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Early storylines for Super Bowl LV

Super Bowl LV is set. Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will square off against Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs. The beauty of the Super Bowl is the fact that we have two weeks to build up to the game, which offers no shortage of storylines each year. This Super Bowl will be no different. Here is a look at some of the early storylines for Super Bowl LV.

Brady Versus Mahomes V

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Super Bowl LV gives us the fifth meeting between Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes. If past is truly prologue, football fans are in for a treat. These two quarterbacks met twice in the 2018 season, with both games going down to the wire. In the regular season meeting the New England Patriots escaped with a win on a last-second field goal, and then in the AFC Championship game Brady and the Patriots went into Arrowhead Stadium and came away winners in overtime. Last year the Kansas City Chiefs made the trip to Gillette Stadium and came away with a 23-16 victory. That game was perhaps memorable for a second half scramble by Brady to convert a fourth down that got the home crowd - and head coach Bill Belichick - off their feet and screaming. This year the scheduling gods gave us Brady Mahomes IV, in the regular season when the Chiefs made the trip to Tampa Bay to take on the Buccaneers. Again, the contest came down to one score, as the Buccaneers scored 14 unanswered points in the fourth quarter but came up a field goal short. Again, if past is prologue, we should be in for a treat.

Tom Brady's drive for seven rings

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It has been a long time since Tom Brady first came on the national stage, leading the underdog New England Patriots to an upset win over the St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI. Now, decades later, Brady is in a new uniform but still chasing that Lombardi Trophy. Super Bowl LV will be Brady's tenth, but as the veteran quarterback has said so often, picking his favorite Super Bowl ring is easy. The next one. But something tells me that if the surefire Hall of Famer does indeed secure that seventh Super Bowl ring, coming in his first year away from New England, it will be something special indeed.

How do the Buccaneers slow down Kansas City?

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When these two teams met in the regular season Patrick Mahomes and company put on a show. Mahomes completed 37 of 49 passes for 462 yards and three touchdowns, and it was just as impressive on film as the stats sound: https://twitter.com/MarkSchofield/status/1333527725751947264 "This freakin' guy" indeed. But that is the task facing Todd Bowles in two weeks. How do you try and slow this team down. Surely Bowles will have learned some lessons from their regular season meeting, but will it be enough?

Travis Kelce versus Lavonte David and Devin White

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Slowing down the Kansas City Chiefs, in my mind, has to start with how you handle Travis Kelce. In the next two weeks many attempts will be made to come up with such a game plan, but as I often do I think of Bill Belichick and the ways he has tried to deal with Kelce. If you work back through some of the previous meetings between the Chiefs and the New England Patriots you'll see plays with Kelce getting jammed at the line, double- and even triple-teamed, and more. Belichick fears nothing more than a versatile tight end, and Kelce fits that bill. But that is were the talented duo of Lavonte David and Devin White come in. If Todd Bowles can perhaps find a way to have his linebacker do enough on Kelce on their own, then perhaps - perhaps - that gives Tampa Bay a start on slowing down this offense.

How will the Kansas City Chiefs handle Brady and company?

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Sure, most people are going to spend the buildup to Super Bowl LV thinking of how Todd Bowles and company are going to tackle the enormous problem that the Kansas City Chiefs offense presents. But do not sleep on the matchup between Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers offense against Steve Spagnuolo and the Chiefs defense. The regular season meeting between these teams took place bac in Week 12, right before Tampa Bay's bye week. If you think back to that moment, when the Buccaneers were 7-5 and everyone had left them for dead, you would have to believe that much has changed since then for the Buccaneers offense. And you would be right. Tampa Bay figured some things out since that bye week, and they have not looked back. The Buccaneers have won each game since then and their offense looks wildly different, with vertical routes being combined with more horizontal designs. This is a different offense, and will pose a different challenge than Spagnuolo faced back in Week 12.

Tampa Bay playing at home

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We have never seen a true "home field advantage" in a Super Bowl, although New England Patriots fans might argue that US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis a few years ago sounded like the Philadelphia Eagles were playing at home, but that changes this year. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are the first team in NFL history that will play the Super Bowl at their home stadium. The closest previous example of this was back in Super Bowl XIX, when the San Francisco 49ers clashed with the Miami Dolphins at Stanford Stadium in Stanford, California. Stanford Stadium is just 40 minutes south of San Francisco, so that had a home field feel to the game. But this is something completely different. Anyone who has played the game of football at any level, or coached it at any level, will tell you that football players are creatures of habit. The chance for the Buccaneers to go through a Super Bowl week while basically being at home is going to give them an advantage. How much of an advantage? Well, that's why they play the games.

Will this be Eric Bieniemy's last game with the Chiefs?

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One of the biggest storylines this postseason has been the future of Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy. After the Chiefs run to Super Bowl LIV, many thought that Bieniemy would be in position to lock up a head coaching spot this past offseason. Instead, Bieniemy saw offers given to other coaches, and he returned to Kansas City. Yes, to coach Patrick Mahomes and company. Woe is him. But this year's version of the hiring cycle is almost over, and there seems to be just one chair left: The Houston Texans. That job opportunity has become linked with the future of Deshaun Watson, perhaps because of Bieniemy. Reports hold that Watson is pushing for Bieniemy to get the job, and perhaps due to that not happening yet, the quarterback is angling for a trade out of Houston. Are the Texans going to hire Bieniemy as their head coach in the next few days? Will this be his last game in Kansas City?

Can the Chiefs go back-to-back?

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It has been almost two decades since a team won back-to-back Super Bowls. That team? The New England Patriots. Their quarterback? Tom Brady. And it is now Brady who stands in the way of the Kansas City Chiefs accomplishing that goal. At the time when Brady and the Patriots were looking to reach that rarified air it was Andy Reid and the Philadelphia Eagles standing in their way. Time is a flat circle, or something. But repeating as Super Bowl Champions is a very tough task. Just ask Brady. He and the Patriots had a chance in Super Bowl LII, but fell sort to those Eagles, coached at the time by Doug Pederson. It is a tremendous accomplishment for the Chiefs to get back to the game, but completing the job will be something special.

What can we expect from the commercials this year?

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The Super Bowl is more than a football game. It is a worldwide cultural event. One of the biggest aspects of the broadcast is the commercials, which have become must-see events in their own right. Now, companies even tease out their commercials. Last year it was Tom Brady who was part of one such ad campaign, teasing his NFL future in the days leading up to the Super Bowl but ultimately it was a commercial for Hulu. Of course, Super Bowl LIV was a lifetime ago. Before a global pandemic, before all our lives changed, before...everything changed. How is that going to impact one of the biggest storylines each Super Bowl: The commercials?

A COVID Super Bowl

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That leads us to of course the biggest storyline of all. A Super Bowl while a global pandemic wears on. A year ago COVID-19 was just coming to the United States but was a growing concern across the world. Now, the country remains locked in a battle against the pandemic, and while vaccines are offering hope and life is slowly trying to come back to normal, the Super Bowl is not a single game. It is a week of buildup, a lengthy party complete with corporate events and parties. Or at least, it usually is. How is life in 2021 going to be reflected in Super Bowl LV? NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell announced recently that among the thousands of fans that will be allowed to attend the game are going to be front-line workers and first responders. But how will this game look and feel given the ongoing COVID crisis? The league, its players, coaches and organizations deserve a ton of credit for wading through this pandemic and putting together a complete season, but there is one more game to go. And two weeks of buildup.