In their two SBs, the Bucs have the highest average margin of victory of the 28 teams that have been there.
Tampa Bay and Brady were great. I was hoping for a closer game.
Eric Fisher is a great offensive tackle; he’s been a Pro Bowler twice (including this year), an All-American once, and so on. He’s great. And he tore his Achilles in the AFC Championship against the Bills and wasn’t there for the SB.
Lucas Niang might have been good; he was an OT drafted in the 3rd round in 2020 judged one of the best offensive linemen in college. However, he opted out of his rookie season because of the pandemic.
They could have potentially had a better line if their luck was better, but overall they didn’t invest much into it. It was pointed out that the dead money cap hit for Eric Berry’s salary was higher than the combined salary of all the starters for the Chiefs’ o-line in the SB. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Mahomes was pressured the whole time.
And, for 2020, they also didn’t have guard Laurent Duvernay-Tardif, who had started 14 games in 2019, as he had opted out of playing in 2020 in order to combat the COVID-19 pandemic in his native Quebec (he’s a medical school graduate).
And Mitchell Schwartz, the Chiefs regular RT, is perennially a top 5 RT according to PFF.
The Chiefs had a pretty good offensive line (again, PFF had them rated 12th in the NFL in the preseason). It’s just the position that got hit the hardest by injuries and doctors being doctors during the year.
There are a number of factors that affect deep pass efficiency other than the strength of a quarterback’s arm such the amount of time he has to throw (offensive line), double teams on key receivers, the number of quality receivers available, etc.