GOLDEN VALLEY, Minn. — There's always plenty of hype with each Super Bowl, and with hype comes storylines. This year is no different.
Both the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Kansas City Chiefs have top-ended offenses, paired with game-changing playmakers on defense. This will also be the first time a team hosting the Super Bowl will be one of the teams playing in it – Tampa Bay.
But there's no denying what this year's main attraction will be: Patrick Mahomes vs. Tom Brady.
Mahomes is a young dynamic quarterback who has taken the NFL by storm with his no-look passes and playmaking ability, while Brady is in the later stages of perhaps the greatest playing career in NFL history. The ultimate showdown between youth and experience.
As these two players undoubtedly steal the spotlight when they step onto the field Sunday for Super Bowl LV, and while neither player ever suited up for the Minnesota Vikings, it's worth noting that each of them have ties to the Land of 10,000 Lakes.
Sports fans may have recognized Mahomes' name when he burst onto the scene as the NFL MVP in his first season as a starter. Mahomes' father, Pat Mahomes, was a former pitcher for the Minnesota Twins from 1992-1996. Many have probably seen a picture swirling around social media of the younger Mahomes donning a Twins jersey while in his father's arms at the Metrodome.
Despite the younger Mahomes being born while his father was still pitching for the Twins, he never grew up in Minnesota. He was born and raised in Texas. But he still found his way onto the field – albeit a baseball field – at the Metrodome, where the Vikings played their home games from 1980 to 2013.
The year Mahomes was born, Brady was a freshman at the University of Michigan.
He was a three-sport high school athlete out of California, but growing up, Brady spent his summers on his grandparents' farm in Browerville, Minnesota.
“He was our little hyperactive kid,” said Brady's younger cousin Paul Johnson in an interview back in 2018. “I remember him throwing baseballs and busting grandpa’s windows.”
Luckily for Brady, and his grandpa, Brady's accuracy improved and now he's on the verge of capturing his seventh Super Bowl ring.
Standing in the way of that, the son of a former Twins pitcher, who spent four-plus seasons with Minnesota.
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