What the Hell Happened Last Night?

 

 I have no idea where to begin with this one. My plan from the beginning of the game had been to sit down and write this recap before going to bed, and I spent a lot of the game mentally scripting out what I was going to say. Unfortunately, the game took a rather jarring turn at the very end, so everything I was going to say kind of fell to pieces (thankfully I wasn’t one of those writers with an actual deadline (and an actual paycheck) so I didn’t have to throw out words I had already written).

So now I’m sitting here at 11 pm trying to figure out how the hell to talk about this game. I have to be at work in ten hours, and I want to spend at least six of that sleeping. So I’m going to try to pour this out here and now. I’m not sure what’s going to come of it, and it will likely end up jumbled and nonsensical. Which is actually a pretty good summary of the game itself. So here goes nothing.

What Atlanta Did to Win the Game

I think the easiest place to start is with what I would have written if the game had ended at the two minute warning. Atlanta dominated most of this game on both sides of the ball, and if not for an incredibly bizarre sequence of events they would be Super Bowl champions right now. They came out and executed a masterful gameplan that realistically did everything they needed to win this game.

We always knew Atlanta’s offense was going to be a problem for New England. The Patriots allowed the fewest points in the league this year, but a lot of that was smoke and mirrors, thanks to an easy schedule and favorable situations presented by their special teams and offense. They never had a shot of containing Atlanta’s offense, and in the first half this was absolutely true.

Coming into the game I thought that if New England’s defense could do anything, they’d be able to stop Atlanta on the ground. As mediocre as they were as a whole, the Patriots were excellent against the run this year, and they were coming off a dominant performance against a far superior offensive line than the one they were facing. Atlanta has a talented backfield, but I didn’t expect them to have much room to run.

From the very first play I learned once again that Kyle Shanahan knows a lot more about football than I do. The strength of New England’s defense is in the middle, so the Falcons came out and attacked the edges. They forced the Patriots to flow from sideline to sideline, and they put their cornerbacks on islands where they needed to be aggressive and make plays against the run. Facing Atlanta’s dangerous receivers, they couldn’t just let them go when they became blockers, allowing the Falcons to eliminate two defenders with crack blocks from their receivers.

Davonta Freeman ran wild through New England’s defense during this game. He finished with only 75 yards, but he did this on just 11 carries. The normally disciplined Patriots defense saw gashes opened by Atlanta’s zone rushing attack, and Freeman’s sharp cuts got him untouched upfield before any defenders could close in.

We can look at the success the Falcons had on the ground, and we can ask ourselves in hindsight why they didn’t give Freeman more than 11 carries. But that ignores the fact that they were just as effective moving the ball through the air. Matt Ryan finished 17/23 for 284 yards and two touchdowns, and he likely would have won the MVP if not for a bunch of stuff out of his control (and some stuff within his control, which I’ll touch on below).

Atlanta’s offense is weird to evaluate looking back. They seemed to get whatever they wanted, and the efficiency numbers back this up. They averaged 7.5 yards per play. They were three for three scoring touchdowns in the red zone. And yet their raw numbers remain unimpressive. They scored only 21 points (with the other seven coming via the defense), and they were outgained by more than 200 yards.

There’s so much we can say in hindsight about what they could have done better, but none of it is particularly reasonable. They could have run the ball more, but it wasn’t like their offense stopped working when they passed it. Julio Jones only had four catches for 87 yards, but both numbers led the team. They were efficient, and they were effective, which is about all you can ask of an offense.

The offense did their part, which isn’t a surprise. That the defense did the same is what really came out of nowhere. Atlanta’s defense isn’t good by any means, but they’re young and athletic, and they harnessed that athleticism to hold the Patriots out of the endzone for the first 42 minutes of the game.

Atlanta normally plays a fairly conservative zone scheme, trusting their defense to slow the opposing offense just enough that they can win in a shootout. They have extraordinary athletes with a nose for the football, and they thrive on causing turnovers. They don’t blitz much, relying on their front four to generate occasional pressure by winning one on one matchups.

That all went out the window prior to this game. Two weeks ago the Patriots carved apart a similar zone defense, and two weeks ago Atlanta’s switch to man heavy blitzes harassed Aaron Rodgers into a miserable performance. And so they came out with much the same style, putting New England’s receivers on islands against their young cornerbacks and forcing them to win with skill and athleticism rather than carving up a zone with instincts and intelligence.

This worked phenomenally well for most of the game, with a great deal of help from the defensive front. After playing more aggressively against Seattle and Green Bay, Atlanta reverted to a more traditional four man rush for most of this game. But even with this they were able to consistently pressure Tom Brady, thanks in part to a pair of incredible performances along their front.

