Brady leads Buccaneers to Super Bowl win on home field

Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady lifts the Lombardi Trophy after Super Bowl LV at Raymond James Stadium

Tampa, Fla. (Reuters): Tom Brady threw three touchdowns as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers thumped the Kansas City Chiefs 31-9 to win the Super Bowl on Sunday, giving the evergreen 43-year-old quarterback a record-extending seventh championship ring.

Brady’s age-defying performance, which earned him the Most Valuable Player award, brought the curtain down on what was perhaps the most challenging season the NFL has had to navigate because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The pandemic kept stadiums mostly empty throughout the season and restrictions limited Super Bowl attendance to 25,000 spectators, including 7,500 healthcare workers, sprinkled among 30,000 happy-faced cardboard cutouts.

While the pandemic reined in America’s biggest sporting party, the show went on as scheduled and once again Brady, who joined the Bucs last March after 20 seasons with the New England Patriots, rose to the occasion in his 10th Super Bowl.

The NFL’s championship game had been hyped as a battle between Brady, widely recognised as the greatest quarterback of all-time, and 25-year-old Chiefs counterpart Patrick Mahomes, considered the best in the game today.

But in the end, it was no contest as the Bucs’ rampaging defense harassed Mahomes, who threw a pair of interceptions, the entire night to bring the Chiefs’ Super Bowl title defense to a jarring end.

The only team to play a Super Bowl on their home field, the Buccaneers made the most of the opportunity as they were crowned champions for the first time since January 2003.