Super Bowl 53.......

With 10m left in the game it was 6-3 and the Rams D was gassed.  Runs were getting a lot more successful.

For all the hype for the Patriots, for a game this close I think a lot rests on Goff.  On one crucial play Romo showed a receiver doing a deep wideout from the right sideline to the middle of the field.  Man, he was WIDE open.  Then again, I guess these kind of things happen to all QB's.  Then you have Goff basically throwing the ball to the defender for the late INT.

Of course, before that play was the deep ball the receiver needed to catch for a TD.

For all the love the Pats got (and deservedly so), I would have liked to have seen what Brees may have come up with.

Great Pats defense.  Great Rams defense (that got gassed eventually).  Goff very underperforming.

NE did the same thing to ATL in the second half for their big comeback win.  Run a ton of plays that keep the sticks moving and by Q4 the seas part.

All those gushing over Brady and dumping on Goff need to consider how each QB would have looked had they traded places.  Goff missed some open receivers and took some sacks but he also hit some really tough throws.  His WR's were rarely as open as NE's were.

Rams D did the best job of anyone in the playoffs getting to Brady...couple sacks, couple knockdowns...that didn't happen in their previous games.

McVay the Genius didn't look so jeenyus...not establishing the run cost them the game.

I think McVay would have looked a lot better if he had a QB. Goff played like an absolute rookie, and a sixth-rounder at that.

Speaking of Super Genius McVey, has he ever said why Gurley stood on the sidelines so much?

Chongo posted:

Rams D did the best job of anyone in the playoffs getting to Brady...couple sacks, couple knockdowns...that didn't happen in their previous games.

McVay the Genius didn't look so jeenyus...not establishing the run cost them the game.

Todd Gurley has to be hurt. If not, then McVay is an idiot and I don't think that's true. If he was healthy, he should have had 35 touches last night.

The reason the Rams offense worked so well is that teams schemed to stop Todd Gurley. Against the Packers he had 31 touches. Last night in a close 3 yards and a cloud of dust type game he had 11. It wasn't just the rushing attempts, he was virtually absent from the passing game all during the playoffs. He had 4 catches for 5 yards during the 3 playoff games. This from a guy who averaged 4-5 catches a game in the regular season for about 50 yards a game.

If Belichick wasn't worried about Gurley, then play action really doesn't work well. And the Rams WRs are fine, but neither Woods or Cooks is good enough to have to devise a scheme to stop and their TEs are pedestrian. The whole offense flows through Gurley. Jared Goff is a league average QB who looks much better when teams fear the run and shot passes to Gurley. Just like Dak Prescott and Elliott on the Cowboys.  

Hard for any QB to look good when the DB's are running your WR's routes for them.  That said, plus BB confused Goff but he still completed some really tough throws that Brady didn't have to make.  Brady was worse on anything that wasn't wide open.

The crazy and frustrating thing is with the set up NE has where an OL keeps the QB as clean as they do, Brady could actually keep doing all he needs to do until he's 50. 

We were in Boston last November for a wedding and on that Sunday the Patriots had a bye. Walking around the Back Bay area in a trendy fashion district brownstone neighborhood on Newberry Street there was a line of about 100 people waiting to get into a store. I asked a guy why. He said "Julian Edelman." Walked past a window and there he was, greeting fans inside, posing for pictures. 

https://www.newburystboston.co...shop-newbury-street/

Wish he was on our team. Guess that store is gonna do well.

Edelman was not invited to the 2009 NFL Combine. At his March 12 Pro Day, he ran the short shuttle in 4.01 seconds; the fastest time at the Combine that year was 4.03 seconds.^[18][19]

The New England Patriots, who had conducted private workouts with Edelman before the 2009 NFL Draft, selected him with the 27th pick of the seventh round (232nd overall), ahead of Michigan State quarterback Brian Hoyer, who joined the Patriots as a free agent. Several analysts suggested that the Patriots may have selected Edelman for his potential in a Wildcat formation.^[20][21] On July 16, 2009, Edelman signed a four-year contract with the Patriots that included a $48,700 signing bonus.^[22]

mrtundra posted:

BTW, did anyone else who watched the game notice all the empty seats? My son noticed it before halftime. Couldn't Blank sell out those seats for the Big Game?  I wonder if Goodell noticed.

I kept getting emails about game ticket prices tanking....

Grateful that the Eagles won last year so the Pats didn't get three Super Bowl wins in a row.

You just cannot bet against a Belichek squad when they face a team and QB that is new to the big game environment.   We’ve seen this time and time again that playoff experience (over talent) wins out in these situations.  The other factor is you give the Pats enough time to prepare and chances are they are going to come out on top. 

The way to beat New England is don’t allow them to get the 1 or 2 seed so they have to play 3 playoff games and at least 1 or 2 road games.   There’s a reason they’ve made the Super Bowl so many times and that is I’ll bet 80% of their playoff games were played in Foxboro.  They just do lose there. 

YATittle posted:

mrtundra posted:

BTW, did anyone else who watched the game notice all the empty seats? My son noticed it before halftime. Couldn't Blank sell out those seats for the Big Game?  I wonder if Goodell noticed.

I kept getting emails about game ticket prices tanking....

The Rams have no fan base whatsoever. There were a lot more Patriot fans than Rams fans there yesterday, but I wouldn't call Pats fans overzealous with their support.

