Congrats to the Giants
I’ve been wrong about a lot of things, but Eli Manning was at the top of the list. Today, he (and Manningham) made the plays, and Brady (and Welker, although that really wasn’t a very good throw) missed two pivotal opportunities, and that was a difference. Great game, which for those of us without strong rooting interests is the most important thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ki-w4KYpnuw
JzB
Quite a game. I think the Giants might’ve had a higher score, if they’d thrown the ball more (esp. in the 1st half). And it took their D a looooong time to start putting pressure on Brady.
But they made the plays when it counted, and NE didn’t.
… And I’m trying to think when I’ve seen one side concede a TD like that. N.b. that had NE not given up the safety, NY would’ve *had* to have the TD.
Never like that – that was just SOOOO obvious. I mean, it was clear that the NYG runner (Bradshaw?) didn’t even want to score but had no choice because no Patriot was willing to come within 5 yards of him.
However, it reminded me of Denver-Green Bay when Davis scored the last TD in a very similar situation without any challenge from the GB defense. Later, Holmgren confirmed that he had ordered his defense to allow the TD score to give his offense enough time to score back (they didn’t). Holmgren was remembering a loss earlier that season in which the other team (Seattle?) ran down the clock and kicked a last second FG, and wanted to avoid a repeat.
It was a smart move by Belichek. But when it happened I recalled a comment I made at the end of the 2006 season AFC championship when Indy went up by 4 and NE had the ball for one last drive – namely, that Brady’s “last minute clutch” reputation is built mostly on field goals kicked by Vinateri. Down by more than 3 he’s actually very human.
Am I allowed to think that the Giants played a good game and deserved to win, but totally fucked up their clock management there at the end?
There is nothing else a rational person could think.
But Chris Collinsworth said that there was nobody in the business better at clock management than Tom Coughlin and the Giants!?!
Oh…
I mean, I do want to be fair; if someone hands you the football and you bolt for the end zone and NOBODY STOPS YOU, it is a lot to ask a professional footballer to NOT run it in for a touchdown. Every instinct you have shrieks at the wrongness of it.
But it is the responsibility of the Coach and the QB to structure their plays so as to entirely preclude that possibility. When you’re at 1st and Goal, with a minute left on the clock, in this situation? You kneel three times and kick the field goal from what is basically extra point range, effectively ending the game.
I shouldn’t bitch, the Giants still won, but my Dad isn’t as young as he used to be and there was no reason to make him watch Tom Brady get hold of the ball with a full minute and a time-out to work with.
It’s not just that, there’s the two timeouts that the Giants blew earlier in the half to avoid delay-of-game penalties. And then it was good for the Giants that they were as close as they were to the SF goal line in overtime of the NFC championship two weeks ago, or the delay-of-game penalty that they took there might have been more important.
There’s a business case to be made for creating a time-management coach position with the authority to call time outs.
While I generally agree with you on this there is the honking example of the Baltimore game vs. the Pats two weeks ago.
Belichek is the master of the 3 point super bowl victory. Since letting Vinateri go in free agency in 2006, however, he’s gone 6 years without a championship. Obviously, using correlation and ignoring causation, Vinateri is the reason the Patriots won those three super bowls.
That’s a joke, btw. However, that is the sort of logic that people use to crown Montana or Brady or Walsh or Belichek, probably now, Eli Manning and Coughlin, as the “greatest ever”. You know that if that last hail mary had bounced around and been caught by a Patriot that right now all the northeast football media, led by Peter King, would be declaring Brady as the greatest QB ever.
You mean, like how Peter King wrote that Tony Romo isn’t clutch because the Dallas Cowboys’ kicker missed the easy game winning field goal?
Nothing is worse than being subjected to Peter King, but the Drew Magary FJMs of King’s column every week almost make up for it.
That idiot also botched a hold on a game winner in another playoff game. Blaming Romo for his kicker missing a FG is dumb, but Romo has given us plenty of evidence that he is a huge choker with a series of mindblowing f*ckups in 4th quarters.
Heard from Bob Costas just before I logged on (paraphrased): “If the Patriots had won, Bill Belichick and Tom Brady would be in the conversation for greatest of all time. Now it’s Tom Coughlin and Eli Manning.” Jeez, talk about your what-have-you-done-for-me-latelies. Why can’t it be both?
How soon they forget. But for a dropped pass and a fumbled punt this SB would have been between SF and Baltimore.