If you had told me I’d be saying this before the game, I would have assumed one of those performances had come from Vic Beasley. But the NFL’s leading sacker had a surprisingly quiet night, ceding the playmaking duties to Grady Jarrett and Dwight Freeney. Freeney was an absolute monster, unleashed from his normal situational role to wreak havoc through the game. His speed and technique aren’t what they used to be, but they were still far too much for Nate Solder. He only registered one sack, but he affected far more plays than that by forcing Brady to throw the ball from uncomfortable situations.

Jarrett was the best player on the field last night, and he probably would have gotten my MVP vote if the Falcons had hung on. He abused the interior of New England’s defensive line to the tune of three sacks, and he also did significant work in the running game. Interior pressure has always been the recipe for beating Brady, and last night it very nearly was enough for Atlanta to win.

What New England Did to Win the Game

This section is all about change. From the very first snap the Patriots were outmatched and outschemed by the Falcons, and in many ways they were lucky to find themselves down only 25 late in the third quarter. But the changes they made from that point on reversed the flow of the game, and they led directly to their victory in overtime.

Much as I thought New England would be able to stuff up Atlanta’s run game, I expected them to be able to control things on the ground on their side. Atlanta has a very athletic defense, but it is also undersized, with two of their starting linebackers weighing in at less than 240 pounds. LeGarrette Blount is listed at 250 pounds, and I expected him to plow through the middle of Atlanta’s defense.

The Patriots seemed to expect the same, and they featured Blount heavily in the early part of the game. But he was surprisingly ineffective, bottled up for only 31 yards on his 11 carries. Just as they did with their pass rush, Atlanta controlled New England’s offensive line at the point of attack, killing Blount’s momentum and forcing him to move laterally so Atlanta’s free flowing linebackers could track him down.

The Patriots didn’t help themselves by playing heavily out of shotgun with Blount in the game. He is a pure downhill runner, at his best when he has a full seven yards to build his momentum before hitting the line. New England seemed caught in the middle, wanting to hit the Falcons hard with a power running game while also exploiting them with a spread passing attack.

New England eventually realized the error of their ways, though not until after a costly Blount fumble. Unable to use Blount and unwilling to expose Dion Lewis’s fumbling issues to Atlanta’s strip-happy defense, the Patriots turned to little used James White, who finished leading the team with 14 receptions (a Super Bowl record) and 110 yards. With him on the field they were able to run a pure spread attack, and they feasted with their five receiving options running from sideline to sideline.

This switch left Atlanta in an untenable position. Their secondary is the clear weakness of their team, forced to turn to inexperienced youngsters following the injury to Desmond Trufant. They held up in man coverage when they had only two or three receivers to cover in the first half, thanks to aggressive press technique with the comfort of safeties over the top. This allowed them to disrupt the timing of New England’s routes, and it directly led to the pick-six, when Robert Alford was able to break from his deep coverage and undercut the receiver who couldn’t fight his way through the press underneath.

Once New England spread it out, Atlanta’s cornerbacks truly were on islands. They couldn’t afford to keep help over the top of all of them, which meant the cornerbacks had more to fear being beaten deep. This opened up countless timing routes underneath, which Brady exploited with his typical brutal efficiency.

They made equally significant changes on the defensive side of the ball. Early on New England was playing rather conservatively on defense, looking like they were trying to avoid surrendering the big play as much as anything. Jones was double teamed on every play, and New England’s linebackers slow played the rushing attack.

This clearly wasn’t working, so in the second half the Patriots came out and blitzed the hell out of the Falcons. It’s not clear whether this was a deliberate shift in strategy or a desperate act of high variance aggression, but whatever it was, it worked. Atlanta’s offense ground to a half in the second half as they repeatedly got stopped for a loss, both in the running game and the passing game.

The Patriots finished the day with five sacks that cost the Falcons an astounding 44 yards, including two major plays I’ll have more to say about below. They spent the entire second half in Atlanta’s backfield, stuffing any early offensive success and killing them on the rare occasion they got something going. This opened up holes in the back end, but aside from a big dumpoff to Freeman on their second to last possession, the Falcons weren’t able to take advantage of these opportunities. Down big, the Patriots became desperate, and their aggression paid off in the end.

Everything Else

The Falcons should have won this game. They had a 25 point lead late in the third quarter. They had a 16 point lead and the ball with nine minutes to go. The series of events that led them to lose this game are absurd, equal portions mistakes by themselves, opportunism by the Patriots, and sheer dumb luck.

Let’s start with the self-inflicted wounds. The first was the fumble, which came with eight and a half minutes left in the fourth quarter. The Falcons controlled the ball and the game, and with even a mildly sustained drive they could have run the clock and put the game out of reach. They were in a good position as well, facing a third and one on their own 36. With the success they’d had running the ball, this is one place where it would have made sense to keep it on the ground, with a high probability of conversion and a chance to run more time off the clock.

