© Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports
Every Tom Brady Super Bowl win can roughly be boiled down to, “Tom Brady is the GOAT.”
Well, yes, we already knew that, and Super Bowl No. 7 at age 44, which places him ahead of literally every other NFL franchise, only adds to that legend.
This all harkens back to that question we asked before this season began: Should the 49ers sign Tom Brady? It’s where he wanted to be.
The 49ers looked at Brady this offseason, and decided, understandably, that they’d prefer to ride with their 29-year-old quarterback who was coming off a career year rather than Brady, 44, who was coming off his most underwhelming season in recent memory, and looked like he’d lost some arm strength.
General manager John Lynch, the newly-minted Hall of Famer, was on hand in Tampa to watch Brady win his seventh, and admitted this week that he regretted not drafting Patrick Mahomes. He was looking at two cosmic whiffs at quarterback.
On the Rich Eisen Show before this year, Lynch admitted the 49ers considered Brady.
“When you’re talking about one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time with Tom Brady, of course, you’re going to have some internal discussion,” Lynch said. “And then you hear rumors that hey, he’d like to come home, that kind of thing.
“So of course Kyle [Shanahan] and I have discussions,” Lynch added. “We’re always into getting better, so you always look at everything, especially a situation like that. But within a day or two, Kyle and I looked at each other and said, ‘You know what? We really like what we have in Jimmy.’ We love everything that he brings and we really believe it’s a long-term answer. I would tell you we’re more convinced than ever about who our quarterback is in Jimmy Garoppolo.”
Would the 49ers have been better off with Brady than Garoppolo? Yes.
Hindsight is lovely, and most people agreed that Brady was still better than Garoppolo at that stage; but the mechanics of a $4.2 million dead cap hit for Garoppolo (not much, but the 49ers quickly ran out of cap space this season) and the optics of moving on from a 15-year younger quarterback coming off a career year who was popular in the locker room were limiting factors, as is Brady’s ability to run bootlegs and get out of the pocket, which are staples of the Shanahan offense.
But it’s hard to believe Brady would have won a Super Bowl with this 49ers team. A playoff berth? Absolutely. They were competing against the 8-8 Chicago Bears. But the 49ers also would have made the playoffs with a healthy Garoppolo.
With no Nick Bosa, no Dee Ford, a developing Javon Kinlaw, a weak pass-protecting offensive line from the center through the right tackle, and a secondary that finished without Richard Sherman and Jaquiski Tartt, I do not see a path for Brady to have won a Super Bowl with San Francisco this year.
The man threw three interceptions in the NFC Championship and his defense bailed him out every time. San Francisco was not capable of that with the roster they were left with.
On Sunday, Brady was efficient, clearly, and he excelled with heaps of time in the pocket (21-of-29, 201 yards, 3 TD).
But the performance was so much more about what the Buccaneers’ defense and offensive line did. It wasn’t just about Brady. Linebacker Devin White should have been Super Bowl MVP. Leonard Fournette and Ronald Jones III ran for a combined 150 yards.
And here’s where there’s room for unlimited optimism and mountains of regret.
What won games for Tampa Bay was, firstly, outstanding, otherworldly coaching.
Nothing was stagnant on either side of the ball. On offense, easy completions were drawn up for Brady, throwing wrinkles like using Mike Evans to pick for Rob Gronkowski on the opening touchdown. On defense, they mostly rushed four at the Chiefs, but picked their blitzes efficiently, including a double corner blitz to run rampant against a decimated offensive line.
They had the most diverse staff in the NFL, and in a league in which 70 percent of players are Black, having a Black offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator (both of whom were ignored for head coaching openings this cycle), special teams coordinator, assistant head coach/run game coordinator, and two female assistants, is meaningful.
The most diverse @NFL coaching staff is on their way to #SBLV ?@Buccaneers | #GoBucs
?: Sunday 6:30pm ET on CBS
?: NFL app // Yahoo Sports app pic.twitter.com/6eFXyWmicl— NFL Football Operations (@NFLFootballOps) February 6, 2021
That staff maximized the value of deep talent at every position:
- Defensive line (3-4 that looked a lot like 4-3): Jason Pierre-Paul, Ndamukong Suh, Vita Vea, Shaq Barrett
- Linebackers: Devin White, Lavonte David
- Corners: Carlton Davis, Sean Murphy-Bunting, Jamel Dean
- Safeties: Antoine Winfield Jr., Jordan Whitehead
You cannot make the argument that the 49ers’ defensive line could have created anywhere near the pressure the Bucs’ did. Well, you can, but you’d be wrong.
You can debate the rest of the defense is a wash, but it’s clear that what matters above all else is pass rushing. We know what happens when Mahomes has time and he had approximately none of it on Sunday. He was pressured 51.7 percent of the time and 29 times in total, more than any quarterback in Super Bowl history.
final tally, via @ESPNStatsInfo:
Mahomes was pressured on 29/56 dropbacks–the most of any QB in Super Bowl history.
Brady was pressured on 4/30–the lowest of his SB career.
— Mina Kimes (@minakimes) February 8, 2021
This is what it looked like for Mahomes on more than 50 percent of his dropbacks.
StEp Up InTo tHe PoCkeT pic.twitter.com/rd5F42zMpW
— Mike Golic Jr (@mikegolicjr) February 8, 2021
Here’s where there’s room for optimism. The 49ers have built around their defensive line. They should be getting Nick Bosa back healthy this year. And if we know anything about this team, they’ll probably draft another edge rusher in the first round based on the probability that Dee Ford never plays for this team again.
Assuming they re-sign Trent Williams, as they should, they’ll need an upgrade on the interior of the offensive line. Daniel Brunskill was the team’s fifth-string option this year, and Colton McKivitz was the third-string at right guard.
This year was a fluke in terms of injuries. Those won’t evaporate next year, but it’s unlikely that their best player at every position will be sidelined at some point, let alone for the majority of the season.
Another fluke, or perhaps the Brady effect, was penalties.
The Chiefs took a slew of penalties in the first half; eight for 95 yards compared Buccaneers’ one for five yards.
Those eight first-half penalties were the most in a Super Bowl in NFL history. That holds a serious significance in that the 49ers were betting on the Chiefs being penalized for holding, which is a staple of their defensive identity. Heading into the Super Bowl last year, the Chiefs were the most penalized defense on pass plays in the NFL, with 21 defensive holding calls.
They were called for just four total penalties for 24 yards against the 49ers. It’s natural to look back on that parsimony of flags thrown as a cause for regret.
But this all means the 49ers’ recipe and approach was right last year. The Buccaneers didn’t win because of luck, but they had the benefit of less-than judicious referees, a Chiefs offensive line that was threadbare, and a team that was far healthier than most. There was no position on their roster that could be deemed a weakness.
San Francisco, despite losing Robert Saleh and the coaches he brought along with him, still has a diverse, elite coaching staff, with a philosophy built upon a pass rush and running game. Last year, they came at the Chiefs with a game plan similar to what Tampa Bay ran. As much as the regret of missing out on Mahomes or Brady, or what could have been last year, the Buccaneers proved the logic in the 49ers’ approach and that the titans that are the Chiefs are not infallible.
Questions remain about Garoppolo, but with a less abrupt offseason coming this summer, there’s every reason to believe this team is still in the mix.