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The wait has been tedious, but it is time. Super Bowl LV, the most anticipated showdown of the season, has arrived! With more storylines than we can count and all kinds of records in play, I hope we can all agree that this Super Bowl was well worth the wait. We have the Tampa Bay Buccaneers taking on the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs. We have Tyreek Hill and Mike Evans, Travis Kelce and Chris Godwin, Jason Pierre-Paul and Chris Jones, Shaquil Barrett and Tyrann Mathieu – and, of course, Patrick Mahomes and Tom Brady. Talk about stingy defenses and explosive offenses!
We’ll break everything down, but first here’s how you can watch Super Bowl LV coverage all day today.
How to watch Super Bowl LV
Dated: Sunday February 7
Time: 6:30 p.m. ET
Location: Raymond James Stadium (Tampa, Florida)
TV: CBS | Current: FREE on CBSSports.com and the CBS Sports app.
How to watch pre-game coverage
This year, CBS Sports is offering expanded access to Super Bowl LV pre-game coverage.
CBS offers viewers seven hours of coverage before the Super Bowl game on Sunday, starting with That Other Pre-Game Show (11:30 am ET); followed by NFL Films Special, Road to the Super Bowl (Noon, ET); Tony goes to the Super Bowl (1 p.m. ET), the Super Bowl today (2 p.m. ET), and the Super Bowl on CBS Kick-Off Show (6 p.m. ET).
CBS Sports HQ, the 24/7 streaming sports news network available for free on digital platforms, services and connected devices, will be live from Tampa during the week leading up to the game’s live broadcast by CBS Sports. Starting Monday, February 1, CBS Sports Headquarters will offer on-site programming and reporting throughout the day, and on match day live stream pre-match coverage, as well as analysis and facts. highlights after the game.
Starting at 2 p.m. ET on Sunday, February 7, streaming coverage of CBS Sports will also be available to viewers on a wide range of platforms and devices, including unauthenticated on CBSSports.com and the app. CBS Sports for OTT devices and services, smart TVs and mobile devices.
When the chefs have the ball
On Thursday we outlined exactly what happened in the Chiefs-Bucs opener, when Patrick Mahomes and Tyreek Hill lit the secondary fire with relative ease. You can read the full story here, but the relevant snippets are below:
Kansas City beat the Buccaneers, 27-24, in Week 12, behind an explosive performance from Mahomes and Hill. Mahomes completed 37 of 49 passes for 462 yards and three touchdowns. Hill shot 13 of 15 targets for 269 yards and was receiving all three scores from Mahomes.
Put simply, the Bucs had absolutely no answer for either, and because they didn’t, they lost the game. If they want to reverse the outcome this time around, they will have to come up with something. So it’s worth looking at exactly what happened in that opener, how it went, and what – if anything – the Bucs might be able to do about it on Sunday night. .
Early in the game, the Bucs tried using a bunch of simple safety looks (Cover-1 and Cover-3), and the Chiefs beat them. Later in the game, they went on to more Cover-2 and Cover-4, and the Chiefs beat them. Poor Carlton Davis was tasked with following Hill wherever he went on the pitch for most of the game, and was absolutely roasted all afternoon. Whatever changes Tampa made, Mahomes and Hill had an answer …
Simple safety looks were set on fire by Hill early in the game, so the Bucs changed things up a bit in the second half … They also blitzed a lot less often after the break. Mahomes lit up their blitz by going 5 of 8 for 86 yards and a touchdown in the first half, so Todd Bowles sent only one blitz in the second half. It didn’t matter much. When Tampa sat in mild areas, he just continually found Travis Kelce on the roads below. The Chiefs took advantage of the fact that Kelce was paired with a linebacker or safety in space on several occasions, where the Bucs simply had no hope of containing him.
No matter how you slice it up, the Chiefs will have an advantage over Hill or Kelce at almost every moment. If the Bucs try to pass both players, they’ll leave Sammy Watkins (assuming he dresses up, as it seems quite likely now), Mecole Hardman, or one of the one-on-one running backs, and will likely be vulnerable to Mahomes. take off and run too. It’s better to force the Chiefs to pursue one of these options rather than having Hill or Kelce torch your high school, of course, but that’s still not ideal. (Mostly because Hill and Kelce can beat the doubles anyway.)
