Tom Brady, forty-three years old, winning a Super Bowl in his own building. Super Bowl LV, February 2021, the Buccaneers beating the Chiefs 31-9 in Tampa, the first time any team played a Super Bowl in its home stadium. Brady had left the Patriots dynasty, walked into a new city, and won a seventh ring without Belichick to prove he could. The audacity of it was the whole point.

Two trips, two trophies

Tampa Bay has reached two Super Bowls and won both. The first was Super Bowl XXXVII in January 2003, a 48-21 beating of the Raiders engineered partly by Jon Gruden against the team he had just left, with the Tampa defense intercepting five passes. The second was the Brady home game. A franchise that spent its early years as a national punchline has a perfect Super Bowl record. Two for two.

The lesson in it

The Bucs were once the worst team in football, the team you scheduled to pad your record. Now they own two trophies and have never lost on the big stage. Buccaneers fans, you went from laughingstock to a perfect Super Bowl ledger. From a fan whose proud old team is zero for four, I find that turnaround genuinely something. The punchline got the last laugh.