Super Bowl 2017

Woody Hayes famously disparaged the forward pass because “three things can happen, and two of them are bad” – i.e., incompletion or interception. After the Atlanta Falcons’ stunning collapse before the New England Patriots, their coach Dan Quinn might want to add three more reasons not to pass: 1) a sack and 2) a holding penalty back-to-back knocked the Falcons out of field goal range with five minutes to play, holding an 8-point lead that would have been insurmountable had they run two plays for no yardage and then converted a 36-yard field goal. On their prior possession, 3) a strip sack on a second-and-1 play gave the Pats the ball and good field position to reduce their 16-point deficit to 8.
The strip sack not only led to a Patriots touchdown, it inexorably signaled a total shift in game momentum. New England had indeed started a comeback of sorts by holding Atlanta to three-and-out on their initial second-half possession; and after Atlanta scored its fourth, and last, touchdown the Patriots answered. But when their PAT attempt bounced the wrong way off the goal post, you still had the feeling that this was not New England’s day. Their next drive produced only a field goal, leaving the deficit at 16, with the fourth quarter melting away. The strip sack changed all that; and for anyone who thinks “momentum” is little more than a sportswriter’s fiction, this Super Bowl’s second half should convince otherwise.
It is easy to second-guess the Falcons’ play-calling: dialing up a long pass when a routine run would have netted a first down exposed quarterback Matt Ryan to the Patriot rush that produced the strip sack; and once the Falcons advanced to the New England 22 surely a conservative approach that ensured a field goal was called for, especially as Atlanta’s passing attack was sputtering and it took a sensational catch by Julio Jones to get there. The irony is that play-calling was the responsibility of Kyle Shanahan, the lauded offensive coordinator who was on the verge of moving to San Francisco as head coach. Not a good exit.
Most, if not all, of the credit for New England’s remarkable comeback is going to Tom Brady, hailed as the greatest quarterback, and maybe football player, of all time (the “GOAT”). There is no way to measure the psychological impact of his leadership, but I would point out that his physical performance was well short of impeccable. In the first half he threw an interception that was returned 82 yards for a seemingly crushing touchdown. Several long passes missed open receivers, and most of his completions were short- or mid-range. At least two of his passes on crucial fourth-quarter drives could have been intercepted, including a fade route in the end zone and the pass over the middle that Julian Edelman made the miracle catch on, after it bounced off defenders’ hands and legs.
At the same time, he received remarkable contributions from numerous teammates. Unheralded running back James White not only scored 20 points (a record) but was almost never brought down by the first defender he encountered. Brady’s offensive line firmed up in the second half – in contrast to Ryan’s – giving him time when one sack would’ve ended the comeback. His receivers, shaky in the first half, caught everything in the second. And the biggest plays, as mentioned above, came from the defense, stripping and sacking Ryan. Without Dont’a Hightower, et al., Brady wouldn’t have had the ball.
Last, but not least, is Lady Luck. The Falcons never saw the ball in overtime because the coin toss came up ‘heads,’ and the Patriots, for two years, have never called anything but.

0 replies

Leave a Reply

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *