TAMPA, Fla. — The stage is set in Tampa for a historic Super Bowl LV: Super Bowl Sunday has arrived.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have been practicing in the shadow of Raymond James Stadium for the past week, maybe a small advantage for the home team; the Kansas City Chiefs arrived in Tampa late Saturday afternoon.

On one side, you have perhaps the greatest quarterback of all time in Tom Brady, and his resume speaks for itself: 6x Super Bowl Champion, 3x league MVP, 4x Super Bowl MVP, with more accolades that will no doubt cap off a first-ballot Hall of Fame career, looking for his first Super Bowl with Tampa after 20 seasons with the New England Patriots.

On the other, Brady's heir apparent, Patrick Mahomes, who would be the first Black quarterback to lead his team to back-to-back titles – and the first QB to pull off such a feat since Brady himself in 2003 and 2004.

The Chiefs are looking for back-to-back Super Bowl wins against a Brady-led Buccaneers team playing a Super Bowl on home turf, a first for any team.

"There’s a lot that comes along with the Super Bowl," Rob Gronkowski, 3x Super Bowl champion and Brady's longtime running mate, told The Associated Press. "There’s a lot that comes along with this week. I’ve been there before. I’ve experienced it all before. But just having it at home, cutting out the travel, knowing where you can stay, where your friends can stay, where you family can stay, it just makes it a lot easier to have it at your home stadium, big time."

The head coaching matchup also looks to be a great one: Andy Reid vs. Bruce Arians, two offensive-minded coaches that understand the high-scoring modern NFL well, meaning this game could be a high-scoring barn burner.

Unless either team's defenses have anything to say about it.

Tampa has, perhaps, the best linebacker corps in the league, in Lavonte David, Shaq Barrett, and Devin White, plus Ndamukong Suh and Jason Pierre-Paul up front, making for a potent defense.

But don't rule out Kansas City's defense, with All-Pro safety Tyrann Mathieu, linemen Frank Clark, and Chris Jones, led by defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, a two-time champion defnsive coach with the Giants and Chiefs.

The top-seeded Chiefs rolled through Cleveland and Buffalo to make it back to the title; The Buccaneers won their Wild Card game against the Washington Football Team and went on to beat the Saints and the Packers for the opportunity to stay home and play in Tampa. 

The home field advantage though is presenting challenges, specifically the chance thousands of Bucs' fans could flood areas outside the stadium.

Tampa Police Chief Brian Dugan said all major roads leading to the stadium shutdown Saturday afternoon.

"The reality is, if you don't have a ticket to the game, you are better off not going anywhere near the stadium,” Dugan said.

Super bowl pre-week was different this year: Many NFL Community outreach events happened online; The NFL Experience was free, but only a select amount of fans were allowed in; And an outdoor mask ordinance was even enacted by Tampa Mayor Jane Castor for all Super Bowl related events.

"Our local elected officials have really made safety a number one priority for us," Mayor Castor said.

Santiago Corradda, CEO of Visit Tampa Bay, said the number of people traveling in for Super Bowl LV, much smaller thanks to limited seating for the game, 22,000 will get in compared to a normal Super Bowl of 75,000.

But even with a much smaller crowd tonight, both teams can celebrate a great season, especially with what it took all season long to reach Tampa.

Their payoff?

A shot at the Vince Lombardi trophy tonight.

"You don’t get these opportunities every year in the NFL to be in the Super Bowl and to be in these games,” Mahomes told the AP. "So you don’t want to look back and have regrets on how you played or how you went about the week before preparing to go out there to play your best football."

"When the end of your career is done, then you can kind of look and see where those moments were in your career where you could’ve had something or that you executed and you did go out there and achieve your dreams," he added.