planning a reduced crowd; the Chiefs aren’t even allowed to show up until two days before — but it’s historic. The closest anyone has ever gotten was the Rams, LA Coliseum habitues who played a Rose Bowl Super Bowl in 1980, or Super Bowl XIX, in 1985, when San Francisco beat Miami at Stanford Stadium — 50km down the road from Candlestick, and 25km from San Mateo, where a Niners superfan named Tommy Brady was seven years old.

For the NFL, Brady v Mahomes is an intoxicating match-up: a genuine legend, still at it, versus the most thrilling player in the game, the Super Bowl MVP last February in Miami, only 25.

Is Tampa Bay a mere a speed bump as Mahomes and the Chiefs build their own 21st century dynasty? Or can Tom Brady convert home field into an extraordinary seventh ring? Play a Super Bowl and run a few errands on the drive back? Tom Brady really is living the dream.

Wall Street Journal