Super Bowl Recap

Well that was certainly a football game. I expected this to be low scoring, but I didn’t expect something so utterly devoid of offense. It was an ugly game in pretty much every facet, and there wasn’t even that much we can point to in terms of great plays by the defense. Even as both teams traded punts there were only a few real special moments in that phase of the game.

But in the end, the Patriots were the team that was able to punch the ball into the endzone in the fourth quarter, and a late interception by Jared Goff snuffed out any hope the Rams had. And so one of the highest scoring offenses in NFL history was held to three points in the biggest game of the season, and the Patriots scrapped their way to another Super Bowl title.

For an uneventful game, I certainly have a lot to say. And I’ll start with the biggest story of the game: the utter suffocation of the Rams offense.

What the hell happened to the Rams?

The very first key to this game was pressure. That’s a common theme when great offenses are shut down, but it wasn’t one that many people expected coming into this game. The Rams had one of the best pass blocking offensive lines in the league all season, and the Patriots front seven—while very good at what they’re asked to do—is hardly loaded with elite pass rushing talent.

There were certainly moments in the game when the Patriots won pass rushes one-on-one, more than I expected. Top pass rusher Trey Flowers didn’t record a sack, but he had a number of pressures to disrupt Goff in crucial moments, as did Dont’a Hightower on well timed blitzes. Rams right guard Austin Blythe particularly struggled, which is unsurprising for the one inexperienced player on an otherwise veteran offensive line. But for the most part the Patriots won by just thoroughly outscheming the Rams along the front line.

At the most critical point in the season, the Patriots turned to an attack made famous by a foe they vanquished years ago. They came out on nearly every major play in a “muddle” alignment, the scheme that Rex Ryan found so much success with during his time with both the Ravens and the Jets. Essentially they put six or seven players in the box, told them to just kind of float around in space until the ball was snapped, and then sent four or five attacking from all directions towards the quarterback.

This scheme caused trouble for years, baffling veteran quarterbacks who were used to having some sense of who was coming and where they were coming from. Eventually offenses did adjust, learning how to attack these undisciplined schemes through timely run audibles and passes over the middle of the field. Unfortunately, Jared Goff wasn’t around for any of that, and he was utterly helpless when faced with this perplexing scheme.

Goff had a strong third season, showing progress after a breakout sophomore campaign. But there were lingering concerns all year about his squeamishness in the face of pressure, concerns that flared to life in particularly ghastly fashion in this game.

Good quarterbacks don’t just sense pressure. They sense where the pressure is coming from, and they know how to move to give themselves an extra fraction of a second to get the ball off. Goff does a lot of things well as a quarterback, but moving in the pocket is not one of them. When he feels pressure, his only options are to bail out of the pocket altogether, either sprinting out to the right if there is a lane there or falling backwards and heaving a throw off his back foot.

The Rams dropped back 42 times last night, and they never figured out how to pick up New England’s pressure package. I’ll have some more thoughts on the coaching below, but ultimately it does come down to the execution on the field. And simply put, the Rams pass protection had no idea what they were doing. It certainly didn’t help that they couldn’t hear a thing in a heavily New England tilted crowd (a downside of the league ditching a local fanbase three years ago for a city that doesn’t give a shit about sports), and the inability to communicate along the front led to several of their key breakdowns. New England didn’t have the talent edge along the front, but last night they had the edge in smarts, and in this case brains certainly did triumph over brawn.

The Patriots Secondary

The Patriots did a lot of good things to confuse the Rams along the front, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as effective if they hadn’t left Jared Goff equally baffled on the back end. This was one of the crucial tossup matchups I highlighted before the game, and it turned into a thorough victory for the Patriots, which obviously played a major part in them winning in the end.

The Patriots spent the regular season running more man coverage than almost any other defense in the NFL, but as is often the case with Bill Belichick—and as I predicted they would in my preview last week—they switched things up in the biggest game of the year. In the first half they threw out a lot more zone coverage than they have at any point during the season, yet another change that Goff was not remotely prepared for.

On a couple of plays in the first half, Goff was completely flustered by the zone coverage facing him. Twice he should have had passes intercepted as a defender cut beneath his receiver, once ending in a drop by Hightower and the other batted down at the line of scrimmage preventing a likely pick-six. These were two passes that never should have been thrown against this coverage, and the only excuse Goff has is if he had no idea what the coverage was even after the ball was snapped.

The Patriots played much more man coverage in the second half, but the impact of the changeup they threw early in the game lingered until the final whistle. For the rest of the game Goff was terrified to throw any pass over the middle, having no idea whether or not there was a defender sitting there waiting for it.

With the middle taken away, Goff’s only option was to attack the edges with his wide receivers. And here was where he really ran into trouble. Because through the entire game, no Rams wide receiver could create any separation against the man coverage facing them, and no matter how many times he forced the ball to Brandin Cooks there wasn’t going to be anything there.

