Another NFL season has come and gone, and once again the Kansas City Chiefs are Super Bowl champions. Despite this supposedly being a down year for the Chiefs, they still managed to knock off two higher seeds in the playoffs before winning an instant classic over the San Francisco 49ers.
With their third Super Bowl in four attempts, fatigue is starting to settle in for some fans who are already sick of watching the Chiefs find a way to win no matter what the odds are.
Not Tampa Bay Buccaneers fans, though.
Kansas City and Tampa Bay might be the only two fan bases in the league immune to whatever angst might be growing. One fan base is at the epicenter of a new football dynasty while the other can sleep well knowing their team is the only blemish on an otherwise historic record.
As the Chiefs celebrate another championship, it affords Bucs fans a chance to skip down memory lane and remember how Tampa Bay's absolute destruction of Kansas City in Super Bowl LV continues to age the finest of wines.
Buccaneers Super Bowl win over Chiefs keeps getting better and better
For most of the first half, the 49ers defense stifled the Chiefs' offense and held the unit to just three points. While praising San Francisco's performance, the 2020 Buccaneers were invoked more than a few times. That's a testament to just how badly Tampa Bay beat the living daylights out of Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs vaunted offense.
Let's not sell things short, the Bucs dismantled the Chiefs otherwise untouchable offense and smothered them in ways we hadn't seen before. Of the 29 times Mahomes was pressured, 27 of them were when Todd Bowles brought 4 or less rushers. When the Bucs brought an extra rusher, Mahomes air mailed five passes with a sixth getting intercepted.
Gene Deckerhoff calls Devin White's pick to win the Super Bowl pic.twitter.com/ViciJdwche
— Nick Sitro ✌️ (@nicksitro) February 8, 2021
All of this came after the Chiefs punched the Bucs in the mouth earlier that season. We all remember what happened -- Kansas City boat raced Tampa Bay in the first quarter with Tyreek Hill going for over 200 yards and trolling the Bucs on the sideline.
We also all remember how things ended.
Antoine Winfield is going to get a monster contract extension this offseason after his best season as a pro, but he deserved one the second he deuced up Hill in the Super Bowl.
Antoine Winfield Jr. was flagged for taunting Tyreek Hill after making a late fourth down stop to seal the Super Bowl victory for Tampa Bay.
— Taylor Jenkins (@TJenkinsTampa) February 8, 2021
Here's the play and his response when asked about it after the game. pic.twitter.com/dkwjX5L6i5
It's an iconic moment, one personified catharsis that Bucs fans still feel to this day from how that Super Bowl went down.
Kansas City was the sixth-highest-scoring team in the league that season, and Mahomes had become an MVP cheat code who couldn't seem to be stopped. The Chiefs were a year removed from comeback wins in the playoffs against Houston, Tennessee, and San Francisco which gave birth to lore that they were never out no matter how bad they were down -- except against the Bucs.
Tampa Bay's defense held Mahomes out of the endzone for the first time in his career, and smacked the Chiefs around so hard that they spent the next offseason rebuilding their offensive line.
Keep in mind, this wasn’t the first Super Bowl for Kansas City nor some version of the team at the tail end of a long run. Tampa Bay got Mahomes and the Chiefs entering their peak — only one of two Super Bowl teams that had Tyreek Hill — and absolutely destroyed them.
— Matt Arrufat (@mattarrufat) February 8, 2021
Mahomes has had bad games and defenses have gotten the better of him, but nothing like what happened against the Bucs and none of them have happened on the biggest stage of the game. This wasn't just some random midseason beatdown, it was total destruction in the Super Bowl.
Kansas City could win the next ten Super Bowls -- and they very well might win close to that in total if things keep up -- but they'll never ever be able to talk about the titles they won without mentioning the one they didn't.