But it’s always been thus. Parcells is a god because he won two SBs – never mind that the second one was because of screwups by his opponent in both the NFCC and the SB. We still hear about how Brady won his first 10 playoff games – forgetting the tuck rule game at the start of the streak or the fact that New England’s defense was their strongest unit during the 2001-2004 period.
Belichek is the master of the 3 point SB victory. In his 5 SB games the margin of victory, either way, was 3,3,3,3, and 4. This is a guy who builds strong teams and tends to win the close games, yes, but does that make him the “greatest of all time”????? Contrast that to SF, Dallas, and Pittsburgh, who thrashed playoff opponents at least twice as often as they won close games.
But, let’s face it, the sports media has a very strong NY-Boston bias – with oddly a special place in their heart for the Cowboys – and so those teams will always be given extra credit.
When I compare the Brady/Belichick era Patriots to the Super Bowl teams from Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Dallas, what leaps out is the huge talent gap. Just check the Hall of Famers on those teams. Then consider that other than Brady, these Pats haven’t really had many superstars.
Are you telling me that Antwain Smith isn’t a first ballot HOFer?
Hey, he’s got as many rings as Manning!
yeah. that is a silly argument. Free agency leading to parity means there is no collection of hall of famers on one team.
And there’s also an element of tautology, because playing on a dynasty helps you get into the Hall of Fame. Lynn Swann would be nowhere near Canton if he had spent his career with the Seahwaks.
Hey! But he would have deserved it nonetheless.
Gimme a break. His list of comparables contains no Hall of Famers. If every receiver who was very-good-not-great in a relatively short career was inducted, there would be a no room for anyone else.
there are two reasons i hate the salary cap: one is that it favors the owners over the players in the distribution of the revenue and the other is that it makes team greatness impossible.
now, the older dynasties of course hung onto their players through an exploitative system, which i miss not at all, but still: they could keep all their good players and with a salary cap, you no longer can.
new england’s earlier super bowl run is probably about as good as we can expect to see under the current system.
that said, lynn swann had some of the best hands of any receiver ever: it’s true that if he’d played for that era’s seahawks he probably wouldn’t have been noticed nearly as much but it’s also true if a player showed up today with lynn swann’s route-running and hands, he’d be catching 80+ passes a season ad be targeted 120 times a season.
If every receiver who was very-good-not-great in a relatively short career was inducted, there would be a no room for anyone else.
I love it, Yogi.
Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.
JzB
If you saw him play, you wouldn’t be harping about short careers and dynasty teams. the guy was really really good, and I’d put him in the hall on style points alone.
PS: Why do you hate USC????????
AAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Also too, if Belichik doesn’t trade up enough to snag e.g. one of the LSU corners, someone needs to punch him in the neck.
They also need to get serious about getting a wideout who can restore their vertical passing game. The pick wasn’t a good throw by Brady but throwing bombs to an excellent but in this game barely ambulatory TE far from ideal.
Yeah, it’s amazing how much mileage they get out of two TEs and a possession receiver. Even just a fairly good burner would do them wonders.
Exactly. They don’t need a superstar deep threat. They don’t even need a very good deep threat.
Just a decent one.
The bad throw to Welker was the killer, though. Welker’s a good receiver, but there was no need to turn him into an acrobat there.
Agreed 100%. Welker seems to be getting the blame, but it was just a bad throw. Brady had time and he couldn’t have been more open; no way he should have even had to leave his feet.
I think Welker is a victim of his own success here. He truly is a terrific receiver and routinely makes tough catches. That he COULD have made the play more often than a very small number of receivers in the world is obscuring the fact than she shouldn’t have had to. Brady missed the throw, not by a lot, but by enough.
Slow down there. That catch wasn’t that difficult. He had to rotate his body but the ball was well within reach, he had plenty of time to see the ball coming, he didn’t have to worry about keeping his feet in bounds and there was no interference from the defense. I’d give most starting WR in the NFL better than even odds on that catch. But turning him into Buckner, well that’s Boston for you. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving fan base. I thought Gronk’s refusal to go back for that bomb and at least prevent the INT was a far worse play because it implied a lack of effort, or at least, clarify of thought.
Slow down there.
From what? All I said is that it would have been a tough catch, and he’s an excellent receiver who makes that play more often than all but a few. Or do you dispute either of these assertions?
I’d give most starting WR in the NFL better than even odds on that catch.
