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      Staging the Super Bowl During a Big Crisis

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Super Bowl 2021Chiefs Fans’ Generational DivideReconsidering Tom BradySuper Bowl Party TipsThe N.F.L.’s ‘First’ Women Want CompanyAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyStaging the Big Game During a Big CrisisWith the whole world watching, the N.F.L. and CBS face the challenge of presenting a uniquely American spectacle in a time of misery.On Tampa’s Riverwalk, the festivities surrounding Super Bowl LV were tempered by reminders of the coronavirus pandemic.Credit…Eve Edelheit for The New York TimesFeb. 4, 2021Updated 4:21 p.m. ETSince the last Super Bowl 12 months ago, a pandemic has killed at least two million people around the world, including about 450,000 Americans. January was the deadliest month, and last week roughly one American died every 30 seconds from Covid-19.The toll will grow through the Super Bowl on Sunday — during the big plays, among the slow-motion replays, amid the commercials, while the national anthem is sung and the halftime show is performed.That alone makes Super Bowl LV different than the 54 that have come before it. And it presents a unique challenge for the N.F.L. and its broadcast partner this year, CBS Sports.The practical question is no longer if they should play Super Bowl LV — it is the last of 269 N.F.L. games this season — but how to play it, and how it will be presented.Players will certainly hit, run and tackle as usual. But will the game be packaged as the usual spectacle of violence, commercialism and bombast? Should it be?“We’re trying to strike that right tone and be reflective on the year that has been while also providing a bit of hope for, you know, what’s on the other side,” said Peter O’Reilly, N.F.L. executive vice president of events, including the Super Bowl. “A lot goes into that.”The league promises a blend of cold reality and championship football. There may be a softer touch and more reflection, especially during the pregame programming.“The role of the broadcast is to certainly acknowledge the landscape around it, what’s happening around it, and then let’s get on with the game,” said Jim Bell, a former longtime executive producer at NBC for the Olympics and the Today show. “We’re hopefully all going to get a nice three-and-a-half-hour rest from Covid and politics, which I think we can all use.”The Super Bowl is the most American of sports events, beamed around the world, a proxy for how the United States sees itself, culturally. It is perennially the most-watched television broadcast in the United States, with an audience of about 100 million in the country last year, plus an estimated global audience of at least 50 million more.People in the United States and around the world will gauge the American state of affairs by what they see during Sunday’s broadcast.The past year, especially, has been one of political upheaval and sharp battles over race and social justice, on top of the pandemic.The United States has not responded well to the coronavirus outbreak since it was declared a pandemic almost 11 months ago — faltering perhaps more than any other major country with such vast resources for problem solving. It has about 5 percent of the world’s population, but nearly 20 percent of its reported Covid fatalities. Tens of thousands more are likely to die in the coming weeks, whatever the progress of the vaccine rollout.Some may consider it reckless to play such a game during a pandemic, to hold a potential super-spreader event at a football stadium in Tampa, Fla. — even one with a limited audience, adhering to social distancing and health protocols. It may encourage gatherings around the country and, at best, serve as a frivolous example of American priorities.Others might see the game as a source of inspiration, healing and unity.The divide might depend on how the game is presented by the N.F.L. and CBS. Viewers will certainly judge the social distancing, the mask wearing, the images on the screen and the words of the announcers — all parsed and debated in real time, thanks to social media.“It’s hard with social media and everybody waiting for someone to make a mistake, or be like, ‘All I wanted to do was get away from Covid for two minutes,’” Bell said, adding: “That can be a pretty nasty place to have your head space while you’re trying to produce the single-biggest event on the planet.”Not everyone will be happy with the results.A healthcare worker assisted a patient at a coronavirus testing site in Phoenix last month. As the Super Bowl approached, Americans were dying of Covid-19 at a rate of more than one every minute.Credit…Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times“I can only really, in some ways, applaud them in the challenge that they clearly have taken on,” said Patrick Nally, a British sports-marketing executive with deep experience in the Olympics, soccer and an array of other major sports. “At the same time, I hope that they see the need to be as responsible as they must be, and present it in a manner that really reflects the tragedy that we’re all facing.”The game represents an odd chance for an American makeover — a new year, a new administration, a new outlook. It will be a 2021 America packaged and broadcast to the world. While the N.F.L. has a chance to look really good, or really bad, in ways never imagined before, Americans may be judged right along with the league.“In many ways, they are torch-carrying for the United States as a nation,” Nally said. “If ever there was an opportunity to present, to comment, in the right, responsible manner, this is the chance of doing it.”In Mourning, or In Vegas? Other sports leagues have had a chance to address the toll of the pandemic in recent months, though not with an audience this vast or a single game this orchestrated.The issue will confront the postponed Summer Olympics in Tokyo, which were rescheduled for this July and August. Next year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing will be closely watched, to see how the Chinese spin their role in the pandemic.The question of navigating something as frivolous-seeming as sports amid an ongoing crisis is not new, though there are no true historical parallels. Wartime might be the closest thing.During World War II, the Olympics were called off, but the N.F.L. and Major League Baseball conducted seasons and championships despite some players’ being pulled into duty. The N.F.L. finished its regular season on Dec. 7, 1941, the day of the Pearl Harbor bombing, and held playoff games a week later, as scheduled.There have been occasional examples of singular events that rocked the sports landscape, like terrorism at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich and at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, or the deadly earthquake that interrupted the 1989 World Series. