The Buccaneers won three straight road games to make themselves the first team to play a Super Bowl at home, but that advantage wasn’t enough to sway oddsmakers to install them as favorites over the Chiefs.
Kansas City was favored by three points heading into Sunday’s game, but the Bucs won 31-9 behind an efficient offensive outing and an overwhelming defensive performance. The latter wasn’t what many expected after the Chiefs gashed the Buccaneers during a regular season win, but linebacker Devin White said the unit “knew we wanted to blow them out” and accomplished their goal against a Chiefs team that wasn’t “physical enough” to live up to their favorite status.
“I mean, we didn’t take it personally, but it was crazy to us that we was still underdogs,” White said. “We defeated Drew Brees, we defeated Aaron Rodgers and then, like, he was the MVP and we still was underdogs. Man, we just knew we had . . . we just wanted to win the Super Bowl. We didn’t really care about what the media was saying because the media is not out there on the field. So, like I said, man, we don’t even keep score, we just run that s–t up and leave.”
White led the team with 12 tackles and added an interception of Patrick Mahomes to help seal the deal in the fourth quarter of a win that no one in Tampa will forget for a long, long time.