The NFL has tons of brilliant athletes and skilled receivers, but… no, I can’t agree. The list of guys for whom that ball is a 50/50 proposition is pretty short, and Welker’s on that list.
Definitely seeing several Facebook posts where people are ready to give Welker the Bill Buckner treatment. I’d say it was at least 80% Brady’s fault.
To be fair, that pick was at least 99% about the throw. If you’re going to throw that ball to that spot, you need to throw it over the top. Brady either threw it to the wrong spot or *really* underthrew it.
Dude, the defender had 94 on his jersey. It was a terrible throw, but it was because Brady was moving around in the pocket and didn’t have enough arm to lead Gronk once he finally got the ball off. But I still think it was the right play by Brady (short of noticing the coverage earlier and unloading much sooner). Gronk needs to go back for the ball (which he had ample time to do), not wait for it to come in and hope the defender can’t jump. A jump ball between your best TE and a DL for a huge play is a great play for the offense.
Yeah, the guy with the high ankle sprain should have spun on a dime and then jumped like a kangaroo.
Did you read that post before you hit the button?
If Brady couldn’t get that pass on the button he had no business throwing it.
I won’t comment on the game (other than a grudging “good game Giants”), but I would like to comment on two things.
First, this year, the commercials just sucked. I mean, there wasn’t a single funny or memorable one (other than the Doritos commercial with the dog). Although I am a sucker for Coca-Cola polar bear adverts.
Second, Madonna…You know, I love Madonna. I have seen her live in concert twice. But there just seemed to be a lot lacking in her halftime performance. Of course, it looked like she was lip synching most of the time. I mean, it was better than previous halftime shows, but Madonna works best when she does things that are really outrageous. When she is restrained, it just doesn’t work as well.
Well, I’m not a Madonna fan, but let’s face it, most of the time the fans of the “classic” acts (Stones, Who, McCartney) are disappointed. Heck, even Springsteen was just so-so. I think it’s the venue. As for lip-syncing, the problem has to do with the sound delay reaching the audience in those big stadia. In the old days it didn’t matter, since those in the nosebleed seats couldn’t see the lips moving anyway. But with the megatron screens these days the performers are forced to try to match the sound that the people will hear a second or so after it’s made. Not an enviable task.
Prince, however, was sublime.
And Michael Jackson, of whom I am also not a fan, had the performance that transformed the SB halftime show from “up with people” and similar acts to what it is today.
I was never a fan of “Up With People” or the really atrocious half time shows they had from the mid-1970′s to the mid 1990′s. However, apparently in the really early Super Bowls, they just had college marching bands. I think marching bands would be a great half time show. It’s “football-y” and it would give a lot of kids a opportunity to be on a national stage who otherwise would never get that chance.
I very, very vaguely remember when TV actually showed those marching band halftime shows, before replacing them with the football pundits and replays. To be honest, they were really boring.
I would much rather see Southern U.’s marching band than anyone they have had in the last 10 years at least
The Human Jukebox in the house!
Also Carol Channing, in 1970.
Prince was definitely the best halftime show in memory.
You can’t beat ‘Purple Rain’ in the middle of a South Florida squall.
Agreed. The Doritos one was good, as was the one with the cheetah. After that…
I really don’t get Budweiser. Everyone loves the Clydesdales and the frogs. So where were the Clydesdales and the frogs?
Normally you can count on Bud to have at least a couple of great commercials, but all they had was boring shite.
The Clydesdales were in that lousy Prohibition commercial.
Why didn’t the cheetah guy just get into the damn cage and close the door?
Yeah, the commercials were blah, except for the ones with dogs in them. And Madonna was b-o-r-i-n-g. I’d rather see the cheerleaders do some pole dancing. But seriously, a national college band competition to choose two bands for the halftime would be a definite improvement.
Don’t forget the Giants had three fumbles but didn’t lose any.
Of course, in a close game there’s so much that could have changed the outcome. Manningham’s catch was great but also burned a Pats time out. Both Manningham and Bradshaw had clock blunders at he end, then the Pats drop two passes.
A football game this close relies on a lot of very close plays – and thus luck is a factor. Recovering all those fumbles helped the Giants. The call on Brady for intentional grounding in the first quarter – technically correct but unusual in a playoff – really helped the Giants, too, but the missed PI call on the Patriots – an extremely obvious one too – on 3rd and 10 in NE territory in the 4th quarter was a big help to the Patriots.
