Ndamukong Suh says the key to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Super Bowl LV win over the Kansas City Chiefs started with a conversation, not a blitz.
The retired defensive tackle recently opened up about the adjustment he pushed Todd Bowles to make before Tampa Bay’s 31-9 win at Raymond James Stadium, and the idea was simple: trust the front seven, back off the pressure calls a bit, and let the defense work from there.
That mattered because the earlier matchup told a brutal story. The Chiefs had torn through the Buccaneers that season, with Patrick Mahomes throwing for 462 yards and three touchdowns and Tyreek Hill piling up 13 catches for 269 yards and three touchdowns. Suh knew Tampa Bay couldn’t walk into the Super Bowl with the same plan.
In an appearance on the Mike High Performance Podcast, Suh explained how he kept pushing Bowles to take a different approach.
“Going into the championship game, Super Bowl against Kansas City, and having played them earlier… they just came into Tampa and destroyed us. They ran through us.
I begged and begged and begged for us to look at that game totally different… Our DC who's now the head coach, Todd Bowles of Tampa, loves to blitz, loves to get after the quarterback and speed up their process. And I told him and I was like, ‘Hey man, we're watching film.
I'm looking at these different things. This offensive line as a whole has no chance against our defensive line.
Put all the pressure on us up front in the front seven…”
Bowles listened. Suh said the defensive coordinator was willing to test a new look, and the Bucs shifted into a two-high, Tampa 2 setup with two safeties deep. That gave Tampa Bay a chance to stay sound on the back end while still letting the defensive line do its job.
“He’s like, ‘Let me take a look at it.’ And so we came into the game plan and he said we're going to play two-high, Tampa 2.
Basically have two high safeties. And when we were going through this in practice, he was like, ‘I'm starting to see, I like this.
If you guys can stop the run in a soft shell, and you guys can also get after the pass rush, we will stay in this throughout the game.’ We end up winning that game 31 to 9.
Wasn't even close. And so being able to have a coach that was willing to change and adapt to some different things to understand what's best for the team, I think was key, but then also us being able to execute.”
That flexibility ended up being part of the story of the Super Bowl. Bowles, who was then the defensive coordinator, leaned into a different plan and got one of the most dominant defensive performances the game has seen. The Chiefs never found the end zone.
For Suh, the takeaway was bigger than one game. Bowles was willing to hear his players, adjust on the fly, and build the plan around what gave the Buccaneers the best chance to win. In this case, that meant a championship defense and a Super Bowl ring.
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