Kovacevic: Wait, the quarterback's allowed to just fall on a loose ball?

The center's snap was too high for Tom Brady to handle, and the ball sailed a few yards behind him. This was the third quarter of Super Bowl LV and, for the most part, a fumble still would've hurt the Buccaneers' cause.

So Brady, still fueled by more fire than any 43-year-old anywhere should have, sprinted back to that ball and fell on it.

That was it. He fell on it.

Visual evidence:

No fretting over whether he might be bulldozed by a bunch of very large, very angry men. 

No fear. 

No flat-footed finish.

Nothing at all like this:

My goodness. It floors me that Ben Roethlisberger -- and James Conner, for that matter -- didn't catch more flak for that fiasco. 

Comparing any player at any position to Brady will be a fool's exercise for the foreseeable future. With the Buccaneers' 31-9 complete cutdown of the Chiefs last night in Tampa, Fla., he became not only a 10-time Super Bowl participant, not only a seven-time champion, not only a five-time MVP, but also the single greatest football player who's ever taken to a field.

No hype there. It's not about like or dislike. It's about achievement. No one's achieved more, and to add to that at his age in an all-new environment ... it's beyond words.

It's also not an accident that Brady falls on that ball. Nor that he was a supremely efficient 21 of 29 for 201 yards and three touchdowns.

He keeps himself in famously extraordinary shape, and he's adjusted both his conditioning and nutrition to age. Not a couple weeks before camp, but all 365 days of the cycle. He takes snaps under center, not religiously out of the shotgun. He'll keep it for the occasional sneak. And yeah, when presented with a new playbook and a new coach who required -- no, demanded in Bruce Arians' case -- that he had to throw downfield because that's life in the modern NFL, he met that challenge, too.

I won't take this much further. Not sure it's needed.

But I'll close with this: I'm OK with the Steelers having a 39-year-old quarterback ... if that 39-year-old quarterback is the one making the adjustments to what his team needs, rather than the other way around.

More Monday morning quarterbacking on the last such occasion we'll have for a few months:

• Not to be that guy, but between this and the Lightning winning the Cup, Kevin Cash's decision to take the ball from Blake Snell somehow just got that much worse. Imagine one market winning a championship with all three of its major-league teams in the same year.

• Antonio Brown caught a touchdown. He also got a ring. I'm unmoved by either, but I'll feel very differently if forced to stomach any nonsense about redemption. This man's done some terrible things.

To his within-context credit, he steered clear of that sort of thing after the game, largely crediting Brady for recruiting and believing in him: "Tom is a great guy. He’s been in my corner since Day 1. A big brother to me. Took me under his wing. ... Being a year out without football made me appreciate it more. I’m just grateful to be at this point right here and to finally be a champion."

Whatever.

• Wasn't Le'Veon Bell supposed to play in this game, too?

• If Brady were an actual NFL franchise -- and that's not out of the question at this point -- his seven Super Bowl championships would be one more than the Eagles, Bears, Jets, Saints, Rams, Cardinals, Falcons, Panthers, Lions, Vikings, Chargers, Texans, Jaguars, Titans, Browns, Bengals, Bills and Seahawks ... combined.

• With respect to Brady, the key to Tampa Bay's stirring success over the Chiefs was being able to utilize a four-man defensive rush against Patrick Mahomes, penetrating the banged-up Kansas City line and pressuring him a Super Bowl-record 29 times despite sending an extra rusher only twice. He wound up 26 of 49 for 270 yards, two picks and, for the first time since high school, his team failed to produce a touchdown.

“My dad lost in the World Series in his career,” Mahomes said, referencing Pat Mahomes' 2000 trip with the Mets. The elder Mahomes pitched out of the Pirates' bullpen in 2003. “He continued to battle and continued to be who he was. Obviously, it hurts right now. It hurts a lot. But we’re going to continue to get better. We have a young group of guys that have had a lot of success and have learned from that. We’ve had a few failures, and we have to learn from that. We can’t let this define us.”

We'll see. Lamar Jackson didn't want to be defined by his tough losses, either, and he's still working to break the blueprint.

• Brady credited his defense, too, stressing that the Buccaneers' playoff victims were, in order, Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, then Mahomes: “They stepped up to the challenge. You go up against a guy like Pat, an incredible player, and Aaron, MVP. And Drew. They rose to the occasion. We needed it, because these were extremely talented offenses.”

