A Super Bowl We'll Never Forget

Well holy shit.

I’m not sure what else there is to say. I wasn’t particularly excited coming into this Super Bowl, expecting it to be a rather uninspiring game and another victory for the Patriots. Obviously, I had no idea what the hell I was talking about. Not only did the Eagles win, they did so in one of the most thrilling games in NFL history.

High scoring games get all the love, but a lot of times they can be just as sloppy as low scoring contests. That certainly wasn’t the case with this Super Bowl. There were of course a few blown coverages and a fair number of missed tackles, but there was also a lot of exceptional offensive football, players making spectacular individual efforts to keep the ball moving down the field.

Last night saw 84 points scored and 1151 yards of offense. The latter is an NFL record, not just for a Super Bowl or a postseason game but for any game. There were turnovers, fourth down conversions, clutch field goals, missed kicks, and pretty much everything except punts. I’m not going to try to jam this into a single cohesive narrative, so instead here are a few of my thoughts on what happened.

Nick Foles

Any conversation about the Super Bowl needs to start with Nick Foles. The winning quarterback is often the MVP of the game by default, winning unless he has a truly mediocre game or someone else plays spectacularly. But in this Super Bowl that was certainly not the case, as Foles was the best player on the field the entire night.

When Carson Wentz went down for the Eagles late in the season, most people gave the team up for dead. We saw both the Dolphins and the Raiders roll over in the playoffs a year ago, and by now it’s been pretty much accepted that a team’s season is over as soon as their starting quarterback gets hurt.

It’s easy to say now that we may have been hasty in dismissing Foles. After all, he’s a veteran with a lot of starting experience and a history of playing at an extremely high level for short bursts. And even though he looked atrocious the last time he was on the field, we saw this year from Case Keenum and Jared Goff how much escaping Jeff Fisher can help a quarterback.

But his performance during the regular season did little to inspire confidence, completing less than 60 percent of his passes with an average of 5.3 yards per attempt after taking over. The Eagles narrowly beat the Giants and the Raiders, then got shut out in a meaningless Week 17 game to the Cowboys. And even in a win over the Falcons in the first playoff game Foles did little to inspire confidence.

The quarterback we saw over the past two games is a completely different player. He was confident, he was bold, and he repeatedly pulled off ridiculous throws. The touchdowns to Alshon Jeffery and Corey Clement were perfect down the field throws. He dropped another touch pass over Jeffery’s shoulder later in the game, and he hit a dart up the seam on Philadelphia’s final touchdown drive to pull them into scoring range. He had one interception that wasn’t his fault, resulting only after an uncalled defensive pass interference and Jeffery’s attempt to make a one handed catch flipped the ball to the defender. Every other pass he threw was exactly where it needed to go, and the Eagles moved the ball consistently because they could count on their quarterback to make these plays.

New England’s defense isn’t good, and we knew there were going to be opportunities down the field. The Eagles hit them early, but all game I was expecting them to make a mistake. When their defense looked like they had no hope of stopping the Patriots, it seemed like it was only a matter of time before Foles missed an open receiver or held onto the ball for a costly sack. But he was flawless the entire night, and he needed to be for the Eagles to pull this one out.

Doug Pederson Stays Aggressive

Coming into the game it seemed pretty clear where each team had the edge. The Patriots have the greatest coach of all time and one of the best quarterbacks in NFL history, and the Eagles had the edge pretty much everywhere else on their roster. There was no way we could have predicted that not only would Foles outplay Brady, but Bill Belichick would also end up outcoached by Doug Pederson.

It’s no secret that NFL coaches are almost without exception far too conservative. The downside of taking a risk is much greater for their job than it is for their team, as any decision that backfires will undoubtedly be held against them. They punt when they should go for a first down, they kick extra points when they should go for two, and they very rarely manage end of the game situations properly.

Pederson has been a refreshing change of pace over the past couple seasons. The Eagles have one of the stronger analytics departments in the league (to some extent a holdover from the Chip Kelly era), and Pederson trusted those analytics when they came to him before the season and told him to be more aggressive. The Eagles went for it on fourth down more than any other team in the league this year, and they kept that up in the Super Bowl as well.

You only need to look at three crucial fourth and ones to really see the difference in this game. The first came to New England early in the second quarter, facing a fourth down on the Philadelphia eight yardline. With only a yard to go to set up a first and goal, the upside of the conversion was tremendous. But they elected to send out their field goal kicker for the sure thing, a sure thing that fell through when the holder fumbled the snap.

The Eagles faced two similar fourth down situations later in the game, and in both cases they were rewarded for making the decision the Patriots didn’t. The first turned into the play that will be replayed for decades to come, the throwback touchdown to Foles to opened the game up before halftime and kept the Patriots from pulling off their typical two-for-one scoring opportunity. In that case, going for the conversion made even more sense, since even failure would have pinned the Patriots at the goalline and likely cost them any chance of scoring before halftime.

