By Derek Lofand.
...And that is why they play the game. On Saturday New England was on the cusp of creating NFL history. On Monday they are the victim of one of the greatest upsets in NFL history. The New York Giants concluded their improbable Super Bowl run with a 17-14 victory. Here is my recap of the Super Bowl.
Super Bowl MVP: The voters got it right. Eli Manning led two 4th quarter touchdown scoring drives to win MVP honors. Honorable mention to the Front 4 of the NY Giants who kept putting pressure on Brady all day and disrupted their offensive flow. It would have been impossible to pick which lineman was more valuable. You could have gone a number of different ways as the NY Giants had many deserving candidates. Eli was as good of a choice as any as his poise in the 4th quarter saved the day. They are truly a team in every sense of the word.
LVP of the Super Bowl: Plenty of blame to go around. Laurence Maroney and his 14 carries for 36 yards was not what the Patriots were hoping for. Randy Moss and his 5 catches for 62 yards were good but not great. While Brady had 266 yards passing, no picks, and an 82.5 rating we have seen him play better. Samuels dropped a big pick. Other than Welker and Thomas no one had a really big day. But the LVP is definitely the offensive line. They didn’t open up holes for Maroney, Brady was sacked 5 times, and pressured countless other times. The result was that Brady was not able to go down the field and the Patriots couldn’t make the big offensive plays they needed for victory. Their 14 points was their worst offensive effort of the season and was caused by the pressure of the Giants.
The Mike Martz Award (Excellence in Coaching): I have to go with the Little Red Riding Hood’s decision to go for it on 4th and 13. I don’t mind aggressive play calls. However, I think that crossed the aggressive realm and bordered on the stupid. 1) Giving the team the ball at their 31 as opposed to their 38 was not going to change the complexion of that game, 2) It was 4th and 13 not 4th and 1. That is a very low percentage situation, 3) If he was that worried about field position have your kicker or QB pooch kick it to pin the Patriots back. My impression was that this was a Hall of Fame Coach that tried to get too cute and it might have cost him the game. While there were a lot of other big plays that happened in between that call and the final outcome of the game, that was a very bad decision and gave the Giants momentum. He should know better than that.
Hospital Visit: There were no serious injuries in the game.
Coaching Carousel: One consequence of the outcome of the Super Bowl game is that defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo is going to be pursued to take the Washington Head Coaching job. To the victors go the spoils and he improved his stock in the last 5 games more than any coordinator in the league. In Week 15 he would have generated very little interest. It will be interesting to see whether or not Daniel Snyder’s decision to hire the entire coaching staff before the Head Guy will play any role in Steve Spagnuolo’s decision.
Overall Impressions of the Week that Was:
1) My congratulations to the Giants fans and condolences to the Patriots fans – First off, congratulations to the NY Giants. They are a very deserving champion. To beat the 13-3 Cowboys, 13-3 Packers, and 16-0 Patriots on the road or at a neutral site is an amazing story. Those 3 games were decided by 10 points and produced 3 of the best playoff games in recent years. I also offer my condolences to the Patriots fans. I remember in 1997 how devastated I was when the Packers lost to the Broncos in the Super Bowl. I felt robbed of a repeat. I was robbed of the chance to see #4 get his second ring. People would have talked about the 1996-97 Packers with the Cowboys, 49ers, Steelers, and Packers teams of the past that repeated. It would have been historically significant for the Packer franchise. Instead the 96 Packers are remembered as a great one year team and the 1997 team was almost great. That was a tough loss to swallow. The 1997 Packers team was very good, but not undefeated good. I can’t imagine what it would feel like to be a Patriots player, coach, owner, or fan today. It has to be a very sick and empty feeling.
2) Was this the greatest Upset Ever? - I would say no. The 5 greatest upsets in all of sports in my opinion are 1) 1980 US Hockey team defeating Russia on the way to a Gold Medal, three Final Four games, 2) 1983 NC State defeating Houston in the Championship, 3) 1985 Villanova defeating Georgetown in the Championship, and 4) 1991 Duke defeating UNLV in the semi-finals, and 5) Buster Douglas defeating Mike Tyson. This just doesn’t top those in my book. Remember that Russia had destroyed the USA with the same squads earlier that year. NC State was going up against two future Hall of Famers and Nova was going up against Patrick Ewing and a dominant Georgetown squad. Neither winner had a great pro player. Vegas had beaten Duke by 30 points in the Championship Game just one year prior and Vegas was in the discussion for greatest college basketball team ever. Mike Tyson was the most feared Heavy Weight Fighter in the world when he lost to Douglas. He was capable of knocking anyone out seconds into the opening round. Those 5 underdogs were given no chance prior to that game. While the Patriots matched the dominance aspect of the other upset victims, I don’t believe the NY Giants were considered the type of underdog that was those other opponents. While they were an unlikely Super Bowl participant they had lost 38-35 to the Patriots just 5 weeks ago. That didn’t suggest this would be a blowout. While I thought the Patriots would win I was expecting a close game. Close games can go either way. I was not expecting a blowout like those other 5 events. In terms of Super Bowl upsets I think it ranks in the top five along with 1) 1968 Colts, 2)1969 Vikings, 3) 1990 Buffalo Bills, 4) 1997 Packers, and 5) 2001 Rams being the other victims on Super Bowl Sunday.
