The Kansas City Chiefs and Tampa Bay Buccaneers meet up Sunday in Super Bowl 55, a game that can be live-streamed on the Yahoo Sports app. Led by Tom Brady, the Buccaneers have won three straight road games in the postseason to get to the Super Bowl. But they face a strong opponent in defending champ Kansas City. Will Brady get his seventh ring? Or will Patrick Mahomes and Co. steal his thunder? We’ll be following all the action live here on Yahoo Sports.
Mahomes, Chiefs strike first thanks to his legs
One early storyline: Patrick Mahomes’ legs apparently will be a big part of this game.
The Buccaneers lost contain a few times, and Mahomes was up to 24 rush yards — and two big first downs — on three carries. This despite reports that his toe is still not fully healthy and likely will require surgery in the offseason.
The Bucs would rather have that than, say, 50-yard bombs to Tyreek Hill. But at some point, Tampa’s defense will need to contain better and keep an eye on No. 15.
But to their credit, the defense has forced Mahomes into a 1-for-6 start passing. Still, though, Harrison Butker hit the game’s first field for the first points of the game.
Kansas City leads, 3-zip.
— Eric Edholm
The music was better than hologram Vince
The CBS-produced pregame received some mixed reviews by the looks of it on Twitter.
The Vince Lombardi hologram thing was … interesting. Did you like it?
But there appeared to be a nice bounce back with the artists taking the stage.
First, there was the talented Amanda Gorman:
Then we received a lovely rendition of “America, The Beautiful” …
And finally, the anthem — another stirring Super Bowl version:
Let’s get ready for the game now.
— Eric Edholm
Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady look ready
Can Patrick Mahomes do it again?
Mahomes, last year’s MVP, has the Chiefs in the Super Bowl for a second consecutive season. During pregame warmups, he showed off his insane arm strength by casually tossing this pass from the goal line well past midfield.
He made it look way too easy.
His quarterback counterpart, Tom Brady, is fired up for his 10th career Super Bowl appearance and his first in a Tampa Bay uniform.
– Sam Cooper
Antonio Brown, Sammy Watkins active for Super Bowl
Well, we’re going to see two big-name wide receivers suit up for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Kansas City Chiefs, respectively.
The Bucs’ Antonio Brown suffered a knee injury in the wild-card win over the New Orleans Saints and did not travel to Green Bay for the NFC championship game. But he was a full participant in Thursday’s and Friday’s practices, receiving an increased workload as the week went on.
The Chiefs’ Sammy Watkins (calf) had missed both playoff games this year but earlier this week said he was “very optimistic” that he’d play Sunday.
Both had been listed as questionable for the game.
We also will get to see two other big-name players on Sunday who missed their respective conference title games, with Chiefs running back Le’Veon Bell (knee) and Bucs safety Antoine Winfield Jr. (ankle) also both active. Buccaneers tight end Cameron Brate, who also was listed as questionable, will play.
Here are the rest of the inactives for each team:
Here are the Chiefs’ inactives for Super Bowl LV:
CB BoPete Keyes
RB Darwin Thompson
TE Ricky Seals-Jones
DE Tim Ward
DT Khalen Saunders
QB Matt Moore
CB Chris Lammons— Matt McMullen (@KCChiefs_Matt) February 7, 2021
– Eric Edholm
25,000 fans, 30,000 cutouts to attend Super Bowl LV
Welcome to Super Bowl Sunday, everybody.
We’ve reached the conclusion of an NFL season played amid a pandemic, and we should be in for an exciting matchup at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida.
Super Bowl LV will feature the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Buccaneers are the first team to ever play a Super Bowl in their home stadium, but it won’t be the usual home field advantage thanks to the pandemic.
In-person attendance will be significantly reduced because of the virus. Instead of the usual 65,000 capacity, there will be 25,000 fans on hand with 30,000 cutouts to fill out the stadium. The NFL previously announced that a big chunk of the fans in attendance will be vaccinated healthcare workers who will gain admittance free of charge.
There’s also this guy, who is wearing a personalized No. 19 Chiefs jersey with “COVID” on the back.
A sign of the times, indeed.
– Sam Cooper
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