Stephon Gilmore just finished the best season of his career with the game of his life. He shut down Cooks the entire night, and he was likely my pick for the game’s MVP even before his late red zone interception. But he wasn’t alone on the back end, as the entire Patriots secondary shut down the Rams even after losing starting safety Patrick Chung to a broken arm. Aside from one blown coverage that left Cooks wide open in the back of the endzone they were flawless all night, and even that was mitigated by a bizarre hesitance to throw the ball from Goff likely inspired by the confusion they had provoked earlier in the game.

The Rams Offensive Coaches

I am about to go off on Sean McVay. Because while it would be unfair to say that he single handedly cost his team the Super Bowl—Goff played a pretty big part as well—it’s hard not to lay the blame on him for pretty much everything that went wrong offensively last night.

McVay has been hailed as a genius since he took over the Rams, and much of that praise is deserved. But last night he was too smart for his own good. He tried to outwit Belichick by going away from everything that had worked to get him to this point, and when the element of surprise failed to lift the Rams offense up he stuck with this gameplan to a fault, even as the offense continued to spin its wheels on the wrong side of the field.

I mentioned a lot of Goff’s issues above, and they aren’t new things that appeared in this game. He’s still learning how to diagnose NFL defenses, and he often isn’t prepared for the pressure games and coverage tricks opposing teams run. One thing that has helped him reach this point is the presence of McVay in his ear, quite literally in a lot of cases.

The Rams have become notorious for breaking the huddle early and getting to the line with 25-30 seconds left on the play clock. This gives them time before the radio system in Goff’s helmet cuts off with fifteen seconds left, time that McVay uses to see the defense and tell Goff what to expect. It’s been an invaluable tool for this offense, which is why it was jarring to see them go in the exact opposite direction in this game.

From a distance you can see the logic behind it. This advantage works both ways, and defensive coaches have the same ability to break down the offensive alignment before their communication systems cut out. (This wasn’t always the case, of course. It was only about ten years ago that defenses were allowed to communicate by radio. Before then they had to convey the play using crude hand signals, until a team—I can’t recall exactly which one—was caught secretly recording these signals to steal the defense’s plays.)

McVay’s normal bet is that he is quicker and smarter than the opposing defensive coach, but against Belichick this wasn’t a wager he was willing to make. So the Rams went in the opposite direction, staying in the huddle until the communication system cut out. (This was pointed out wonderfully by Tony Romo, who had by far the best performance of anyone last night—player, broadcaster, or musician.)

I see the logic behind this approach early in the game. I don’t see the sense to it once it became clear that it was not working. Rather than leaving the defense unprepared for the Rams attack, it left Goff scrambling to try to figure out what was coming at him before the clock ran out. The confusion in the protection and his inability to diagnose coverage were only exacerbated by the self-imposed time constraints, and yet they continued this strategy even as the game reached its final stages.

This wasn’t the only place where McVay’s stubbornness came back to bite them. All year the Rams had dominated using one of the most balanced offenses in the NFL, slicing teams apart through the air while also pounding them to pieces with Todd Gurley. Gurley struggled with injuries late in the season, forcing them to bring in CJ Anderson for support, and the offense continued without a hitch through the end of the regular season and into the playoffs when Gurley returned.

And for some reason, the Rams left their best offensive player standing on the sideline for huge chunks of this game. There was some talk that he is still hampered by the injury, but everyone on the Rams insists he is at full strength, and he certainly looked it when he was on the field. His 35 yards on 10 carries isn’t inspiring, but it’s better than anything else they had going on offense, and it doesn’t include a thirteen yard run wiped away by a holding penalty that didn’t actually affect the play.

Not only was Gurley their best option as the game unfolded, it was clear that he should have been their go to guy from the first snap of the game. New England’s defensive front is disciplined and effective, but they aren’t particularly athletic. You don’t profit by running straight at them, you do so by forcing them to move side to side. You move the ball by getting Gurley on the edge, not by pounding it in the middle with CJ Anderson and the entire Thanksgiving turkey CJ Anderson ate.

Los Angeles’s unwillingness to attack the Patriots sideline to sideline was maddening. They ran a jet sweep to Robert Woods early in the game and picked up a solid five yards, then never handed the ball off on that motion again. They were one of the best screen teams in the league the entire season, yet I can only remember them running a single screen in this game, a 19 yard pass to Cooks that was one of their most productive plays of the night.

There were so many other things that McVay could have done. Use more bunch sets to create natural picks and space for his wide receivers. Roll Goff out of the pocket to relieve the pressure in his face. Work harder to get the ball into his best playmakers’ hands. All things they excelled at during the regular season, all things they abandoned in the biggest game. Breaking tendencies is great when it catches the defense off guard. When it doesn’t, you’re just choosing to avoid doing what your offense is best at.