3) Was this the Greatest Super Bowl Ever? – This is annoying to me. Anytime a good Championship Game is played people want to race to call it the Best Ever. I think the greatest College Bowl Game ever has occurred in the last 5 consecutive years. Great and Greatest is thrown around too easily. I do not evaluate Super Bowls until at least 10 years after the fact. In my mind Super Bowls need the following things to be great, 1) It has to have been a competitive contest down to the wire, 2) It has to involve Hall of Famers on both sides of the football, and 3) it has to affect or shape the course of NFL history. In my mind the two greatest Super Bowls ever played were Super Bowl XIII between the Steelers and Cowboys and Super Bowl XXXII between the Packers and Broncos. Super Bowl XIII determined whether or not the Cowboys or Steelers would be the team of the 70s. There were Hall of Fame Coaches on Both sides. Hall of Fame QBs. Hall of Fame RBs. Steel Curtain vs. Doomsday Defense. 35-31 score. That game had it all. It is number one in my book. A very close second is Super Bowl XXXII as it determined a lot of things about the 1990s. While the Cowboys were the team of the decade the Broncos went on to claim back to back titles and prevent the Packers from doing so. Elway got his first Super Bowl win against another Hall of Fame QB in Brett Favre. The game snapped a long AFC losing streak in the Super Bowl and was the transition toward AFC supremacy in recent years. The 31-24 score was very competitive and the result was in doubt until the very end. While the XXXIV was an exciting finish, the Rams and Titans lacked a lot of those elements and is therefore lower on my list. Time has allowed that to play out. Unlike that game, this game has a better chance to join those super Super Bowls. It was competitive down to the very end. It altered the course of NFL history by ruining a perfect season for New England. If the Patriots fail to win another Super Bowl or the NY Giants go on to win another Super Bowl it is a pivotal point in NFL history as well. This might be the game that shifts the power back to the NFC. The game has the potential to join some of the other epic performances, but give it some time before jumping to conclusions. If it truly was an epic game history will reflect that even more in 10 years than it does the day after. No need to throw Greatest around the day after.
4) The effect on Legacies –
A) Brady – I think he is the least touched by this. I didn’t think winning this game would make him the best QB of all time. Therefore it would be unfair for me to say that losing it disqualifies him from that distinction. The damage is more in losing with an undefeated team than losing in the Super Bowl. Still he is only one player responsible. He isn’t Tiger Woods playing an individual game. This was about the good plays his team didn’t have time to make than the bad plays that cost him the game. However, this game showed a couple things to me. First, how many people want to still call me an idiot for saying that Randy Moss was the MVP of this season? The Patriots were averaging 41.1 points per game in their first 10 games. That dropped to 27.1 points per game in their final 9 games. The difference was that the league caught on to Randy Moss. In the first 10 games he had 66 catches for 1052 yards and 16 touchdowns. The result was the Patriots were more explosive than anytime in the Brady area. In the last 9 games he had 39 catches for 539 yards and 8 touchdowns. Good numbers, but not like the first 10 games. In the playoffs he disappeared and the result was the scores got a lot closer and there was more pressure on the defense. Unlike other teams Brady and the other Patriots were still able to win almost all of their games with their best offensive skill player’s production being limited. However, unlike the first meeting the Patriots were not able to produce the points they needed to beat the Giants. Wes Welker is a good player, but he can’t do the things Randy Moss does. He is not a game changing receiver. I am taking the same approach to Brady’s game as I did with Favre 2 weeks ago. He picked a day to not have his best game on a day when he needed to play his best. Part of that was his line and part of that was on him. While he was able to give the Patriots the lead with a little over 2 minutes left in the game there were too many plays left on the field by an offense that was capable of so much more. Brady is still an all time great to me; he just reminded us that he is human. While he now has a Super Bowl defeat on his resume and lost a perfect season he is only 1 player on that roster and that blame does not fall solely on his shoulders. His legacy is still very secure and he could still recover from this to be the best QB in NFL history if he continues to have great regular and post season success going forward.
