Monday, 5 a.m.
Perhaps the result pleased you.
History, with the help of the Philadelphia Eagles, stomped all over the Kansas City Chiefs Sunday night. It was loud, and it was flattening, and it made a strange little noise.
Given the backlash over the Chiefs recently, that must have pleased a great many people.
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It’s odd. Some people admire greatness, and others resent it. So instead of applauding the Chiefs and their pursuit of three straight Super Bowls, a lot of fans seemed bored by it. For those people, their 40-22 battering at the hands of the Eagles was probably a welcome change.
Those people, of course, are petty. There is nothing to feel for the Chiefs but admiration. They were a great team on a great run. No matter what you read on the internet, the NFL wasn’t rigging games because they wanted Taylor Swift tickets. The refs weren’t cheating to protect Patrick Mahomes. The competition didn’t get robbed.
The Chiefs were simply good.
But not good enough.
If you are an official with another team — such as the Bucs — there were some lessons to be had.
— One, you need a relentless pass rush. The Eagles won the Super Bowl over the Chiefs in the same manner the Bucs did under Tom Brady. They hounded Mahomes all the way to mortality. They had a relentless pass rush. The Bucs, as you might have heard, do not.
— Two, you need solid pass coverage. When the game was still a game Sunday night, the Eagles held the Chiefs in check. They covered without giving up medium-level passes the way the Bucs do.
— Three, they need a solid offensive line. The Bucs have improved greatly, but they’re still behind the Eagles.
— Four, they need a solid, feisty quarterback who doesn’t mind running the ball. The Bucs are actually in decent shape there. There isn’t a lot of difference between Jalen Hurts and Baker Mayfield
— Five, they need a dominant running back. Oh, it’s a stretch to compare Bucky Irving, great as he is, to Saquon Barkley. But he gives the Bucs a threat of a balanced offense.
— Six, they need a solid offensive coordinator . The Bucs keep playing tag-team with coordinators. We’ll see how next year’s version does.
In other words, there are things to learn.
Personally, I think the Bucs have players who can play at a Super Bowl level — Tristan Wirfs, Mike Evans, Mayfield, Irving. But their holes are too gaping to expect them to get to one Super Bowl. Let alone three.