The second situation was a much more interesting call, and one that I think very few coaches would have made. Trailing by a point and facing a fourth and one on their own 45 with six minutes remaining in the game, the Eagles kept their offense on the field and converted to keep the drive alive. That drive turned into the touchdown that ultimately won them the game, and it never would have happened if they had followed conventional wisdom.

Most coaches would have given the ball back to the Patriots, trusting their defense to stop them and get it back with enough time to go down and score. Of course, Philadelphia’s defense hadn’t stopped the Patriots yet all night, and in all likelihood a punt would have only added a couple plays to New England’s ensuing scoring drive. Philadelphia’s aggression paid off, and hopefully it will lead more teams to being aggressive in the future.

When Play Calling Gets Cute

People love to tear apart play callers for dialing up something fancy when good, old fashioned football could have worked. The Falcons should have just run the ball last year. The Seahawks should have just handed it off to Marshawn Lynch. And on fourth and goal from the one yardline, the Eagles should have just trusted their offensive line rather than dialing up some ridiculous throwback to the quarterback.

Er, scratch that last one. It worked, and so it became a brilliant play call, one that will earn Pederson credit as a football mastermind for years to come. It could just as easily have backfired, if the defense got penetration, if someone covered Foles, if the pass was missed or the catch was dropped. Oftentimes execution is the difference between a coach being “brilliant” and “too cute”, and on the biggest stage things broke Pederson’s way.

They did not break Belichick’s. Three times during the game the Patriots dialed up similarly unique play designs, and all three times they blew up in their face. The most obvious was the decision to call almost the exact same play as the Eagles earlier in the game, throwing the ball back to Brady.

It seems insane to try to throw a pass to a 40 year old quarterback, but the play design actually worked perfectly, and with a better throw and more luck on the catch it could have easily turned into a twenty yard gain. The play call was made on a third and five, and they knew from the beginning that if the pass didn’t work out they would go for it on fourth down. That they ultimately failed to convert doesn’t take away from the fact that they were in a perfect situation to try a high upside play, and they very nearly pulled it off.

I have a few more questions about their call on the play immediately preceding the failed field goal attempt. Facing a third and one, they elected to run a jet sweep to Brandin Cooks. That play didn’t make a lot of sense to me, taking the ball out of Brady’s hands while trying to outflank a speedy and aggressive defense. Of course, the play call didn’t have much to do with Cooks’ ultimate decision to ignore the ten yards of open space on either side of the defender and choose to try to go over him, but it was still strange to put him in that position to begin with.

The final perplexing moment came with a minute left in the game. The Eagles kicked off, and the entire stadium held its breath in anticipation of another potential amazing comeback for Brady. And the Patriots decided that some of their precious time was better spent trying to run a reverse to Rex Burkhead, which ultimately pinned them at the nine yardline with 58 seconds remaining an no timeouts.

Any of these plays would be easy to dismiss as blunders, but if they had worked out they would have been works of unparalleled genius. Belichick called for a pass to Tom Brady—Tom freaking Brady—in the Super Bowl. Belichick, always the master of the special team edge, pulled off a huge return on a reverse in the final minute of the Super Bowl. Being cute with a play call is just another risk, and often the only difference between a masterful call and a boneheaded mistake is the execution on the field.

What is a Catch?

It wouldn’t be an NFL game without at least one controversial play, usually involving a disputed catch. And in this game we were fortunate enough to get two, both involving Eagles touchdowns. Midway through the third quarter, Foles launched a perfect pass to running back Corey Clement that he appeared to possibly bobble before going out of bounds. And then at the very end of the game, tight end Zach Ertz lunged for the endzone after making a catch over the middle, losing the ball upon crossing the goalline and striking the ground.

Both plays were ruled touchdowns on the field, and both turned into the agonizing reviews. Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth hemmed and hawed for several minutes, before deciding in each case they were likely to be overturned and ruled incomplete. And since both passes came on third down, the Eagles would have been forced to kick two field goals rather than two touchdowns, costing them eight points that ultimately proved to be the margin of victory.

I’ve been meaning to write about this for some time, and I’ve never gotten around to it, but now seems as good a time as any. When people start complaining about the NFL’s catch rule being indecipherable, I really don’t know what they’re talking about. I’ll admit that the rule does have some gray area, but that comes from the nature of these plays themselves, and I would say that 95 percent of the time I find myself agreeing with the call that is ultimately made.

These two plays are perfect examples of people forcing themselves to complain about things that are pretty cut and dry. On the first, it looked from a couple angles like the ball moved in Clement’s hands after his left foot came off the ground, meaning he only had possession with a single foot down in bounds.

But the closer I looked at the play, the more suspect I became about the “movement” of the ball. Because while movement is often a sign of a receiver losing possession, it doesn’t work in 100 percent of cases. A ball can move in a receiver’s hands while still being fully under his control, and nothing that I saw on that play indicated that Clement did not have control of the ball. It may have shifted slightly down his chest, but his hand remained pinned against it the entire time, and it didn’t bobble at all as he hit the ground out of bounds.

