Super thoughts . . . 

In the wake of a rare lopsided victory in Super Bowl LV arrives two of my favorite football aphorisms, each contributing mightily toward  the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' massively decisive victory over the Kansas City Chiefs.

In no particular order, they prove way more often than not to be absolutely true:

Offense wins football games; defense wins championships. And football games are won and lost in the trenches. A simple breakdown of the Bucs' surprisingly easy 31-9 beatdown reveals both truths.

The Bucs owned the line of scrimmage on both sides of the football. The offensive line protected its 43-year-old quarterback well and bashed open enough holes for running backs Leonard Fournette and Ronald Jones II to rack up 150 yards.

With due respect to Tom Brady, his seventh championship ring and fifth most valuable player award, the real MVP in this one was the Tampa Bay defense, which did something no one else has been able to do the last three National Football League seasons. Stop Patrick Mahomes II.

Not just stop, but almost completely shut him down. Rendered him ineffective for 28 minutes and 37 seconds. Made him look like . . . well . . . just like an ordinary quarterback, which he clearly is not, making what the Bucs' defense accomplished that much more remarkable. Holding Mahomes to just three field goals qualifies.

The defensive line seemed to be in Mahomes' face on nearly every snap. He was in scramble mode seemingly split seconds after the snap. He was hurried on more than half of his 56 dropbacks and scrambled an unbelievable 500 yards escaping the pass rush. 

Bucs defensive coordinator Todd Bowles, remembrances from the week 12 home loss to the Chiefs in the regular season clearly in his mind, concocted the perfect defense to shut Mahomes down, taking away the Chiefs' bread-and-butter offense, the quick-strike long ball, with a two-deep safety zone.

Mahomes threw for 462 yards and wide receiver Tyreek Hill amassed 268 of them and all three touchdowns in the first outing, seven grabs for 203 yards in the first quarter alone. Bowles employed numerous blitz packages and man coverage in that one. 

The two aphorisms intersect. The Bucs manhandled both Chiefs lines in the trenches, especially on defense, taking advantage of a Kansas City line stitched together throughout the season due to injuries and COVID-19 opt-outs.

It might have been a different story if offensive tackles Eric Fisher and Mitchell Schwartz (injured) and Laurent Duvernay-Tardif (a medical doctor who opted out to work at a long-term health care facility during the pandemic in Montreal) had been healthy. We'll never know.

Most of the pressure arrived from the flanks, forcing the young quarterback to move well before he wanted. He had precious little time to scour the field before taking off. Most of his yardage came during garbage time after Bowles backed off once the game was clearly won

Bowles is a perfect  example of an assistant coach who is much better as a coordinator than as a head coach. The few coordinators who find success in the top spot are considered generals. The rest are lieutenants. Bowles, who coached the Browns' secondary in 2004, is the latter. In four seasons as head man with the New York Jets (2015-18), he was 24-40.

And let's not forget Bucs offensive coordinator, Byron Leftwich, a four-team, 10-season NFL journeyman quarterback who began his coaching career with the Arizona Cardinals under Bruce Arians, reuniting with him in 2019 in Tampa.

He kept the Chiefs' defense off balance with a nice mixture of plays. He got a little help from a couple of questionable pass interference calls against the KC secondary, but that was hardly the reason the Chiefs were humbled.

No, this one belonged to the Buccaneers from the start. Another notch for the defense-wins-championships crowd and those who firmly believe football games are won and lost in the trenches.