B) Bill Belichick – He takes a lot harder hit for this. This may prevent him from being the best NFL Coach of all time. While he is still a Hall of Fame caliber coach he was chasing after immortality. The thing I question is going for it on 4th and 13 from his 31. Don’t go for it on a long pass when your line has shown no ability to protect your quarterback to protect 8 yards of field position. That was a bad decision at a key moment by a guy that should have known better. I can’t see Halas, Landry, Lombardi, Noll, or Shula making that type of decision in that big of a spot. There is a difference in being aggressive and foolish. Lombardi went for a quarterback sneak on 3rd and goal with no timeouts from the 1 yard line in the Ice Bowl. He didn’t go for it on 4th and 13. I don’t hold The Hood solely responsible for the loss or that decision as the biggest factor, but I don’t think he put his team in the best possible situation to win that ball game. What differs from Brady in this situation is that he didn’t have 4 defensive linemen rushing at him when he made that decision. He made a bad decision and had an average game plan in his biggest moment. The game plan did not work and he is as responsible as anyone for that. Fair or not, this loss will be used against him when discussing the greatest NFL Head Coaches of all time.
C) The Patriots Dynasty – This takes the biggest hit of all. Every dynasty lost playoff games. The 60s Packers lost the NFL Championship 17-13 to the Eagles. The 1976 Steelers lost the AFC Title Game to the Raiders. The 1986 49ers lost to the NY Giants 49-3. The 1994 Cowboys lost to the San Fran 49ers 38-28. That isn’t the problem. The problem is that all of those dynasties won with their best team. The 1962 Packers closed their season with a title. The 1978 Steelers won it all. Same with the 1984 49ers, 1989 49ers, and 1993 Cowboys. While the previous Patriots teams were great, this one was special. The other 3 Patriot Champions won by a single field goal. This one set an NFL record for points. They had a great scoring differential. It had the looks of an all time dominant team capable of delivering a 55-10 blow like the 89 49ers. It didn’t deliver against a team that was not an All Time Great Team. Instead of being in the top 5 for Greatest Teams ever the 2007 Patriots are contending for the Greatest Single Season Team not to win a title. Furthermore, the Patriots weren’t exactly clicking on all cylinders in the playoffs like a 1985 Bears or 1989 49ers. Had they won this game they would have been in the discussion with those other dynasties but not had the signature wins the 85 Bears or 89 49ers had. By losing the Super Bowl they have nothing. That doesn’t mean their other 3 Super Bowls are meaningless. That dynasty is still secure. They are still above the 70s Cowboys, 80s Bears, 90s Packers and Broncos, or some of the other teams that had good runs but didn’t get the hardware these Patriots received. However in going up against the 60s Packers, 70s Steelers, 80s 49ers, or 90s Cowboys there is no margin for error. This loss prevents them from reaching that lofty status.
D) Eli Manning – I’m not sure what this does for his legacy, because legacies are hard to establish in year 4. On the one hand he is no longer a first round bust like he was 5 weeks ago. He was an intrigual part of a Super Bowl team that drafted him. On the other hand, the defensive line is going to be remembered for this dominating run as much as he is. While he put up solid number throughout the postseason they were not out of this world. The fact is that all Super Bowl QBs have help in winning it all. It is a team game. Manning took the most difficult step, which is to win a title. Now he needs to put together a solid regular season. As he starts to build those his legacy will only continue to grow. If he reverts back to 20 TDs and 17 interceptions it will not diminish what he achieved this postseason but will continue to hinder him from joining the elite QBs.
5) Mercury Morris needs to get a Life – Most of the 1972 Dolphins are pretty classy individuals. They should be proud that their achievement is still in tact. However, I am sick of listening to some of the members of the 1972 Dolphins, most of all Mr. Morris. First he was not a Hall of Famer or even the best player on his team.He is a 3 time Pro Bowler and 1 time All Pro. He had only one season of 1,000 yards rushing and two seasons with double digit touchdowns. He had 21 carries for 68 yards and 0 touchdowns combined in the Dolphins two Super Bowl wins. While he was a key contributor for the 72 Dolphins it would be the equivalent of John Taylor or Brent Jones talking trash about how great the 1989 49ers were in the playoffs. Know your role!
Second, even though the Dolphins had the most successful regular season I don’t think many people consider them the single most dominant team for one year. They played a schedule that featured opponents with an under .400 winning percentage. They beat 2 teams with winning records in the regular season. They did not dominate the playoffs. Most people consider the 1962 Packers, 1978 Steelers, 1985 Bears, and 1989 49ers to be more dominant teams. While the 1972 Dolphins will always have a place in NFL history for their extraordinary single season achievement no matter what anyone does going forward; get a life. Let other people talk about your greatness don’t do it for us. If you are going to talk about it send out the Hall of Fame Head Coach or Larry Czonka, not Mercury Morris. Stop making up songs and acting like an unemployed stand up comic in a last ditch effort to become relevant after the fact. While he had a nice NFL career, Mercury Morris is becoming more famous for behaving like a spoiled child the last month than anything he did on the football field. It is unfortunate that he has turned into a bitter ex football player dying to stay in the spotlight.
A Look Ahead:
This closes this column for this season. What a terrific one it was. Again, congratulations to the New York Football Giants on their Super Bowl title. I have enjoyed reading your comments through out the year. Keep checking back for free agency, draft, and other relevant NFL news. In a few months the predictions for 2008 will be in full gear and we can engage in the debate all over again.
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