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the N.F.L. took the next weekend off and baseball paused for six days.“After 9/11, I spent the next four days talking to everybody, including the president of the United States, about when we should come back and what’s healthy and what’s productive,” said Bud Selig, the Major League Baseball commissioner at the time. “In our own little way I do think that we helped.”Selig acknowledged that the era and circumstances are different now. Twenty years ago, Americans generally rallied together in a show of patriotism. The country today feels far more divided, even on matters of Covid protocols.“It is very sensitive, and you have to be extremely careful,” Selig said of the N.F.L. “But they’re smart, and they know what they have to do.”When the New York Mets played their first home game after the attacks, Mayor Rudy Giuliani got a rousing ovation, and Liza Minnelli danced and sang “New York, New York” during the seventh-inning stretch.“Are we in mourning, or Las Vegas?” The New York Times columnist Harvey Araton asked.That is the type of question the N.F.L. will ask itself on Sunday, as it searches for balance in a game that usually has no such restraints on pageantry, volume or tone.Is this year’s Super Bowl mere entertainment, a diversion from the ongoing horror? Does it reflect our losses and our past failings? Or does it signal a new tone and even recalibrate the way we move forward?“I think America needs this Super Bowl,” said Sean McManus, the chairman of CBS Sports. “I think it’s an opportunity for the country to come together. I think it’s going to be uplifting. I think it’s going to be unifying. And I think it’s coming at the right time.”The game promises unique touches. Raymond James Stadium will have only about 25,000 spectators, roughly a third of its capacity, because of distancing mandates. That will make it the least-attended Super Bowl in history.The N.F.L. has given 7,500 tickets to vaccinated health-care workers. All fans will be given KN-95 respirator masks as they enter, the league said, and seating has been devised for distancing. Gaps between fans will be filled with cardboard cutouts of people.Nurses at a vaccination site in Los Angeles late last month. Thousands of health-care workers received tickets to the Super Bowl in Tampa.Credit…Ryan Young for The New York TimesIf there is an unusually somber mood, it will be most obvious in the pregame. A nurse, a teacher and a Marine veteran will serve as honorary captains for the coin toss, and the poet Amanda Gorman, fresh from her star turn at the presidential inauguration, will recite an original poem. (The N.F.L. said she was invited before her appearance at the inaugural.) A video featuring Vince Lombardi, the Hall of Fame coach of the Green Bay Packers in the 1960s, will lead into a performance of “America the Beautiful,” the league said.“You’ll see that tone in the pregame and in the pieces that are in-stadium and on air,” said O’Reilly, the N.F.L. vice president overseeing the Super Bowl. “And the moments that are always big and powerful around the Super Bowl will take on just a bit more significance this year.”Bell, the veteran producer who left NBC in 2019, said a key part of good sports broadcasts is “storytelling,” a model handed down from the likes of producers Roone Arledge and Dick Ebersol.“You may see it sprinkled into the telecast, as it relates to the players, coaches and teams,” Bell said. “I know those guys will do a fantastic job of finding the right balance and having the right tone between covering the game and telling the stories.”Protocols around Covid-19 have made it trickier than usual to prepare for the game broadcast, but they have created some unexpected opportunities. Camera platforms and wires were fitted into places where they could not normally have been, offering a chance for unusual angles.N.F.L. stadiums this season have had an extra buffer between the teams on the sidelines and fans in the seats, usually several empty rows of seats covered by a tarp. For the Super Bowl, the first seven rows will be wrapped in LED screens.“Are we going to get excited if Brady or Mahomes throws a 60-yard touchdown pass, or if Tyreek Hill goes crazy?” McManus said of quarterbacks Tom Brady (Buccaneers) and Patrick Mahomes (Chiefs). “We’re going to get excited. And we’re going to kind of forget our troubles for a while.”The bottom rows of seats, normally covered in tarps during the Super Bowl, will bear LED screens, providing an opportunity to promote certain messages.Credit…Mike Ehrmann/Getty ImagesHe added: “We’re not going to be somber, and we’re not going to be depressing. But I think we’re going to put everything in perspective.”The same is true for all those connecting themselves to the game, like television advertisers reportedly paying $5.5 million for 30 seconds of time. Some perennial participants, like Budweiser, have opted out of their usual slots, choosing social media as a more understated way to get pitches across.The question is whether the world at game’s end is any different. Maybe it will be a source of unity, a boost for American pride. Maybe if Kansas City Coach Andy Reid wears a mask, or Jim Nantz of CBS suggests that Americans get vaccinated, it could be a teaching moment. Might the production feel too political, or too preachy, or not enough of either?The only certainty on Sunday is that the death count from Covid-19 will rise, by the hundreds or thousands just in the United States, as millions watch a football game.How that game is received, and how America is reflected in the moment, is up to the N.F.L.“It puts them on a wonderful pedestal to present a very responsible and a very positive image of themselves and their organization,” said Nally, the global marketing expert. “Which under normal circumstances they would never have.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Super Bowl Sunday Changes: Face Masks, Empty Seats and Driveway Parties