Instead they decided to drop back and throw the ball. I’m not going to put this one entirely on Shanahan, since they should have been able to protect the passer. I’m not going to put this one entirely on Freeman who failed to pick up the blitzing linebacker, since Don’t’a Hightower is one of the toughest blitzers in the league and Ryan should have been able to get rid of it. I’m not going to put it entirely on Ryan either, since he did not see Hightower until he was exposed and unable to protect the ball. This was a failure all around, and it gave the Patriots life to get back in the game.

I am going to put the blame entirely on Ryan for the sack on their second to last drive. After a breathtaking throw and catch moved them down to the New England 22, Atlanta looked to have the game essentially locked up. With less than four minutes remaining, an eight point lead, and an easy field goal, it would have taken a miracle for the Patriots to win.

Or a boneheaded decision by the quarterback. Ryan took a sack on second down, losing 12 yards and putting them in a serious hole. Unlike the hit by Hightower from the edge, this pressure came up the middle, and Ryan had plenty of opportunity to avoid it. I don’t know what he was thinking as he tried to extend the play—worried about an incompletion stopping the clock? Preoccupied with the earlier fumble?—but he absolutely cannot make that mistake.

On the whole Ryan played an okay game, with those two glaring mistakes coloring everything else. He made a few really nice throws, but for the most part he wasn’t asked to do a lot, and he didn’t do a lot. If the Falcons had hung on and won, he probably would have won MVP, even though I still would have rather seen it go to Jarrett.

Even after these mistakes, it still took a ridiculous series of events for New England to win. Their offense was clicking down the stretch, but they required an equal amount of luck to pull it off. All of NFL history has taught us that both 2 point conversions and overtime are 50/50 propositions, and even if you believe the Patriots were operating on some higher level that elevated their odds to 2 in 3, they still had less than a 30 percent chance of pulling off all three. And that’s not even taking into consideration their low probability of success on their long touchdown drives. The probability calculators saw Atlanta’s odds peak at 98 percent, and even that seems a little low.

That’s to say nothing of the most ridiculous piece of luck: the Edelman catch. I have a degree in physics from one of the best universities in the world, and even I don’t have a damn clue how that ball did not hit the ground. That of the four people there, the one who came up with it happened to be a Patriots, is just a brutal defiance of all things sensible in the world.

If we’re being totally honest, that pass should have been a game ending interception. Brady threw the ball into triple coverage, and it went off the hands of the defender who had intercepted him earlier in the game. Much like Ryan, Brady’s performance was not as great as the stats or the storylines say. He was excellent in the final ten minutes of the game, but before that he was more a liability than anything else. He was missing open receivers, was constantly unsettled by pressure, and was responsible for the egregiously terrible interception that gave the Falcons seven points and almost ended the game for New England. I understand why he won the MVP, and I can’t think of anyone obviously better to give it to (White maybe, or Hightower), but on the whole this was a below average performance by Brady that happened to work out in the end.

The Key Stat of this Game

If you look at the numbers on a per play basis, it’s hard to believe Atlanta lost. They averaged 8.6 yards per pass and 5.8 yards per run for a total of 7.5 yards per play. The Patriots had 6.5 yards per pass and 4.2 yards per run, for a total of 5.9 yards per play. Atlanta was perfect in the red zone, and the Patriots had to settle for field goals twice. They even won the turnover battle, and scored a non-offensive touchdown.

But the key difference is the number of plays run. As efficient as they were, Atlanta ran only 46 offensive plays, less than half of the 93 New England had. Add this all up, and the Patriots outgained the Falcons 546 to 344.

Atlanta averaged more than 1.5 yards per play than New England, and yet they still ended up with 200 fewer total yards. That hasn’t happened in a game since 2003, when the Jets averaged 9.5 yards per play on only 34 plays in a loss to the Colts. More than 3500 games have been played since that time, and none of them were this extreme.

The key to this was third down. As good as Atlanta’s offense was this year, they were surprisingly mediocre on third down, ranking 11^th in the league with a 42 percent success rate. But even so, it was stunning to see them fail so consistently on third down against New England. They converted only one of their eight attempts, and this loomed large in the second half, as they repeatedly gave the ball back to the Patriots and put their defense on the field again.

Atlanta’s defense faced 93 plays. That is utterly exhausting, even for a unit that rotates as much as the Falcons do. By the end of the game their pass rush had essentially disappeared, and Brady was able to get whatever he wanted both on underneath routes and down the field. Because as efficient as they were, Atlanta’s offense could not sustain drives. And that more than anything else is what allowed New England to come back to win the Super Bowl.