The case of Ertz’s touchdown was even more cut and dry. Michaels and Collinsworth made a lot of comparisons to the Jesse James play in the game between the Steelers and the Patriots earlier this year, where the Steelers tight end made a catch at the one yardline and twisted to fall into the endzone, losing the ball when he hit the ground. That play was also ruled a touchdown on the field before being overturned on replay, and it ultimately cost the Steelers the game and the top seed in the AFC.

But when you actually look at these plays, they really don’t have much in common. Ertz made his catch at the five yardline, and he took several steps before having his legs cut out from beneath him and diving for the endzone. It’s hard to truly capture the point at which a receiver completes the “process” of the catch, but Ertz clearly had the ball long enough to fulfill those requirements. He caught the ball, tucked it away, and then extended it for the goalline, where James’s extension was part of a single motion extending the catch he made.

People continue to complain about this rule, and eventually the NFL will listen to them and will try to make some changes. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing—I would like to see them tighten the definition of the process to exclude players clearly possessing the ball long enough to extend for the goalline, so something like James’s catch would count and Ertz’s would be incontrovertible—but the truth is I’m not sure how they can find something that will work perfectly in every case. These will always be difficult decisions, especially now that we have the ability to slow them down and view them in ultra high definition. But in the vast majority of cases, I do believe that the referees get things right, including the two Eagles touchdowns in the Super Bowl.

Brady Under Pressure

The most fascinating aspect of the game came when the Patriots offense faced off against the Eagles defense. This was supposed to be the heavyweight matchup of the game, a future Hall of Fame quarterback leading a top offense against one of the best defenses in the league. Absolutely no one expected what we ultimately got, the Patriots totally shredding Philadelphia to the tune of 33 points and over 600 yards.

Over the course of his career Brady has been quietly pretty mediocre in Super Bowls, and it’s ironic that by far his best performance came in a loss. Throughout most of the second half New England was all but unstoppable, moving the ball the length of the field and into the endzone with ease. They had three straight 75 yard touchdown drives to open the half, and the Eagles looked like they had no answer.

The most interesting thing was the total lack of pressure the Eagles managed through most of the game. Their defensive line is one of the best and deepest in the league, and going against a New England team that’s struggled to keep Brady upright more this year than at any time in his career, it seemed inevitable that they would harass him into some tough situations.

With this in mind, it certainly seemed strange that Philadelphia’s defensive strategy to open the game was to blitz like crazy. The Eagles are not a team that blitzes frequently, but early on they were bringing additional rushers on nearly every play. And more often than not they were getting home, collapsing the pocket around Brady and making him uncomfortable.

The Eagles got pressure in the first half, but they did not get any sacks, and Brady often made them pay for their aggression. With defenders in his face he wasn’t able to get his customary zip and precision on the ball, but on several occasions it didn’t matter. Philadelphia’s secondary is an issue when they have seven defenders dropping into coverage, and once they started sending additional defenders into the backfield it became a straight up problem. There were receivers running wide open thirty yards down the field, and Brady was content to loft the ball up and let it fall into their arms, with the defenders too far away to make any sort of play on the pass.

The blitz wasn’t working for Philadelphia, so they backed off of it. Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to improve matters either. For most of the second half Philadelphia sent four rushers after Brady, and for most of the second half they didn’t get anywhere close to him. The Patriots double teamed Fletcher Cox on almost every play and kept backs and tight ends in to chip on the defensive ends. This negated Philadelphia’s pass rush, but it also took away the running backs as receiving options (Dion Lewis didn’t have a catch, and after setting a record with 14 in last year’s Super Bowl James White only had two this year).

This could have worked for Philadelphia, except that even dropping extra men into coverage didn’t help them on the back end. New England’s receivers got whatever they wanted running through the middle of the field, and the entire defense looked helpless and exhausted for most of the second half.

During my preview of the game I broke down five crucial matchups, the last of which was the Eagles versus time. Time was killing them in the second half, as the Patriots stacked up three straight drives that lasted a total of 25 plays. They weren’t running no huddle, but they weren’t exactly taking their time either as they marched down the field.

A couple sections above I discussed Pederson’s decision to go for it on fourth down late in the game. Not only did this decision keep his offense on the field, but it kept his defense on the bench as well. Philadelphia’s last touchdown drive took more than seven minutes on the game clock, and it gave their defense the time they needed to catch their breath.

In the end, the pass rush that was nonexistent for most of the game was what iced it for the Eagles. Not just the sack and fumble that killed Brady’s first attempt to drive down the field, but the pressure that harried him into three straight incompletions to start the last. For 57 minutes this game looked nothing like we expected it to, but at the very end a bit of sense entered the world, and Philadelphia’s defense became the unit we expected them to be all along.