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Super Bowl 2021Chiefs Fans’ Generational DivideReconsidering Tom BradySuper Bowl Party TipsThe N.F.L.’s ‘First’ Women Want CompanyAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storySuper Bowl Sunday Changes: Face Masks, Empty Seats and Driveway PartiesThe Super Bowl will once again feature the Chiefs, but almost every other part of the fan experience could be different.Dan Newby, owner of Crossroads Tours bus company, had an offer for Chiefs fans wanting to travel to Tampa, Fla., for the Super Bowl: For $9,000, a close group of travelers can get a bus that sleeps 12 — meaning no hotel costs in Tampa — and a driver.Credit…Chase Castor for The New York TimesAmaris Castillo and Feb. 4, 2021, 3:30 p.m. ETTAMPA, Fla. — One year ago, Dan Newby was on top of the world.Five buses from his company, Crossroad Tours, picked the Kansas City Chiefs up from the airport when they returned home from the Super Bowl as conquering heroes. Days later, those buses transported quarterback Patrick Mahomes, Coach Andy Reid and the Lombardi Trophy to Union Station in downtown Kansas City as part of a victory parade.The next month, as the coronavirus shut down almost all nonessential travel, the bottom fell out of Newby’s business. A packed schedule of trips for sports teams, church groups and schools was wiped clean.“Every bus we had was parked from March 13 to September 14,” Newby said.The Super Bowl is still the biggest event in American sports, and most fans will have only a few opportunities, if any (sorry Lions fans), to watch their team play in it, let alone attend in person. This Sunday the Super Bowl will once again feature the Chiefs, this time against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but Kansas City’s team will be about the only constant from last year.The most obvious change, for one of the most coveted tickets in sports, is that Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium will be only a third full. Although 7,500 of the 25,000 seats will be filled by vaccinated health care workers, attending for free as guests of the N.F.L. and presented with gifts of face masks and hand sanitizer as they enter, there are still plenty of fans buying tickets, selling tickets, scheming to attend or traveling to Tampa without a ticket just to soak up the atmosphere.Karen Ricardi, who works as a nurse manager at a hospital in Lutz, Fla., will be one of the lucky few after winning tickets through a drawing. A Massachusetts native who has lived in Florida for about 16 years, she considers herself a fan of both the Buccaneers and the New England Patriots — Tom Brady’s teams, present and past.“I never thought I’d ever go to a Super Bowl because the cost is so prohibitive,” she said. “It still feels surreal.”Jeremiah Coleman, a Chiefs fan who owns a car dealership in Wichita, Kan., will be there, too. He planned to fly to Tampa on Thursday evening.Fans of the Kansas City Chiefs strolled Tampa Riverwalk during lead-up events for the Super Bowl.Credit…Eve Edelheit for The New York TimesColeman said he thought about traveling to see his team in the Super Bowl last year, but chose to host a party for his friends instead. “I’ve had these friends some 20 or 30 years, and we’ve never got to watch the Super Bowl together,” he said. “So I said, ‘I don’t want to leave all them.’”This year, however, he plunked down $6,753 for a ticket, in part because his cousin, who was born and raised in Kansas City, now lives in Tampa. Earlier this season, he made the same trip, to watch the Chiefs play the Buccaneers in the same stadium on the weekend after Thanksgiving.Coleman’s cousin, Sara Carrasquillo, also bought a ticket, which she acknowledged was quite expensive. But since she lives in the Tampa area, she has no travel costs. “I just realized that I can always make the money back,” said Carrasquillo, who owns a waxing studio. “It’s not going to take me a whole lot of time to make it back, as if maybe I worked for someone.”Neither of the cousins seemed to have many health concerns about attending. Carrasquillo said she believed that the necessary precautions were being taken, and that because she has healthy eating habits she is in a “good position to fight off any virus.” Coleman said that he would wear a mask and wash his hands consistently, but that his mantra was to “be conscious but not scared.”Ultimately for Coleman, the allure of watching his favorite team in the Super Bowl overrode all other considerations. “On my deathbed, this will probably be one of the top five days I remember in my life, you know?” he said.Getting to see the Super Bowl in person may be tougher than ever. Chiefs fans hoping to attend the game could buy tickets through the N.F.L. or the team, or through companies that work with the league to sell packages that can include airfare, lodging, food and entertainment. Or they could buy up seats purchased by the dejected fans of teams who didn’t make it.Christian Mollon, a Buffalo Bills fan who now lives in Kansas City, paid almost $20,000, including fees, for two Super Bowl tickets before the A.F.C. championship game against the Chiefs. He had a hotel room reserved in Tampa, and was just waiting for the Bills to win. They did not.Christian Mollon, a Buffalo Bills fan who now lives in the Kansas City area, paid almost $20,000, including fees, for two Super Bowl tickets before the A.F.C. championship game against the Chiefs.Credit…Chase Castor for The New York TimesHe said that he got a number of nibbles for his tickets, but that while he tried to sell them at cost, most potential buyers tried to talk him down.What if nobody is willing to pay full cost? Well, his wife would be furious, Mollon joked last week, “but we’re taking a trip down to Tampa.”(That won’t be happening. Over the weekend he was able to unload the tickets for about $17,000, covering the ticket costs but not most of the fees he had paid.)For those traveling from Kansas City but unsure about flying, Newby — who said his bus business declined by 85 percent in 2020 — came up with a solution. He has been advertising his entertainer buses, the kind normally used for concert tours, on Craigslist. For $9,000, he said, a close group of travelers can get a bus that sleeps 12 — meaning no hotel costs in Tampa — and a driver.“You have to have 12 people in one family, or 12 people in a group of friends, a pod that has the money to go there,” said Newby, whose company sent 56-seat charter buses to the Super Bowl outside Miami last year. As of late last week, he had not found any takers.