Super Bowl LV – Chris Berman’s Swami Sez Selection for Kansas City Chiefs-Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Chris Berman is back Sunday for his Swami Sez NFL pick for Super Bowl LV between the Kansas City Chiefs and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Odds courtesy of Caesars Sportsbook by William Hill.

Kansas City Chiefs (-3, 56) vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Needless to say, the storylines are as juicy as they get for this 55th edition of the Super Bowl. My favorite is that Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs try to repeat themselves as champions and join that exclusive club, and the man who guards the castle to make sure they do not go through is the last man to do so, the BOK himself , Tom Brady, with the 2003-04 New England Patriots.

Brady is here for the tenth time – we’ll probably never see it again unless it involves the man he’s playing against. This game is the standard bearer of the past and present versus the current and possible future standard bearer of the best quarterbacks the game has ever played.

If you look at the Chiefs, this is a team with undisputed talent. In the two playoffs this year, Travis Kelce and Tyreek Hill have about 40 catches and 400 yards combined – which is ridiculous. On top of that, it’s a team that plays well, coming from their head coach, Andy Reid. Sometimes they had so much fun this season taking the foot off the gas and, as in the earlier win over Tampa, were able to win by more than 20 points, but instead of dropping the clock by three.

Until the Buffalo game, the Chiefs have not played a full 60-minute game since the beginning of November. If they can do it again, play all 60 minutes, then I believe it could be too much for Tampa Bay to handle – despite the magic of the great self, Tom Brady.

Tampa Bay, with the pass rate of Chris Godwin, Mike Evans and Rob Gronkowski, is one of the few teams that has about as many headers as the Chiefs. Add to that, you have Leonard Fournette, who did the best he had all year against the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship Game, an extra dynamic that makes the offense feel like it might – just maybe – score traded with the Chiefs, who very few teams can say they can. The Bucs could.

The loss to the Chiefs during Thanksgiving weekend put the Bucs at 7-5 and entered the final farewell of the season. For a veteran team that is saying goodbye until late in the season, it was perfect, and it responded. I said this on Primetime, these are the most important bees of all 32 teams. Look, Swami got it right. The Bucs have not lost since. The new parts buzzed and the team put everything together. You do not normally rest in week 13, and this has borne fruit. It can not be overlooked.

KC has three defenders in defense in Chris Jones, Frank Clark and the Honey Badger, Tyrann Mathieu. Can they put enough pressure on Brady to make him feel a little uneasy? I’m going to see if they do it in the first quarter, which could set the tone for the game. If Brady is comfortable, the Bucs can trade points with the Chiefs. However, do not underestimate defense coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, whose timing may be when you need to send a linebacker or cornerback. He’s beaten Brady once in a Super Bowl. He can keep you in balance.

Tampa Bay’s top seven are very good. Jason Pierre-Paul had a heel of the year, and lineouts Devin White and Shaq Barrett went up against a team without their two starting lineup. Ndamukong Suh and Lavonte David can also play big. Will the top seven of the Bucs be able to dictate the game on their own? The Chiefs should feel that if Mahomes gets time, they can beat the secondary team, as in the first game.

Another season-long observation: Just as the doctors ordered the Bucs to say goodbye late, the Chiefs also got an unexpected breather. Sure, they were the favorites before the season to repeat and attract a lot of attention, but the early loss to the Las Vegas Raiders was a blessing in disguise. All the talk of unbeaten goes to the Pittsburgh Steelers, who start 11-0. Add to that the fact that Brady is in another Super Bowl, and that’s at least such a storyline as the Chiefs are trying to repeat. Slightly less spotlight than expected never hurts.

In this first Super Bowl, played in the home stadium of a conference champion, when the Bucs come running out of the locker room 30 minutes before the kick-off in the locker room, it’s all over … Tampa wins and Tom gets his seventh ring. But they may not, not even if they wanted to. Since that will not happen, I will repeat with the champions, and Andy Reid and his team will join the elite repeat group. You know them: the Packers, Dolphins, Steelers (twice), Niners, Cowboys, Broncos and Tom’s Patriots. Each decade had at least one recurring champion – in the ’60s,’ 70s, ’80s,’ 90s and 2000s. Then the Chiefs won it in 2019, so we will also call it back-to-back in that decade, and the trend continues.

Swami Sez: Chiefs 30, Bucs 20