Brady v Belichick would be a dream Super Bowl

When Tom Brady joined the Tampa Bay Buccaneers it was a fairytale that he’d lead them to a remarkable Super Bowl victory in their home stadium – this year the prospect of him defending that crown against Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots is almost too good to comprehend. 

Brady has already been back to New England to face Belichick in a hugely hyped regular season game. The Bucs came out on top in a tight, tense and emotional battle at Gillette Stadium. 

Now, just picture a repeat in the biggest game American sport has to offer, in Los Angeles in February, with two legends of the game, the QB and coach who cleaned up Super Bowls for fun in a dominant two decades, going head-to-head. 

Even by Hollywood standards it’s a pretty epic script. We spent years wondering who was propping up who in the Brady-Belichick relationship and now the QB’s arm and the coach’s defensive scheme would collide in one glorious piece of sporting perfection. 

I can’t be the only one who is salivating just at the prospect of it, surely? 

And perhaps what’s making it such an exciting and enticing possibility is that it’s becoming more and more likely as the two teams crank out win after win... 

Tom Brady going up against his former coach Bill Belichick would be the stuff of Super Bowl dreams.

Bucs keep producing as Belichick rebuilds Pats 

Tampa Bay made history in becoming the first team to win a Super Bowl in their own stadium in February, and doing the almost impossible by keeping their entire squad together to try and go back-to-back - and they’ve been among the favourites from the start to get back to the big game. 

New England, though, were a bit of a mess in their first year without Brady, finishing 7-9 and out of the play-offs for just the third time in 20 years. They’d won the AFC East 17 of 19 seasons with Brady, going to nine Super Bowls and winning six. 

It seemed clear than that he was the man behind their success as he walked away with the Lombardi Trophy for a seventh time while Belichick’s squad looked a mess. 

But the evil genius wasn’t done and set out his latest plan – splashing out a record amount in free agency and drafting a QB in the first round of the Draft for the first time ever to bring Mac Jones to the team. 

It looked slow going, but they’ve emerged playing tough, defensive, running football that has brought the NFL to its knees in fear that, in fact, Belichick is actually pretty good after all at building teams perfectly formed for winning when it matters – in the play-offs. 

Bucs and Pats on collision course? 

While the Bucs have been pretty strong in the betting market throughout the season, nobody fancied the Pats at all, and after starting the campaign 2-4 they were trading at a whopping 190 on the exchange. 

That’s giving them just a 0.53% chance of winning the Super Bowl! 

However, they’re now among the favourites in a wide-open AFC race where all the main contenders have doubts about them, it looks between the Patriots and the Kansas City Chiefs at this stage.  

Top spot and home advantage in the play-offs could be huge, as if the Pats finish top of the pile nobody, and I mean nobody, will want to face them in Foxborough in January. No AFC team looks to have the answer for what Belichick could dish up in a cold, tough, post-season game. 

Same goes for the Bucs, although they managed to go all the way winning on the road in Washington, New Orleans and Green Bay last season before winning the big one at home. So home advantage won’t feel as big for them. 

Teams like the Packers, Rams and Cardinals will all make it tough, but having been there, done it, and still having relatively fresh champions t-shirts, they’ll fancy their chances. 

Who would win the dream match-up? 

I’ve asked myself this question, but I’m not sure I know the answer! What I do know is that it would create unparalleled hype, expectation and raise the price of Super Bowl tickets and TV commercials through the roof! 

It’d be a fitting contest to stage in the wonderful new SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles – even though the Rams and Chargers may argue otherwise, and the column inches, broadcast minutes and social media hashtags it would create would be endless. 

But I’m here for all of that. Sport has a way of bringing us these incredible narratives and storylines and you really couldn’t have scripted this to happen. Once Brady left for a team in the NFC you hoped it would, but the Bucs had been serial losers for so long that even with a good team it seemed like a tough ask. 

Then in that first Brady-less season, it looked like Belichick and the Pats had been found out – living on their GOAT’s genius and ability for all those years, but now look at them. 

Brady, throwing it as well as he’s ever done, would have to try to pick apart a Belichick defensive plan schemed to exploit every tiny microscopic chink in the QB’s considerable armour. 

Belichick would have to give rookie QB Jones a simple gameplan he can operate without too much stress, just as he did with Brady in those early Super Bowl wins. Even just in looking this far ahead the prospect is almost too mouthwatering. 

They know each other inside out, the two greatest achievers in their field in NFL history, and you really couldn’t call the winner right now, all I know is that I desperately hope we get the chance to find out.