“It’s just hard,” Newby said. “People are going in two and threes, threes and fours, and they’re driving.”About the only consolation during a tough summer for Newby was the Chiefs giving him a Super Bowl ring in recognition of his years ferrying the team around.Credit…Chase Castor for The New York TimesThe vast majority of Chiefs fans face a different complication: What to do about a Super Bowl party? Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, has advised people not to invite friends and family over on Sunday, in order to slow the spread of the coronavirus. “Just lay low and cool it,” he said on Wednesday.Such messaging has been a boon for James Hansen, the owner of Easy Audio Rental in Olathe, Kan. Hansen’s company rents out projectors and other audiovisual equipment, and he said he expected to be sold out for the first time since 2015, when the Kansas City Royals were in the World Series.Rather than have everybody crowd around a television in the living room, he said, fans may try to play it safer — and still have a crowd — by setting up a projector on the front lawn or the driveway.“These Midwesterners don’t mind a little cold,” Hansen said. They had better not: The temperature there on Sunday is projected to top out at 30 degrees.Chiefs fans, however, are used to attending cold-weather games at Arrowhead Stadium. Hansen said his brother and father, who have season tickets, followed Chiefs games all season by setting up a television in the garage and watching from the driveway.Hansen said his family was no different from so many others these days. “They really just want to be together,” he said.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      The Weeknd’s Super Bowl Halftime Show Breaks With Tradition

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesSee Your Local RiskVaccine InformationWuhan, One Year LaterAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Weeknd’s Super Bowl Halftime Show Breaks With TraditionThis time, the field won’t be swarming with fans crowding the stage. In fact, the stage won’t be on the field at all, but in the stands.The Weeknd in concert. He will be headlining the Super Bowl halftime show in Tampa on Sunday.Credit…Hayoung Jeon/EPA, via ShutterstockJulia Jacobs and Feb. 4, 2021, 3:09 p.m. ETWhether it stars Al Hirt, Michael Jackson or Beyoncé, the Super Bowl halftime show has always taken center stage on the field.But for the first time in the 55-year history of the game, the Weeknd, who is headlining this Sunday in Tampa, Fla., will perform on a stage set up in the stands in keeping with strict coronavirus protocols intended to limit contact with the players and coaches; his act may, however, include a brief interlude on the field.In a typical year, a massive stage is rolled onto the field and hundreds of fans pour out to surround it; this year only about 1,050 people are expected to work to put on the show, compared with 2,000 to 3,000 most years. Performers and crew members will receive Covid-19 tests before rehearsals and before the performance.When he strode to the microphone Thursday at a news conference, the Weeknd took in the room and noted, “It’s kind of empty.” His words were perhaps a preview of how the stadium might look to people watching from home. (About 25,000 fans will be in the stadium — less than half its 65,000-person capacity — joined by thousands of two-dimensional cardboard cutouts of fans provided by the N.F.L.)The Weeknd (Abel Tesfaye), is a 30-year-old Canadian pop star known for hits including “Can’t Feel My Face” and “Starboy.” His concerts often have a brooding feel and a dark, avant-garde edge. (The music video for his latest hit, “Blinding Lights,” opens with the Weeknd laughing maniacally, his face covered in blood.) He said that his halftime show would incorporate some of his trademark artistic themes but that he plans to be “respectful to the viewers at home.”“The story will continue,” he said, “but definitely we’ll keep it PG for the families.”This will be the second Super Bowl halftime show produced in part by Jay-Z and his entertainment company, Roc Nation, who were recruited by the N.F.L. in 2019. At the time, performers were refusing to work with the league, in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback who began kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality and racial injustice.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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      Will the Super Bowl Be Decided by Penalties?

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Super Bowl 2021Chiefs Fans’ Generational DivideReconsidering Tom BradyToned Down TV CommercialsLuring Online Sports BettorsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyOn FootballWill the Super Bowl Be Decided by Penalties?Statistics from the regular season indicate that the Buccaneers benefited more from officiating calls than the Chiefs did.Buccaneers opponents were charged with 24 pass interference calls in the regular season, the highest total since the statistic started being tracked in 1985. If pass interference were a person, it would be the Buccaneers’ sixth most productive receiver.Credit…Jason Behnken/Associated PressFeb. 4, 2021Updated 9:25 a.m. ETSuper Bowl LV could be decided by penalties. And if that happens, Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will have a distinct, unsurprising and perhaps unfortunate (for the Kansas City Chiefs) advantage.Buccaneers’ opponents were charged with 24 pass interference penalties during the regular season, the highest total since Football Outsiders began tracking the statistic in 1985. The Buccaneers benefited from 395 yards on those infractions. If pass interference were a person, it would be the Buccaneers’ sixth most productive receiver, contributing more yardage to their passing game than tight end Cameron Brate.Now, suggesting that Brady gets reputation-based “superstar calls” would be as sacrilegious as insinuating that Michael Jordan got away with traveling now and then or that Alex Rodriguez benefited from a narrower strike zone than the average slugger’s. Perish the thought.A less sinister explanation of the Buccaneers’ pass interference record is that an experienced quarterback like Brady can spot defenders jostling his receivers and throw passes in their direction knowing he will get either a catch or a flag. In fact, the league-leading beneficiaries of pass interference penalties in recent seasons have indeed been wily (read: old) veterans — Philip Rivers in 2019 and 2017, Drew Brees in 2018.
