The Kansas City Chiefs will face off against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Super Bowl LV and game prep has already begun for both teams.
The Super Bowl will be a rematch from Week 12 of the NFL’s regular season, a game during which the Buccaneers struggled to stop the Chiefs’ high-powered offense.
“I’m not really excited to play Tyreek Hill, [Travis] Kelce and [Patrick] Mahomes,” Buccaneers HC Bruce Arians told reporters on Monday. “That’s a formidable challenge, but our guys will be up for it.”
Perhaps one of the biggest challenges the Buccaneers will have is figuring out how to slow down Chiefs TE Travis Kelce. He’s been practically unstoppable for the past 10 games, breaking a number of NFL records in the process.
As Arians and defensive coordinator Todd Bowles attempt to figure out ways to slow down Kelce, Arians is reminded of a former Chiefs player who was just as difficult to stop.
“It’s really hard,” Arians said. “He reminds me a lot of Tony Gonzalez back when he was unbelievable just trying to stop him. He’s got wide receiver skills and he runs like a wide receiver. He runs routes like a wideout [and] he beats corners. It’s a hard, hard challenge, but Todd [Bowles] will come up with some schemes. Again, we’ve got to get after the quarterback and we can’t let him (Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes) run around and make those plays that he and Kelce do so well.”
Arians was the running back coach in Kansas City from 1989 through 1992, but that was well before Gonzalez was with the team. When Gonzalez was a player in Kansas City, Arians was with three separate AFC opponents, the Indianapolis Colts, Cleveland Browns and Pittsburgh Steelers in various offensive assistant roles. He got to face a lot of those old Chiefs teams that featured Gonzalez in the offense and knows what his colleagues went through trying to stop him.
Arians and Bowles have both been tasked with stopping Kelce a few times before. In 2014, back when Arians and Bowles were with the Arizona Cardinals, Kelce went 7-of-9 for 110 yards against their defense. It was Kelce’s first career 100-yard receiving game. The Chiefs ended up losing that game, but Kelce had a big day.
A few years later when Bowles was the head coach of the New York Jets, Kelce went 6-of-7 for 89 yards and a touchdown. A year later against Bowles’ Jets team, Kelce only caught 50% of his passes but had 98 yards and two scores. Then, of course, earlier this year against Arians, Bowles and the Bucs, Kelce didn’t drop a pass, going 8-of-8 for 82 yards in the Chiefs’ 27-24 win.
This Tampa Bay team that Kansas City will face in Super Bowl LV is certainly different, but history tells us that Arians and Bowles will continue to have a hard time slowing Kelce down.
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