I lived in Boston for 5 years in the 90s before the Patriots and Red Sox went on their successful runs. Back then, the entire city had a victim complex when it came to their sports teams. Part of the fact that even more Pats fans didn't attend is that they become so used to success that they are jaded. The other part is that while the Pats are popular in Boston, Foxborough is 30 miles from Boston and the team is arguably the third most popular with the locals. The Red Sox dominate and then the Celtics are probably still a bigger topic of conversation than the Pats. The other thing is that high school and college football are not that big in New England in general. BC is the only college D1 program and they aren't even that popular in Boston. Football is just not as much a part of the culture as it is in other parts of the country.

I lived in Massachusetts for close to 30 years.  It may have changed, but historically Red Sox have always been #1 with the Bruins a strong #2.  Before Bird came along, I don't know, but after his arrival, football may have been #4 as preferred professional sports teams.

Actually, I have no idea where bruins rank these days.

A great read about how BB throttled the Rams.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...m_term=.54e78ec7a598

GreenBayLA posted:

Is 13 to 3 a blowout?  Today it was.

Game had a weird feel to it...Rams seemed out of it when it was 3-0.

Nice to see defense beat offense ... especially after the NFL has given every possible advantage to the offense via the ever interpretive changes made to the rule book. 

If they hadn't lost Chung they may have shut LAR out.  Or if Legatron wasn't Legatron.

Then again, losing one of your best players on D doesn't have the same effect on NE's D as it does on most others.

Son had to work yesterday so we caught the replay after he got home. It really seemed like McVay tried to simplify the offense to try and take pressure off Goff but it had the opposite effect. 

Great example was a huge play with 4 minutes left before the half on 3rd and 2 on the NE 47. Rams ran a simple 2 route pass play with max protect. Once NE saw that the back wasn’t going to release they simply blanketed  2 routes with 4 and released everyone else to get Goff. 14 yard sack. I’m sure the intent was to give Goff two reads to keep it simple. Total disaster on a key play. If you’re not going to run the ball on 3rd and 2 you have to come up with something far better than a 2 man route against Bill B. That’s making things far too easy for him. 

Excerpt from article above:

Patriots players knew to expect two weeks of intensive study. Belichick does not use a set system. He has a basic set of fundamental tenets, but he alters strategy weekly based on his opponent’s features and flaws.

“We switch every week,” Patriots safety Devin McCourty said in the locker room after the game. “We don’t just do something because that’s what we do.”

You mean we do what we do is not done in Patriot land?

Gonna close with this final thought on the SB. Other than Bill B the greatest influence on yesterdays game was the Pats OL which played great all year. And was simply incredible last night. Only one player on the Pats OL was drafted higher than round 4. Brady is a pocket statue and was only sacked 20 times in 2018. 

Dante Scarnecchia is the best OL coach in the NFL. And that’s saying a lot given how great Mike Munchak is. 

Hard to accomplish anything without a really good OL. 

ChilliJon posted:

Gonna close with this final thought on the SB. Other than Bill B the greatest influence on yesterdays game was the Pats OL which played great all year. And was simply incredible last night. Only one player on the Pats OL was drafted higher than round 4. Brady is a pocket statue and was only sacked 20 times in 2018. 

Dante Scarnecchia is the best OL coach in the NFL. And that’s saying a lot given how great Mike Munchak is. 

Hard to accomplish anything without a really good OL. 

And they lost their long time left tackle and did not miss a beat.

25 days until the first NFL Combine workouts.

Great game!  Whorrible halftime!!

BB is the best ever.  He out coached this one by a mile.  

Nice to see that plug Lawrence Guy again.  He must feel so badly to have been released by Packers and then play in all those Super Bowls.

I'd rather see Buddy Guy:

Or maybe Guy Smiley:

Best headline today: Patriots 13  Maroon 5 Rams 3

They got that right!

I'd give Maroon 5 a -eleventy billion and I didn't even watch halftime.  Prince ruined it for everyone.

Like I say, there's a reason I listen to the games on the radio.  They had an interview with Joe Namath, although even they played part of the music set.

Speaking of Broadway Joe, saw the CBS interview with him during the pre-game broadcast. He still looks great at 75. NFL players typically don't age real well, depending on the position the play and the beating they take during their playing years. Joe's still sharp, witty, and lucid..

DH13 posted:

I'd give Maroon 5 a -eleventy billion and I didn't even watch halftime.  Prince ruined it for everyone.

McCarthy, McVey... McDumbasses doing that thing they do.

Exactly. 

Ubetcha posted:

Speaking of Broadway Joe, saw the CBS interview with him during the pre-game broadcast. He still looks great at 75. NFL players typically don't age real well, depending on the position the play and the beating they take during their playing years. Joe's still sharp, witty, and lucid..

When he isn't drunk & coming on to female reporters 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc65NC44dSk 

Hungry5 posted:

McCarthy, McVey... McDumbasses doing that thing they do.

Ubetcha posted:

Speaking of Broadway Joe, saw the CBS interview with him during the pre-game broadcast. He still looks great at 75. NFL players typically don't age real well, depending on the position the play and the beating they take during their playing years. Joe's still sharp, witty, and lucid..

He probably hadn't found the open bar yet.

DH13 posted:

I'd give Maroon 5 a -eleventy billion and I didn't even watch halftime.  Prince ruined it for everyone.

From the Onion:

Super Bowl Halftime Show Marred By Functioning Sound System

Hungry5 posted:

McCarthy, McVey... McDumbasses doing that thing they do.

What McVay tried doing can work if you have the personnel to win their 1-on-1's on a regular basis. It worked for SEA's D in their heyday, worked for MM for a while too while he and Dom had the horses.  McVay's mistake was in thinking he did have the personnel to accomplish that goal.  He probably would have been right vs. anyone but BB and he found out the hard way.  

This thread has become like listening to Romo.