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#ccc;}.css-nw5im6:focus:after{border-color:#666 !important;}.css-nw5im6:after{-webkit-transform:rotate(-135deg);-ms-transform:rotate(-135deg);transform:rotate(-135deg);}.css-nw5im6:after{border-color:#b3b3b3 !important;}Super Bowl LV by the NumbersBenjamin HoffmanReporting on the Super Bowl 🏈Super Bowl LV by the NumbersBenjamin HoffmanReporting on the Super Bowl 🏈Eve Edelheit for The New York TimesOn Sunday, Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs take on Tom Brady and the Buccaneers in the 55th Super Bowl.Here are some interesting stats for the game from Sportradar, a leading data and technology company in sports →Super Bowl LV by the NumbersBenjamin HoffmanReporting on the Super Bowl 🏈AJ Mast for The New York TimesThe Chiefs dwarf the Bucs in Super Bowl experience. Kansas City’s active roster has 33 players with a combined 34 appearances. Tampa Bay has six players with 17 total Super Bowl trips — nine of which came from Brady.Super Bowl LV by the NumbersBenjamin HoffmanReporting on the Super Bowl 🏈Ben Solomon for The New York TimesThe Bucs are trying to become just the fifth team to win the Super Bowl a year after finishing with a sub-.500 record (7-9). The previous four were the 2017 Eagles (above), the 2001 Patriots, the 1999 Rams and the 1981 49ers.Super Bowl LV by the NumbersBenjamin HoffmanReporting on the Super Bowl 🏈Vincent Laforet/The New York TimesThe Chiefs hope to be the ninth team to win back-to-back Super Bowls — a feat last accomplished by Brady and the Patriots after the ’03 and ’04 seasons. This is the longest drought without repeat winners in the Super Bowl era. Super Bowl LV by the NumbersBenjamin HoffmanReporting on the Super Bowl 🏈Barton Silverman/The New York TimesThe Bucs are the fifth team seeded No. 5 or lower to reach the Super Bowl. The last three No. 5 seeds to reach the title game — a group that includes the 2010 Green Bay Packers (above) — have each posted upset victories.Super Bowl LV by the NumbersBenjamin HoffmanReporting on the Super Bowl 🏈Jeff Roberson/Associated PressThe Chiefs’ 38-24 victory over Buffalo in the A.F.C. championship game was their fourth straight playoff win in which they trailed by at least 9 points, matching the 2014-17 Patriots for the longest such postseason winning streak.Super Bowl LV by the NumbersBenjamin HoffmanReporting on the Super Bowl 🏈Morry Gash/Associated PressThe Bucs have scored at least 30 points in each of their last six games, including all three of their playoff games. They can become the first team in N.F.L. history with four 30-plus point games in a single postseason.Check out more Super Bowl coverage: The teams, the ads, the recipesWhat to Know About Covid-19 and the Super BowlMadonna? Harry Potter? Churchill? Tom Brady May Be Beyond CompareFeb. 2, 2021Item 1 of 8Swipe to continue reading →
      Over all in the regular season, the Buccaneers were charged with 11 fewer penalties for 300 fewer yards than their opponents, the largest net differential in the N.F.L. The Chiefs were closer to the other end of the spectrum: They committed eight more penalties than their opponents for 159 more yards, the sixth-worst net yardage differential in the league.The Chiefs committed 23 offensive holding penalties, the N.F.L.’s second-highest total during a regular season in which officials called the infraction the fewest times since at least 1998. The Chiefs committed 23 false starts, tied for the third-highest figure. Most troublingly for a team about to face Brady’s Untouchables, Chiefs defenders were flagged for 15 defensive pass interference penalties, the third-highest total in the N.F.L.The Chiefs also had an unfortunate pattern of having big plays called back because of offensive infractions. According to the N.F.L. Game Stats and Information System, the Chiefs had 310 offensive yards nullified by penalties, the second-highest figure in the league. A holding penalty negated a would-be touchdown in their Week 5 loss to the Las Vegas Raiders, and several Chiefs victories were narrower than they should have been because apparent touchdowns or 20-yard gains turned into 10-yard losses.The Buccaneers had just 142 yards nullified by penalties. After all, only a fiend would throw a flag that might deny our beleaguered society an opportunity to cherish one of Brady’s last memorable moments, right?According to the N.F.L. Game Stats and Information System, the Chiefs had 310 offensive yards nullified by penalties, the second-highest figure in the league. Credit…Jamie Squire/Getty ImagesKidding aside, officials are generally too busy making split-second interpretations of the N.F.L.’s arcane rule book to keep track of whether the pass that tangled a defender with a receiver was thrown by a living legend or a mere mortal. Still, the Chiefs have earned a reputation as brilliant-but-scatterbrained students who lose points for forgetting to write their names atop their assignments, while Brady is so irreproachable that the teacher is more likely to believe him than the answer key.Whether or not there’s a teensy bit of unconscious bias at play, each team’s penalty tendencies