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Tom Brady has thrown three touchdown passes as Tampa Bay cruised to a 31-9 victory over Kansas City for the quarterback's record seventh Super Bowl title.
Tom Brady threw three touchdowns as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers thumped the Kansas City Chief 31-9 to win the Super Bowl, giving the evergreen 43-year-old quarterback a record-extending seventh championship ring.
Brady's age-defying performance, which earned him the Most Valuable Player award, brought the curtain down on what was perhaps the most challenging season the NFL has had to navigate because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
While the pandemic reined in America's biggest sporting party, the show went on as scheduled and once again Brady, who joined the Bucs last March after 20 seasons with the New England Patriots, rose to the occasion in his 10th Super Bowl.
"My father had an expression," Bucs co-owner Joel Glazer said while he accepted the Vince Lombardi Trophy as confetti showered the on-field stage.
"If you want to know the road ahead, ask the person who's been there. Well we found that person ... Tom Brady."
The NFL championship game had been hyped all week as a battle between Brady, recognised as the greatest quarterback of all-time, and 25-year-old Chiefs counterpart Patrick Mahomes, widely regarded as the best in the game today.
But in the end it was no contest as the Bucs' rampaging defence harassed Mahomes, who threw a pair of interceptions, the entire night to bring the Chiefs' Super Bowl title defence to a jarring end.
"I'm not making any comparisons," Brady said when asked if this Super Bowl win was the sweetest.
"Being down here and experiencing this with this group of guys, every year is amazing.
"This team is world champions forever, you can't take it away from us ... we're coming back."
The only team to play a Super Bowl on their home field, the Buccaneers made the most of the opportunity as they were crowned champions for the first time since January 2003.
In the opening half, Brady found former Patriots teammate Rob Gronkowski, who came out of retirement to join the Bucs this season, for a pair of touchdown strikes to build a 14-3 lead.
Meanwhile, Mahomes and the Chiefs explosive attack could not get in gear with scoring limited to a pair of Harrison Butker field goals to go into the intermission down 21-6.
The Chiefs struck first in the second half as Butker booted another field goal but the Buccaneers would hit back with a Leonard Fournette 27-yard touchdown run and a Ryan Succop field goal to cruise into the fourth quarter with a 31-9 lead.
A streaker wearing a hot-pink onesie eluded security and slid into the end zone with 5 minutes 3 seconds left in the game.
Kansas City's high-powered offence never got that far against Tampa's ferocious defence.
"Obviously I didn't play the way I wanted to play," Mahomes said.
"What else can you say? All you can do is leave everything you have on the field. I feel like the guys did that. ... they beat us pretty good, the worst I've been beaten in a long time."
Bruce Arians became the oldest coach at age 68 to win the Super Bowl.
His Kansas counterpart Andy Reid said he had to accept blame for the defeat.
"My hat goes off to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for the job that they did," he said.
"They played better than we did and that's my responsibility, and I take full responsibility for it.
"You just can't do the things that we did and beat a good football team like that, particularly at this level."