The key for the Bucs will therefore be to accelerate the Chiefs. They need to make Mahomes throw short, fast pitches, rather than into the depths of the field. The game plan has to be a lot like the one in the NFC title game, where Jason Pierre-Paul and Shaquil Barrett dominated their clashes on the edge, boxing Aaron Rodgers in the pocket. Basically they didn’t get to the edge; they turned the corner and came to Rodgers before he could escape to move something. It’s not enough to pressure a QB like Rodgers or Mahomes. You have to put them on the ground. JPP and Barrett have more clashes against Mike Remmers and Andrew Wylie, and if the Bucs are to win the game, it will likely be thanks to this duo’s performance as good or better than in the Conference title game.
The way Tampa manages its defense encourages the opposing attack to throw the ball. The Bucs stack the box with additional defensemen more often than most teams in the league, relying on their inside linemen (Ndamukong Suh and Vita Vea) to hook up the midline and their linebackers (Lavonte David and Devin White ) to flow onto the key. on the sideline and sweep the ball carriers before they enter the open field. Because this quartet of players are so good at these jobs, defenses have passed the ball against the Bucs far more often than expected based on pitch, distance, time and score. The Chiefs – as we’ve seen throughout the year – are incredibly willing to challenge opponents to throw the ball as often as possible. It is likely that they will also do so on Sunday evening. In the field, leaders have the advantages. The Bucs must reverse them by winning up front.
When the Buccaneers have the ball
While the two key players in the Tampa defense are JPP and Barrett, there are three keys to the Kansas City defense: Chris Jones, L’Jarius Sneed and Charvarius Ward.
Why Jones? Because as everyone knows, the best way to disrupt an attack led by Tom Brady is to put pressure on your top four and be able to keep seven in cover. This is obvious. That’s the key against pretty much all quarterbacks. But with Brady in particular, the key is to turn up the pressure in the middle.
Brady is good at a lot of things, but escaping the pressure to the outside and getting started on the move isn’t one of them. He wants to go through the pocket, reset, then deliver the ball down the field. Against the pressure of the edges, he can do it. But if the pocket collapses in the middle, it’s much more difficult. That’s where Jones comes in. The Bucs are without Alex Cappa for the Super Bowl, leaving Aaron Stinnie at the right guard. The Bucs can give him some help, but Jones should have ample opportunity to work on Stinnie and make things tough for Brady. If he dominates this game, it will cause a lot of trouble for the Tampa offense.
Why Sneed? Because he spends most of his time in the slot machine, lining up there with 53% of his shots, per Pro Football Focus. This means he should see more of Chris Godwin than any other corner of the Chiefs. Godwin lined up indoors on 66% of his shots and did a lot of damage there. Sneed has had a great rookie season despite being cut off due to injury, but he’s also just suffered a concussion in the AFC title game. It’s already a tough job to keep Godwin, and having been limited in practice for the past two weeks will only make it even more so.
Why Ward? Mainly because he’s not Bashaud Breeland. The Chiefs play next to their corners, using Breeland on the right and Ward on the left. This allows opposing offenses to choose widely which of the two they want to attack. Ward is a good player, but Breeland is better. So it’s likely that if the Bucs want to get an isolation game Mike Evans or Antonio Brown or Rob Gronkowski, they’ll try to go work on Ward instead. He has proven he’s up to the task for most of the past two seasons, but he will certainly be tested once again on Sunday.
It will be tempting for the Bucs to pursue a slowing down strategy, toss the ball down their throats against the Kansas City defense. They should resist this temptation. First and foremost, Tampa’s passing offense is the team’s strength – far more than Leonard Fournette and Ronald Jones leading the ball. Second, the Chiefs lost just 10 games in Mahomes day. In just two of those 10 games, the winning team scored less than 30 points – and in one of those two, they scored 29. The 10 teams that beat the Chiefs are averaging 36.4 points per. match. This means that you have to score five touchdowns if you want to give yourself a good chance of winning. You don’t do this by relying on Fournette and Jones. You do it with Brady, Evans, Godwin, Brown, and Gronk. This is the best shot in Tampa.
Last Chances:
Tampa Bay Buccaneers +3
Prediction: Chiefs 33, Buccaneers 27
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