by Konrad Gonzalez, Staff Reporter
This year's Super Bowl LV contains some of the very best teams in the NFL. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will face off against the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday, Feb. 7.
The Buccaneers will have the honor of becoming the first team in league history to play the Super Bowl in their own home stadium, and they'll face the defending league champions in one of the most thrilling title-game matchups ever.
“Whoever would've thought a home Super Bowl for us? But we did it,” Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady said.
The Buccaneers road to the Super Bowl started with their first playoff game in over a decade, and the Buccaneers were looking for a big win on the road versus a tough team. They faced the Washington Football Team who were without their number one quarterback, Alex Smith, who made his comeback this season after 17 surgeries to repair his injured leg. Smith couldn’t recover from a calf injury suffered a couple of weeks prior, thus couldn’t join his team. Taylor Heinicke started his first playoff game in the NFL, and he did a good job making one of the main headlines of the game as he went face to face with Brady. The Buccaneers went on to a 31-23 victory with Brady throwing for 381 yards and two touchdowns.
“It’s going to be something I’m really proud about,” Washington quarterback Heinicke said. “With everything that happened in the past month and a half, to go out and do that, I’m proud of myself and I’m happy the coaches believed in me and gave me the opportunity.”
The Chiefs escaped with their first win of the postseason against the Cleveland Browns. A third-quarter injury to Patrick Mahomes took the life out of Kansas City in crunch time, but keen play by backup Chad Henne helped the team keep their lead and win the game. This game ended up closer than most predicted, but until the injury to Mahomes, Kansas City looked poised to make it a blowout. The Chiefs never fell behind and even with all the adversary they still managed to walk out the stadium with a victory.
Many fans were upset over a controversial play where wide receiver Rashard Higgins was hit by what appeared to be illegal helmet-to-helmet contact to the head by Chiefs safety Daniel Sorenson. The referees never called the penalty and the play. The contact caused Higgins to fumble the ball into the endzone, where it rolled out of bound resulting in a no score for the Browns and a turnover touchback in favor of the Chiefs in the closing minutes of the second quarter.
“.@browns getting screwed by the worst rule in football,” Retired lineman Joe Thomas tweeted.
This matchup between two of the best quarterbacks in the NFL should be one for the books. Sorta like the old versus the new.
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