In the end this game was what I call a “virtual tie” – someone had to win it but neither team demonstrated a clear advantage. As expected, the Pats offense was better than NY’s, but NY’s defense was better than NE’s. At the end NY had the ball, made one very big pass – by the skin of their teeth – then used short plays to get within FG range as the quarter game near the close – NE chose to allow the TD in hopes of getting a TD in return, but NE’s offense had lived almost entirely off of the short game all day, so when they needed big chunks of yards they couldn’t get them. Impressive getting that 4th and 17 completion, to be sure, but it was too little too late.
What did you expect the refs to do? Brady was in the pocket in the end zone, he was under pressure and he threw the ball to a spot where the nearest player was a Giant about 5-10 yards away. That’s about as clear a call as there can be and doesn’t require any sort of judgement.
Oh, I totally agree with the call. Just pointing out that in the playoffs they often don’t make that call.
Consider how in the playoffs this year the refs seemed to forget that grabbing the face mask is a penalty, even though many of them were extremely blatant.
I don’t understand the “let ‘em play!” philosophy that seems to exist in all contact and semi-contact sports and says that certain rules don’t apply at critical moments of tight games.
I don’t either. I mean, in an OT hockey playoff game you have to practically commit murder to have a penalty called on you.
However, there is one situation where I do agree with ignoring the written rules, and that is Pass Interference on a Hail Mary.
I don’t think Eli Manning was very good at all. He was just good. If he was elite, they’d have scored more points in the first and first half of the second.
I agree that Eli is a good quarterback and not an elite quarterback.
However, when the football commentators are blathering on about how great a quarterback Eli is in the fourth quarter and how many come from behind victories he has, I wonder if they ever think, “you know, if Eli was better in the first three quarters and scored more points, maybe he wouldn’t need to come from behind so often.”
See also Roethlisberger, Ben; Tebow, Tim.
In contrast, with John Elway the reason that he so many 4th qtr comebacks is that his coach wouldn’t trust him to actually be the QB until desperation time.
But in this case while we shouldn’t overpraise Eli (although the NY-centric media clearly will) at the same time let’s not be overly critical. His weakness early on was his failure to react better to pressure, in fact he was lucky not to fumble more than once. But more often than not his pass decisions and accuracy were great, and he avoided making really bad plays. All in all a strong performance.
Yuhp. He had a fair number of bone-headed plays, and most of the big pass plays were receivers making spectacular catches. On par with the rest of the season.
and most of the big pass plays were receivers making spectacular catches
…
…?
Right. The QB has nothing to do with that.
When the QB throws a bad ball and puts it in a spot that’s tough for the receiver to catch, and the receiver catches it anyway, it’s primarily the receiver’s skill that results in the catch, not the QBs. This happens with Eli a fair amount, and it happened a fair amount in tonight’s game.
When the QB throws the ball to a catchable position, but the receiver has to do things it’s difficult for receivers to do like make tight-rope moves along the sideline and maintain control of the ball while falling to the ground and getting hit by defenders, it’s primarily the receiver’s skill that results in the catch, not the QBs. A lot of QBs can routinely make that throw to Manningham that set up the final touchdown, but even elite wide receivers have trouble doing what Manningham did to catch that ball.
I didn’t think this stuff was controversial.
I thought that was a very good throw to Manningahsm, not a routine one.
It was a good throw in the sense that his footing wasn’t quite right and he was still able to give his receiver a chance to catch it. But Manningham was pretty open, and it was a bit of an overthrow.
Is there anyone besides Alex Smith among this year’s top 11 QBs that you wouldn’t expect to make that throw? If you expect a third of the starting QBs in the league to make the throw . . .
After Baltimore lost in the AFC Championship, I noted in a comment that Joe Flacco was the 18-22nd best QB (or something like that) and a couple people said I was an idiot. Turns out that Flacco’s passer rating was #18 this year.
Yeah, a lot of people have a weird blind spot about Flacco for some reason. I think it’s the fu-manchu.
Your case is not as strong as you’re making it out to be. Rivers could make that throw, but he also does a lot of other dumb stuff that makes it harder for his team to win. That was a very good throw by a QB who also didn’t make any significant mistakes during the game. Being able to do both of those things is what makes an above average or top 10 QB into something more like a top 5 QB, which is elite.
It was an excellent throw. Great play by Mannigham, too, but Eli had to put that into a tight spot where it couldn’t be picked. The Tebow comparisons are ridiculous.