could create the perception of one-sided officiating, which could then overshadow the Super Bowl itself.Spotty officiating has already become one of the major subplots of the 2020 postseason. The Buccaneers benefited from just one pass interference penalty in the playoffs, but it was a whopper: A fourth-quarter call on Green Bay Packers defender Kevin King against receiver Tyler Johnson in the N.F.C. championship game granted the Buccaneers a third-down conversion, allowing them to run out the clock. The call was appropriate — Johnson’s undershirt can clearly be seen stretching away from King’s grasp on replays — but officials in that game stopped just short of allowing defenders to take piggyback rides on receivers’ shoulders for the previous 58 minutes.In the divisional round, the Chiefs benefited from an uncalled helmet-to-helmet hit that turned a possible Cleveland Browns touchdown into a fumble for a touchback. The no-call just happened to favor the more popular and marketable team.The last thing the N.F.L. wants is a repeat of Super Bowl XL, in which the Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Seattle Seahawks, 21-10, with the help of some famously dubious officiating, including a touchdown call for the Steelers after a run on which Ben Roethlisberger’s helmet (but no other part of his body, nor the football) crossed the plane of the goal line on a sneak. The call added to speculation that N.F.L. was eager to nudge the more popular team toward victory.The Buccaneers are, of course, hosting Super Bowl LV, where the 25,000 socially distanced fans in attendance will probably skew toward the home team. And while the Chiefs have no shortage of star power, a seventh Brady championship sure would make a compelling climax to this pandemic-stricken season.The N.F.L. does not fix its results, of course; if it did, the Jets would at least be competitive once in a while. The officials will by no means conspire to hand Super Bowl LV to Brady and the Buccaneers. But the season averages suggest that the Buccaneers could hold an edge of 40 to 50 yards on penalties, which would probably come in big chunks of pass interference calls and negated Chiefs touchdowns.Should that happen, the conspiracy theorists will have plenty to talk about after the game.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Super Bowl LV by the Numbers

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      Super Bowl LV by the NumbersBenjamin HoffmanReporting on the Super Bowl 🏈Eve Edelheit for The New York TimesOn Sunday, Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs take on Tom Brady and the Buccaneers in the 55th Super Bowl.Here are some interesting stats for the game from Sportradar, a leading data and technology company in sports → More

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      Tampa Bay’s Pass Rush Would Like Your Attention

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Super Bowl 2021Chiefs Fans’ Generational DivideReconsidering Tom BradyToned Down TV CommercialsLuring Online Sports BettorsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTampa Bay’s Pass Rush Would Like Your AttentionShaquil Barrett, Jason Pierre-Paul and Ndamukong Suh found a home with the Buccaneers after being discarded elsewhere. On Sunday, their mission is clear: Get Patrick Mahomes.Shaquil Barrett of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers had one sack and one quarterback hit in Tampa Bay’s Week 12 loss to Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs.Credit…Jason Behnken/Associated PressFeb. 4, 2021, 8:14 a.m. ETThey’re big. They’re fast. Sometimes they can seem a little mean. Each one has Super Bowl experience and, come Sunday, they just might be Tampa Bay’s best chance of stopping Patrick Mahomes from winning a second consecutive championship.But the most surprising thing when you watch Shaquil Barrett, Jason Pierre-Paul and Ndamukong Suh dominate for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers is the realization that each of them, at one point in their career, was deemed expendable.You would hardly guess it — particularly after watching them torment Aaron Rodgers throughout an upset of the Green Bay Packers in the N.F.C. championship game — but each of them also came to Tampa Bay with metaphorical hat in hand, looking for a fresh start.Suh, a five-time Pro Bowler, was three seasons into an enormous contract with the Miami Dolphins when he was released in 2018, and after helping the Los Angeles Rams make that season’s Super Bowl, Los Angeles made no attempt to re-sign him. Pierre-Paul, with a laundry list of big moments and scary injuries, was coming off an uneven 2017 season when the Giants, as part of a move to a 3-4 defense, decided he was a bad fit and traded him to the Buccaneers for a third-round pick. And Barrett, ever the understudy to stars like Von Miller in five seasons with the Denver Broncos, walked away from a team that never found a role for him.Over the past two seasons, those three players — along with linebacker Devin White and the mammoth defensive tackle Vita Vea — have powered the Buccaneers to an average of just under three sacks a