NFL season, one to remember

Photo by Lynne Sladky used with permission from Google Commons

Tom Brady celebrates his seventh Super Bowl win after an amazing season for the Bucs and NFL as a whole.

The NFL season was not an ordinary one. Teams did not have preseason games, OTA’s (Organized Team Activities) or minicamps in order to prepare for the season. Games were postponed and cancelled throughout the season, messing with teams’ schedules. It was a hard season for players and staff.

The  season went by with 21 Sundays of football. Although it may seem like a long time, the season felt like it went faster than ever before. The first half of the season was filled with optimism as teams had started off their early stretch of games, not knowing how the rest of the season would go. 

Although some stadiums had little to no fans, they would still find ways to make the stadium not feel empty, such as put cardboard cut-outs in the stands, play music and play sound effects that made the games feel more normal. 

Teams were having trouble dealing with Covid restrictions and bringing it into the locker rooms, which made playing games harder, and was a problem for commissioner Roger Goodell. 

The second half of the season picked up the pace, as teams were getting closer to playoffs and started to get in the playoff mindset. Divisions such as the NFC East, which includes the New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Football Team, were competitive in the second half of the season because they all had similar records. The race for the winner of the division went all the way down to week 17, the final week of the season. This made the playoffs a whole lot more interesting. 

The playoff teams this year were the Green Bay Packers, New Orleans Saints, Seattle Seahawks, Washington Football Team, Kansas City Chiefs, Buffalo Bills, Pittsburgh Steelers, Tennessee Titans, Baltimore Ravens, Cleveland Browns, Indianapolis Colts, Chicago Bears, Los Angeles Rams and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. This year was a year of the quarterbacks, where most of the playoff teams had star quarterbacks who lead them to the position they were in.

Playoffs had some intense games that went down to the final possession, which sparked the playoff atmosphere as the games were exciting. Tom Brady went into this playoff searching for his seventh Superbowl, knowing he had to compete against other stars such as Aaron Rogers and Patrick Mahomes. 

The NFC and AFC championship games were between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Green Bay Packers, and between the Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills. Tom Brady and the Buccaneers would beat Rogers and the Packers to face the Chiefs in the Superbowl. 

Brady, who is known as the GOAT faces off against the new young face of the league, Patrick Mahomes. Brady and the Buccaneers shut down the Chiefs in the Superbowl with a 31-9 victory, solidifying Brady as one of the best to ever play the sport.