Eh. The only way it could have been picked is if it was badly under-thrown (like that deep Brady pass that was picked off). The thing adding degree-of-difficulty points is the feet not being set. Even so that’s a throw you expect a top-ten QB to make pretty regularly, isn’t it?
In any event, I’m agreeing with the above commenter that Eli played a good-not-great game, and when you say he outplayed Brady that’s probably accurate. What keeps it from a “great” performance were a fair number of bonehead throws and completions where his receivers bailed him out, which is SOP for him. There were also a couple times when Patriots defenders probably should have made an interception but messed up their footing and couldn’t get it.
But Eli still played a good game, and I don’t see how anyone can construe what I wrote as claiming it was anywhere near Tebow-esque.
“completions where his receivers bailed him out…”
Watch more NFL football games before evaluating relative talent in the future, please. Thanks in advance.
of course it was a frickin’ excellent throw: what planet are some of these commenters on? he had one precise window to put the ball in and he put it there.
more broadly, eli as a game in, game out quarterback is probably still not quite at the brady-brees-rodgers-peyton level (he probably still forces balls more so than any of those four), but jeez louize: he puts the ball on the money, he uses all of his receivers, and we’re getting to a pretty good sample size that his quality of play improves when the game is on the line.
yes, he’s a damn good quarterback (and next year, btw, i expect the giants to run some 4-receiver sets that could be fun), and yes, 4th quarter comebacks don’t mean everything but they do mean something (and yes, you can need a 4th quarter comeback for many other reasons than a failure of your quarterback in the first 3 quarters – after all, it wasn’t eli who let brady complete 16 in a row on those two td drives).
What annoys me is a) the way people insist on some form of hierarchical quarterback rankings all of the time, as if that illuminates anything and b) the way the “non-elite” quarterbacks get held to a mythical standard while mistakes made by the Brees-Brady-Peyton-Rodgers group are routinely ignored. Sunday is a great example: Brady misses two critical throws, one of them resulting in an interception after a Favre-esque chuck down the middle to a gimpy TE, while Eli makes a perfect pass down the sideline. But Brady is still Tom Terrific, and I’ve even seen Giants fans on this “sometimes Eli makes bad throws” bandwagon. Well of course he does. Everyone does. They just don’t tell you when Brady or Brees does it, because that doesn’t fit the broadcaster/writer narrative.
I thought the G’s ran the ball too much, but the bottom line is, which QB got the points when he needed them?
Manning has an uncanny ability to fire the ball into coverage and put it right where it needs to go, this while about to be sacked by very large men.
So unless “elite” means “having 10 or 12 seconds for leisurely contemplation of which wide-open receiver on whom to bestow the pass” ….
40 throws at 7.5 yards a crack and no picks is damned good, and he definitely outplayed Brady.
Especially in crunch time. Brady couldn’t move it at all when it really mattered… the slightly-to-moderately bad balls mad e the receivers have to make better plays than they should have had to, at which point the confidence of the receiving corps plummets and the drops set in. The exact thing happened to my Packers, except that confidence and rhythm collapse was set off by their R- corps’ leader going out for the last three weeks… though Rodgers as well made bad throws in the playoff loss.
Obviously, this takes the G’s defense out of the equation, which i don’t mean to do… the height & athleticism of their line has a lot to do with these inaccurate throws. They played an important role in both offenses’ troubles. But some of it was unforced execution errors as well in both cases.
yeah, if Brady hits Branch on their first play of the final drive, there is a good chance the Patriots win — over midfield with nearly 50 seconds left favors the Pats.
I agree that Brady wasn’t as sharp as he might’ve been on that drive and at other points in the game. The throw where he spun Welker around was particularly bad. But watch the replay of that pass to Branch; the window was actually very small. Collinsworth was right, I think, that if Branch had just stopped in that pocket it would’ve been an easy completion, but instead Branch set them up for a very difficult attempt.
The Patriots lost this game in the first quarter, essentially handing the Giants 9 points with Brady’s awful safety and the defense’s inept response. The Patriots put together three consecutive good drives after that. It would’ve been four, but the deep interception ended that and they never got back track.
Incidentally, I’m not sure why Al Michaels blamed the interception on Gronkowski’s ankle instead of the obvious culprit: Drew Bledsoe, who apparently substituted himself in so he could hurl the ball across his body and underthrow it perfectly to give his own receiver juuuuuuust less than no chance at a play.
