AFC champion Chiefs arrive in Tampa day before Super Bowl
By admin - February 6, 2021

Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs have touched down at the Super Bowl. Here are the highlights:

  • The AFC champions arrived in Tampa on Saturday, flying into town a day before they defend their title against the hometown Buccaneers.
  • The coronavirus pandemic led the Chiefs to delay traveling into the host city until Friday at the earliest as a safety and health precaution measure. The Chiefs instead chose to come on Saturday, repeating their itinerary from earlier in the season when they beat Tom Brady and the Bucs 27-24 on Nov. 29.
  • “Saturday night is just looking for ways to sleep, honestly, because there’s a lot of excitement, a lot of energy that you build up to throughout the weekend,” Chiefs defensive end Tanoh Kpassagnon said earlier in the week. “The key is just letting it out on the road at the right time on Sunday.”
  • Teams playing in the Super Bowl usually arrive as much as a week before the game to practice, hold meetings and participate in media availability in or near the host city. Both teams did that at their home facilities this year, fulfilling all media responsibilities through video calls during the week, instead of the usual in-person sessions jam-packed with reporters.
  • The NFC champion Buccaneers are the first team to host and play in the Super Bowl, so they didn’t have to concern themselves with the type of travel arrangements all other participants have in previous years. After spending the week at home, they’ll stay Saturday night at the team hotel — as they usually do for home games.
  • The Chiefs took two planes — to maintain proper social distancing protocols — with most of the coaches and players on the first that landed at Tampa International Airport around 4:38 p.m. — less than just 26 hours before kickoff.
  • The team then filed into 10 buses — two waves of five each —both with police escorts, which carried the coaches, players and staff for the 7-mile trip to their hotel in downtown Tampa.
  • They were greeted around 5:23 p.m. by a few hundred cheering fans — several with masks but many without and many decked out in Chiefs jerseys and T-shirts, some in Bucs gear — gathered on the four corners closest to the main entrance of the hotel, which featured several red and gold window wraps around the entrances.