Thing is, Tampa Bay's defense was always pretty good. That just wasn't as evident when Jameis Winston was throwing 30 picks and keeping them on the field all the time.

• Man, if you can't be happy for a human's human like Bruce Arians ...

• I can't and won't get broken up about T.J. Watt falling just short of Aaron Donald for the NFL's Defensive Player of the Year. The vote was so close, 27-20 for Donald, that only four minds needed to be changed out of the 50 total. Nothing's diminished about T.J.'s performance, his career trajectory or, for that matter, his pathway to Canton. If anything, being that close to the game's generational defensive talent -- and having it play out so publicly -- will only burnish his brand toward the latter.

Spare me any statistical arguments. They play different positions with different roles and different expectations on different defenses. The voters had every right to choose one over the other when even those statistics are close.

Me, I'd have voted for T.J., but that'd come accompanied by the inherent, human bias of having watched him live and in person for every game he's ever played in the NFL. I appreciate his greatness in a way not many other writers can, and he'd absolutely have been deserving of DPOY.

Look, he's 26 years old. And as T.J's told me himself, he doesn't see himself as being anywhere near a completed product. He keeps learning, keeps improving, and there's zero cause to expect those will be reversed in 2021. Or 2022. Or 2023.

• For the record, there were no Pittsburgh voters among the 50 total selected by the AP.

• Also feel this is important, too: Donald's born and raised in Penn Hills, he blossomed at Pitt, and now he's among the greatest defensive performers in NFL history, in addition to being a model citizen. That's a hell of a point of pride for our region, for our brand of football.

• Call me crazy, but I feel like the Steelers have an obligation to continue surrounding T.J. with great talent. Much more than any obligation they'd have to Ben. That's why I'll continue to insist defense should remain the cap priority this offseason. Keep Mike Hilton and Cam Sutton, and give the very best effort toward keeping Bud Dupree.

The offense can complete endless quick slants with or without JuJu Smith-Schuster, and it most definitely can finish 32nd in rushing with or without Conner.

• Ben's got no right to call his shots. Not anymore. Not at age 39. Not after he spent an entire season refusing to throw downfield. Certainly not after a three-interception first quarter in a playoff game.

My respect for the man's achievements are overflowing, but for him to essentially lobby management to keep JuJu mere minutes after that loss to Cleveland ... that's bordering on delusion.

The Steelers need to do what's best for the Steelers. And that's keeping an elite defense intact.

• Same goes for the contract. There's no reason to expect there'll be any issue with whatever extension and/or deferments the team and Ben work out to avoid his obscene $41.25 million cap hit in 2021, but again, do what's best for the Steelers.

• I have a very, very strong feeling Maurkice Pouncey won't be back. I'm talking very, very, very.

• For all the righteous frustration over the years that Alan Faneca and Bill Nunn were left out of the Hall, consider now how spectacular a sight it'll be this summer in Canton to have one, two, three, four, five Steelers inducted into the same class, since Troy Polamalu, Donnie Shell and Bill Cowher had to wait a year for coronavirus. And it'll be set, ideally, amid a sea of black and gold.

Jutted right from the Jaw:

• All of which will be bad news for Hines Ward. Because now, yet again, we're going to begin hearing about Steelers fatigue as it relates to the Hall.

• Much complaining in many quarters about Clay Matthews' time on the Hall ballot expiring, and that's understandable if I don't see him as a Hall-level performer. But the complaining only goes so far, since fans have almost no idea who's making the selections or why. Same goes for the Hockey Hall of Fame, where the voters are known to the public but not the process. Only baseball keeps it accessible and accountable.

• The more I hear about Adrian Klemm, the Steelers' new offensive line coach, the more I'm wondering why he was ever Shaun Sarrett's assistant. He's far more qualified.

• The Steelers' top positional priority in the NFL Draft probably should be center, but there's no one anywhere forecasting any center being taken in the first round, much less a Pouncey type who could make an immediate impact the day he pops up in Latrobe. The worst first-round pick is a forced first-round pick, so this is a no-go.

My personal preference?

Quarterback.

No such thing as too much talent at the position. And here again, Ben's got no right to call his shots anymore. Besides, Aaron Rodgers was peeved when the Packers took Utah State's Jordan Love at 26th overall, and Rodgers wound up responding ... you know, OK.

• The sooner everyone associated with the Steelers -- or even those who follow them -- stop fussing about windows being open or closed, the better it'll be for all concerned.