Yeah, I agree; Gronkowski’s injury mattered because it wasn’t a good throw. Same thing with the Welker drop; he could (and should) have made the play, but Eli was making more accurate throws in much tighter spaces.
That throw across the middle that got tipped and that Deion Branch couldn’t grab was also a bad throw by Brady. Hernandez’s, well, that was a drop.
Can;t give it a “should have,” Scott. I thought so, too, in real time, but the replay showed me that Welker would have had to have been an athlete and a half to make that adjustment.
Yup, as I said above you’re right. Watching the replay I’d downgrade that to a “could have.” That one’s on Brady all the way.
Agreed. The huge space Welker was in makes it initially look like he should have made the catch, but in fact it shows that the throw should have been much better. It would have been a tremendous catch as it was thrown, but the fact is, neither the throw nor the catch if both had been made as well as they should would have been nearly as impressive as the Manning-to-Manningham sideline wonder, which was a perfect, even nearly impossible, play on BOTH ends. That contrast between those two plays encapsulates this game.
You’re also very right that the Gronk injury is being way overplayed in the INT… It was a badly underthrown ball, and a bad decision in any case b/c of the injury and b/c Brady wasn’t set to make a strong enough throw. He should have tucked it and picked up 5 yards aon the play and counted himself lucky given how narrow (and impressive) an escape he’d pulled off a second before. That is, if he had that in his game.
…Did either QB rush for a single yard, come to think of it?
Now I’m looking at it again and I’ve got half a foot or more back in the Welker-should-have camp. But it doesn’t change the rest of the analysis. A number of other bad balls out there from Brady; though some of them also should have been caught, he was definitely out-passed out there by Manning – outplayed generally.
Well the Pats certainly knew at the time what kind of shape Gronk was in. But if your best TE can’t go up for a jump ball against a DL, you’re in bad shape. Brady probably knew that he didn’t have anything better than a jump ball when he threw it and I was fine with that decision. Problem was Gronk didn’t jump.
Except it was far underthrown for it to be a jump; it was right at the trailing defender. Gronk was in the defensive position of a DB playing contain. It really wasn’t a jump ball. Even on a bad leg I think Gronk has a shot at real jump ball. And it was underthrown because Brady threw under duress (he was set, but did not have time a full throw execution). That’s why it was a bad decision.
and we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that from a giants perspective, i’ll see you welker and raise you the earlier ball to manningham down the right sideline, where he faded too much (and we won’t even bother to discuss the uncalled pass interference).
I’m really looking forward to a schadenfreude feast when Simmons puts up his column about this one.
It’s unfair to compare it to Giants-Pats in ’08, but I didn’t think there was a nanosecond of tension or excitement in tonight’s game. You just had the sense that, even though NE managed to (mostly) figure out the Giants’ pass rush by the second quarter, the Giants were simply outplaying them and that it was a matter of time before they would take control and win.
Belichik’s vaunted reputation for drilling fundamental soundness into his teams should take a big hit as well. 12 men on the field to negate a fumble recovery inside the red zone is beyond inexcusable, and in a SB no less.
And what else can you say about Coughlin other than that he’s just one hell of a coach? Takes a 10-6 team to one of the biggest upsets in SB history in ’08, and then a 9-7 mystery show (that lost twice to the frigging Redskins) to six straight wins and a second SB.
We must not have watched the same game. If Brady throws a better ball to Welker or Welker makes that catch, the game’s outcome might have diverged from your pre-determined course. While I recognize that the world is powered by the gods of irony, if the Patriots had won this Super Bowl their Olympian influence on trivial matters of sport would have been darker than a Chris Hedges’ meditation on war. This year’s offense was simply not comparable to the ‘07 unit (the dangerous tight ends notwithstanding; while Gronkowski’s unfortunate injury only emphasized the absence of a deep threat like Moss), and the two defenses were not even remotely close.
I do agree, however, that Belichick’s genius reputation is in need of some revision (as is Brady’s rep for clutchness). BB’s had lots of draft choices and opportunities to build a better defense these past four years and it hasn’t happened. Of course, there will be some observers who will probably think he’s brilliant simply because he could get to the SB with that unit.
As usual, I agree entirely with jeer9.
That Chris Hedges line is good.
there will be some observers who will probably think he’s brilliant simply because he could get to the SB with that unit.
Of course, the statement itself reveals its own absurdity to the extent he has control of who comprises the unit.
Well, like many coaches, he is a much better coach than GM.