game. Barrett, who had 14 sacks in five seasons with Denver, has 27.5 in two years with the Buccaneers. Pierre-Paul, who adjusted just fine to a role as an outside linebacker in a 3-4 scheme, has 18 sacks in the last two seasons despite missing six games.In the Bucs’ win over Green Bay two weeks ago, Barrett and Pierre-Paul accounted for all five of Tampa Bay’s sacks.Ndamukong Suh’s impact in the N.F.C. championship game did not show up on the stat sheet, but he played a huge role in ruining Aaron Rodgers’s day.Credit…Jeff Haynes/Associated PressThe group has gone from being discarded by their old teams to becoming the savvy veteran leaders of a defense that is particularly young in the secondary. And beyond the group’s obvious talent on the field, Barrett, Pierre-Paul and Suh have also proved to be leaders by sharing their life experience with the team’s younger players.“Without question,” Suh said when asked if there were things to learn from past struggles. “The tough times leave a lasting impression of something you don’t ever want to revisit again.”For Pierre-Paul, those struggles have included back surgery, the loss of his right index finger in a fireworks accident in 2015, and a car accident in 2019 that left him with a fractured vertebra in his neck.Pierre-Paul recounted his various comebacks with some lighthearted banter. He said growing up with a blind father gave him an excellent role model for resiliency, and he chastised the voters for not putting him in the Pro Bowl in 2019 after he came back from a broken neck to record 8.5 sacks in 10 games.“With all the things that I’ve been through, I’m overachieving,” he said. “I’m letting everybody know that no matter what you go through, you can do whatever.”Coach Bruce Arians said Pierre-Paul’s obstacles had made him an ideal leader.“He plays with a heart that is as big as a lion and high, high energy,” Arians said. “Guys just love playing with him. He doesn’t speak a lot because he lets his play do the talking, but when he speaks, everybody listens.”Tom Brady, who lost to Pierre-Paul and the Giants in the Super Bowl after the 2011 season, said he liked being the star defender’s teammate rather than his opponent. And he agreed with Arians about Pierre-Paul’s leadership.“J.P.P. is absolutely like a ringleader in that group,” Brady said. “When he’s going, everyone is going.”The question now is if all of that life experience, and all of that talent, can translate into Tampa Bay’s front seven creating the disruptions necessary to slow down Mahomes.While he does not run the ball very often, Mahomes is evasive in the backfield, using his legs to create separation and his arm strength to make up for having moved outside of the pocket. He is rarely sacked, and his ability to throw under pressure negates any advantage of a blitz: To Mahomes, a blitz just means there is one fewer defender in coverage. So Tampa Bay’s best bet may be to go after him with a four-man rush, a point that was repeated several times by each of the defensive stars.“He’s just got it — he’s got it all,” Barrett said of Mahomes. “So we’re going to try to keep him in a pocket. That’s why the way we rush is perfect with me and J.P.P.”Helping matters is the Chiefs’ being without several offensive linemen. Laurent Duvernay-Tardif, a starting guard, opted out of the season. Right tackle Mitchell Schwartz hasn’t played since Week 6, guard Kelechi Osemele hasn’t played since Week 5 and left tackle Eric Fisher tore his Achilles’ tendon in the A.F.C. championship game. Center Daniel Kilgore has missed practice all week; he is isolating away from the team after a close contact with a person infected with the coronavirus, but he is expected to be cleared to play on Sunday.Coach Bruce Arians praised Jason Pierre-Paul for his ability to play through significant injuries. “He is a rolling ball of energy every single day,” Arians said.Credit…Jason Behnken/Associated PressA few injuries — not a broken neck among them — did not draw much sympathy from Pierre-Paul.“I don’t care; it don’t matter,” Pierre-Paul said. “This is the freaking Super Bowl. I’m going to do what I need to do. That’s a ‘you’ problem. They need to figure that out.”For as confident as they are, and for as much opportunity as they have to influence the outcome of Sunday’s game, Tampa Bay’s star defenders took plenty of time to praise Mahomes as a worthy opponent. Barrett went as far as to wade in on the GOAT vs. Baby GOAT debate, in which some have suggested that Tom Brady should share his Greatest of All Time nickname with Mahomes.Barrett thinks Mahomes is well on his way to earning that distinction, but he argues that the Buccaneers defense, with a pass rush led by him, Pierre-Paul and Suh, can help slow down the passing of that torch. While Mahomes is hoping to collect a second Super Bowl ring, Brady is one win from his seventh.“We’ve just got to tell him he ain’t ready to be the big GOAT yet, because we still got Tom Brady,” Barrett said. “So we’ve got to step it up and make sure Tom Brady gets another one.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      These Women Were N.F.L. ‘Firsts.’ They’re Eager for Company.