I’m not comparing the two teams with four years ago, I’m comparing the quality and excitement of the game. Maybe the Pats ice it if Welker makes that catch, maybe they don’t. But there just wasn’t anything remotely close to the back-and-forth of the 4Q in Giants vs. Pats in ’08, or the significance of the Giants upsetting an 18-0 team.
That season was my favorite ever and the best Super Bowl ever. The Pats quest for the unbeaten was such a compelling story line, and there were some great Sun/Mon night games late season.
About a decade ago, this year’s game might have ranked among the better SBs, but the games have gotten so much better. I am pleased to see that for all the talk of offense this year, the last three games were tight defensive battles.
The Patriots were very lucky to get to the SB. I did not think they could have beaten the Steelers (who dominated them during the regular season match-up) or a Houston team with Schaub. They were certainly outplayed by the Ravens and backed in. That being said, I thought they were fortunate to be matched against the Giants as Brees or Rodgers would have had a field day against that defense. I would have been deeply shocked had they stopped Manning on the last drive as that hadn’t happened all year. Still, I think this loss, like the ’07 upset, falls squarely on the offense/planning. (They had to have known Gronkowski was not going to be at full strength, but then that realization would have forced them to push the run which they never do because Brady’s so fucking goooooood. God, I hate the open backfield.) Christ, the Niners scored 17 on the Giants.
Saint Mary’s Girls School could have beaten the Steelers. I hate Pittsburgh with the passion that only a seattle fan can muster, and even I felt a shred of pity for those poor old men in their shoulderpads and rolling walkers.
Polamalu looked like he forgot his Alzheimers meds, A QB in a size 27 shoe to hold all the tape… They never had a prayer of winning that game.
I agree somewhat. For a Superbowl decided in the last seconds, it was boring. To me, the Giants out-adequated the Patriots.
This. The opinion of my entire SB party. Of course, we had no rooting interest, taking the Gs only because we wanted the 9ers to look better.
I actually enjoyed the game quite a bit, but I love this line, 75% agree, and may purloin it in the future.
A common meme in Boston sports bitchery circles: The Pats GM has continually let the Pats coach down, seven zillion draft picks notwithstanding.
It used to be said that Parcells never won a SB without Belichick on his staff. The sort-of corollary is also true : Belichick never won a SB without Parcells’ players.
Oh, how joyous to have very talented, very young wideouts who have not yet become head cases. Enjoy it while it lasts, Giants.
Cruz may not become a head case. Coming from 1AA (UMass) and not being drafted (and also being shut down by a bad defense in the SB) keeps one humble.
you know that pathological giants fan when he brings up ramses bearden as a potential breakout receiver next year for them….
Weakest Pats team in a SB since ’85 against the Bears. Giants weren’t exactly giants, neither.
Right, the Packers should’ve been there, or the 49ers … oh wait, the Giants beat them, too.
I thought it was a pretty boring game for the most part, played by two good but not great teams, the only real excitement coming from the close score.
Overall, this was kind of a crappy year in the NFL, with injuries taking too big a toll across the board and the late resolution of the labor dispute producing too many mediocre games in the first part of the season. And Tebowmania.
Y’all can say what you want about Eli.
To steal Patrick Roy’s classic line: he can’t hear you, because his two championship rings are blocking his ears.
That’s quite an odd way of wearing them.
*shrug* Wasn’t my idea
In case anyone’s curious, the average scoring differential between winners and losers is now down to 14.35 points.
show your work!
My brother used to say that the Superbowl was only good if the Cowboys lost. Not only did he hate the Cowboys, but the only close ones, as of XV, were the three the Cowboys lost.
All this learned commentary and no mentions of the Curse of Josh McDaniels? If d still walked these halls this wouldn’t be the case.
Those two dropped passes after the Giants touchdown were the final nails in the coffin. Giants receivers made their hard grabs, Patriots receivers didn’t make theirs. End of story.
To me, it wasn’t really real until I heard the guns going off. Thank you, Brooklyn.
Oooh! A group of talentless millionaires beat another group of even less talented millionaires to earn a few hundred million for a cartel of government-welfare socialist-billionaires!
YAY, AMERICA!
Talentless millionaires don’t play in the Super Bowl. They run for the GOP nomination.
Talentless millionaires don’t play in the Super Bowl. They
run for the GOP nominationplay for the Redskins.All football players are talentless, else they’d either be MLB or NBA players or play in the Barclay’s Premier League (in the case of kickers).
Most of them would be mopping floors in schools, in a just society.
And take jobs away from the students?
My point is that they’d have been left behind, ad infinitum. I should have made it clearer. Sorry.
I don’t understand how anyone can enjoy watching a game with as little intellectual component as soccer.
You try kicking a ball thirty meters with exactly the right backspin to place it out in front of a speeding striker, then tell me there’s no “intellectual component”.
Beats “hand ball to guy who dives into pile of other guys,” hands down.
There is absolutely no intellectual component to kicking a ball the right way. It’s certainly a skill, but it has absolutely nothing to do with understanding what’s happening on the field, strategizing, reading events in the middle of the action and reacting appropriately, keeping a dictionary-sized playbook straight, or…well…anything at all that happens above a human being’s shoulders. It’s a purely physical act.
Yeah, no. You have no idea what’s going on a football field. In a straight-ahead, one-cut, between the tackles run, the running back is doing the least mental work of anyone in the game. The linemen, the QB, the fullback, the TEs, and even the receivers (who might or might not have been running routes designed as options that the QB decided not to take) have all engaged in more mental activity between the last whistle and the end of that running play than a soccer player does in a half.
joe from lowell, no one can make you appreciate the intellectual component of soccer – in fact, it’s hard for me to think of a more purely cerebral thing in team sports than barcelona playing – but the fact that you don’t think there is one is your ignorance, not soccer’s lacking.
Joe may be wrong about soccer, but he’s clearly right about American football, and actor’s anti-intellectual stance is really weird.
oh yes, no denying that contemporary pro football is a very cerebral endeavor as well (when it isn’t a brutal one, causing long-term brain damage for many).
Actor’s point wasn’t just that football wasn’t intellectual, it was that it takes no talent to play, which is even stranger. I suspect he’s just trolling the thread and we took the bait.
howard,
Nor in shot put.
…and to the extent that soccer has an intellectual component, it certainly has nothing to do with having good ball control when passing: kicking a ball thirty meters with exactly the right backspin to place it out in front of a speeding striker
Maybe my rightwingery is talking, but I like dynasties. I like to see greatness. All this parity, revenue sharing, etc smell like Communism. That is a very bad thing, in case earnest Robert Guevara contingent here doesn’t know. So the Giants didn’t even deserve to be there. They should know their place.
And why doesn’t the NFL put Gisele in a box seat and record her every reaction? Tennis totally does this and it makes the game so much more compelling. Like with Federer’s sweetie, Anna Wintour…a ruthless ice princess who makes for a great feminist hero. I think Camille Paglia has a point about Madonna being one too. She seemed a tad off last night though. Disappointing game all around.
I was pleasantly surprised, actually, that NBC didn’t follow the Fox example of constant celebrity searching/fluffing. One of many things to hate about Fox.
Celebrity fluffing may be a dirty business, but since someone has to do you might as well go with a Foxy fluffer.
Maybe my rightwingery is talking, but I like dynasties. I like to see greatness.
It’s a wonder you’re a conservative, then.
Think of it as liking to see one-sidedness.
It’s exceptionalism to pick fights with and beat up Girl Scouts.
Modern conservatism is the opposite of meritocracy.
I’m oddly not-crushed. I was more disappointed in 2008 (when they didn’t go 19-0), in 2009 (when the New England Matt Cassels tied for the division but didn’t make the playoffs), and in 2010 and 2011 (when they choked horribly in their first playoff games).
Hey, the Pats on the AFC again and went to the Super Bowl again! Awesome! But you can’t win them all.
I’d rank Eli Manning as about the fifth-best player on the Giants’ offense.
I’d rank Cruz, Manningham and Nicks as better than Manning, and Turner and Bradshaw about equal to him.
Which is not to say Manning is a bad QB; he’s clearly a very good one.
I just want to say that I while some dislike Brady’s over-the-top excitement over every touchdown, I prefer it to Eli’s nonchalance even after winning a championship. I want to feel that the players’ value of the thing is intense enough to justify my interest, and I don’t always get that from Eli – wasn’t getting it last night (though some of the other Giants definitely give me that, in particular Tuck). And I also feel that Brady’s statement that he’d prefer to keep getting to the Super Bowl and losing than to not get there (even though losing the SB is understood to be a pretty devastating experience) shows a profound respect for the game. It’s worth noting that, whatever hit his & this Patriots team’s reputation takes after this loss, it really wouldn’t have taken an equivalent hit had they lost at some earlier point in the playoffs.