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Super Bowl 2021Chiefs Fans’ Generational DivideReconsidering Tom BradyToned Down TV CommercialsLuring Online Sports BettorsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThese Women Were N.F.L. ‘Firsts.’ They’re Eager for Company.Two women will coach the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in this year’s Super Bowl, a milestone in the N.F.L.’s gender diversity efforts. Women in football hope their presence quickly stops being noteworthy.Maral Javadifar, right, an assistant strength and conditioning coach for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Lori Locust, a defensive-line assistant, will coach in Super Bowl LV. It will be the first time that two coaches who are women will work the title game.Credit…Julio Cortez/Associated PressGillian R. Brassil and Feb. 3, 2021Updated 4:56 p.m. ETThe football pioneers arrived quickly over the past year: the first woman to coach in a Super Bowl, the first woman chosen to officiate a Super Bowl, the first Black woman to be named a full-time coach in the N.F.L.They can’t wait to have a lot more company.“What is really going to excite me is when this is no longer aberrational or when this is no longer something that’s noteworthy,” said Amy Trask, who in 1997 became the Oakland Raiders’ chief executive and the first woman of that rank in the N.F.L. Few have followed in similar roles.The coaching ranks took much longer to welcome women — until 2015. Eight female coaches were on N.F.L. staffs this season, the first time there had ever be more than two women coaching simultaneously in the league, according to The Institute of Diversity and Ethics in Sport, which tracks hiring across a variety of roles in five major sports.Other professional sports had groundbreaking moments, as well, in the past year. The Miami Marlins hired Kim Ng as M.L.B.’s first female general manager and Becky Hammon became the first woman to serve as a head coach in the N.B.A. But the ascent of women to top sports jobs remains an aberration and not the norm, as it is for men to lead many women’s professional and college teams.Jen Welter, the first female to coach in the N.F.L., said that she initially turned down her first opportunity to coach a men’s team — in the Champions Indoor Football league — because she worried about feeling isolated.“I was a highly decorated women’s player — two gold medals, an eight-time Pro Bowler — also had a master’s degree in sports psychology and a Ph.D. in psychology, and my instinct was, ‘no,’ because there were no women,” Welter said recently in a telephone interview. “Representation matters.”Callie Brownson, the chief of staff for the Cleveland Browns, said players were unfazed when she had to fill in as coach of the tight ends for two games this season and the wide receivers for one, when the full-time coaches for those positions were out on paternity leave or placed on the Covid-19 reserve list.“I remember walking up to the tight ends at practice on Wednesday and saying, ‘Hey, just so you guys know, I got you guys this weekend, I got you on game day,’” she recalled in a phone interview. “And it didn’t faze them at all, like: ‘Cool, OK, great, looking forward to it, let’s roll.’ That was powerful to me as a woman.”But, Brownson said, she has encountered resistance elsewhere. She recalled that at least one job interview felt like “checking a box,” and said that she had heard insulting quips — including “It’s funny to hear a woman talk about routes” — from men inside and outside the game.Like Trask, Brownson said: “I look forward to the days where we stop talking about how ‘she’s the first this’ and we’ve accomplished all those things, and women can just naturally fit into these coaching roles, scouting roles and operational roles.”Trask, who left the Raiders in 2013 after nearly 30 years in various jobs with the franchise and now serves as an analyst for CBS, recalled only a few moments when people questioned her role because of her gender.Once, she said, a reporter called out to Gene Upshaw, a Hall of Fame offensive lineman, at the end of a long practice: “Hey Gene, what’s it like having a girl on the team?”Trask recalled that Upshaw, who became the longtime leader of the N.F.L. players’ union, spun around and replied: “She’s not a girl. She’s a Raider.”Al Davis, the Raiders’ former team owner who hired Trask, also hired Tom Flores, the league’s first minority head coach to win a Super Bowl, and Art Shell, the first African-American head coach in the N.F.L. since the 1920s.“This was someone who hired without regard to race, gender or any other individuality, which has no bearing on whether someone can do a job,” Trask said of Davis, who initially hired her as an intern in 1983, when the team was based in Los Angeles and she was a law student who cold-called the Raiders’ headquarters seeking a job. “And he was doing this decades and decades before this was discussed as a subject within the football world, the sports world and much of the world in general.”Mold-breaking employees seem to be concentrated in certain organizations, such as the Raiders and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who will face the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl on Sunday. The Bucs will have a two female coaches on the field — Lori Locust, a defensive line assistant, and Maral Javadifar, an assistant strength and conditioning coach — just a year after the San Francisco 49ers’ Katie Sowers became the first woman to coach in a Super Bowl. Also on Sunday, Sarah Thomas will become the first woman to officiate the title game.Buccaneers Coach Bruce Arians, who made history by hiring Welter as an intern for the Arizona Cardinals in 2015, also has the only staff in the N.F.L. on which the offensive and defensive coordinators are both Black.“We support each other unconditionally,” Locust said of the women coaching in the N.F.L. “We may talk a little bit of trash — just a little bit while we’re playing one another — but it never gets malicious.”Credit…Daniel Kucin Jr./Associated PressThe league itself has pushed a number of diversity initiatives aimed at getting women and people of color into coaching positions over the years, including the Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching Fellowship, which started in 1987, and the Women’s Careers in Football Forum, which began in 2017. Most of the N.F.L.’s female coaches were brought in through one of those programs.Some, like Jennifer King — recently promoted by the Washington Football Team to become the league’s first full-time Black female coach — have been supported financially by the Scott Pioli & Family Fund for Women Football Coaches and Scouts, named after the former longtime front office executive, and administered by the Women’s Sports Foundation.These pipelines have helped bring the handful of women coaching in the league together.“We support each other unconditionally,” said Locust of the Buccaneers. “We may talk a little bit of trash — just a little bit while we’re playing one another — but it never gets malicious.”Though the women hope their ranks keep expanding, the limited racial diversify in the league’s coaching ranks suggests a possibility of backsliding. The highest number of nonwhite N.F.L. head coaches at any given time has been eight — last reached in 2018, matching the current total of women with coaching jobs. Now, in a league in which about 70 percent of the players are Black, only three of the current head coaches are, and only two others meet the N.F.L.’s standard for diversity hiring. The N.F.L. did not respond to multiple interview requests for this article.Yet as women in the N.F.L. hope for the days when they are no longer groundbreakers, they appreciate the progress that this weekend represents. Thomas, the Super Bowl official, was part of the N.F.L.’s first pregame handshake involving two women: Her first game — a preseason matchup in 2015 — was also Welter’s debut with the Cardinals.“I always think about that handshake as basically like a deal or a promise,” Welter said recently, “that this is going to continue, that more women will have opportunities to have that handshake.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More