The Other Side of the Ball

I don’t have a lot to say here, because not a lot happened on this side of the ball. The Rams defense should be feeling sick right now, and should honestly be more than a little pissed off at their offense. They didn’t just do everything they needed to do to win this game. They did more than that, and with even basic mediocrity on the other side of the ball they’d be calling themselves champions right now.

The Patriots found some success late in the game on the ground, which isn’t surprising considering how much time they spent on the field and how shallow the Rams defense is. By the end of the game the Rams were worn down, and the Patriots were able to grind out most of the final five minutes on the backs of Sony Michel and Rex Burkhead.

But for most of the game the Rams did win the battle along the front. Aaron Donald had a quiet game by his standards in terms of making plays in the backfield, but he was constantly shedding blocks at the line and sliding off to stuff the ball as it came towards him. The Rams filled holes well, and they kept the Patriots behind the down and distance markers, which played a big part in their 3 for 12 line on third downs.

On the outside the Rams stuck to man coverage mostly, and the Patriots receivers couldn’t do anything to create separation (with one exception, which I’ll get to later). They got enough pressure to frustrate Tom Brady in the pocket and force him to break up his rhythm.

Brady was atrocious last night. It didn’t look quite that bad, thanks to the even worse performance by Goff on the other side of the ball, but this was one of the worst games I have ever seen Brady play from start to finish. His very first pass was a brutal interception on an inaccurate throw to a covered receiver, and he later fumbled on a sack he took after holding the ball for more than five seconds, fortunately recovered by one of his own linemen. These are mistakes Brady never makes, even as he’s been consistently error prone early in playoff games over the past couple years. He looked like he had no idea what was going on for most of the game, like this was his first appearance on this stage rather than his ninth.

Unlike the Rams though, the Patriots made changes to what they were doing as the game wore on. As soon as they realized that their outside receivers weren’t getting any separation against the Rams secondary, they were smart enough to take those receivers off the field. For the final quarter of the game they stacked the offensive side of the ball with heavy personnel, forcing the Rams to keep an extra linebacker on the field.

This was a strategy I had thought they would employ from the start, and it worked out just as well as I expected. On the drive that finally broke through for a touchdown they scored a pair of big plays on touch passes to Rob Gronkowski, open thanks to him being matched up against the linebacker the Rams really didn’t want on the field. Two weeks ago against Kansas City, Gronkowski was able to win by overpowering safeties and cornerbacks, but the Rams have players in their secondary capable of physically standing up to the big tight end. So the Patriots had to engineer their own opportunities, which they did to just enough success to put the winning touchdown on the board.

Julian Edelman

Earlier I named Gilmore as my MVP pick. I still think he should have won, but I have no problem with Edelman winning either. It seems strange to reward any offensive player after what happened in this game, but in fairness to Edelman, I’m pretty sure during the first half he was the only offensive player on either team who bothered to show up for the game.

Edelman was the one matchup advantage the Patriots had the entire game, and they exploited that matchup with viciousness that the Rams couldn’t even dream of. Edelman finished with ten catches for 141 yards on only 12 targets, and it honestly feels like they should have gone his way even more frequently. Every time someone bailed them out of a hole, it was Edelman. Every time they generated a big play, it was Edelman. Gronkowski came up big on the touchdown drive, but it was only because the defense was so keyed in on Edelman in the middle of the field that he was able to find the advantageous matchup.

Marcus Peters and Aqib Talib are good players (or at least, they have been at points in the past), but they are not equipped to face off against someone like Edelman. They both excel against bigger, more physical wide receivers that win with vertical speed and work the boundaries of the field. They struggle with quickness, and they don’t play well against routes that can break in either direction. In short, you could not design a receiver better suited to exploit them than Edelman.

Time and time again Edelman made Peters look foolish. On quick routes to the outside, and on longer developing routes down the field. The Patriots kept him moving before the snap, making it difficult for the Rams to swing an extra coverage guy in his direction and keeping him off the line so Peters couldn’t get a jam on him. The few times he tried to play physical, Edelman beat him off the line and raced down the seam for an easy fifteen yard gain.

There is only one player on the Rams roster capable of keeping up with Edelman, and that is slot specialist Nickell Robey-Coleman. When he was lined up across from Edelman, the Rams were able to hold the Patriots in check. But as the offensive personnel changed and the Rams were forced to send another linebacker onto the field, Robey-Coleman was the player who was stuck standing on the sideline.

And once again, stubbornness is what did the Rams in. Peters is a more talented player than Robey-Coleman, but in this game and against this opponent, he should have been the one on the sideline. Instead they left him out there to be chewed up over and over again, making no effort to take away the one part of New England’s offense that showed up for the game last night.

The New England Patriots are the Super Bowl champions once again, and they deserve all the accolades that come with that. But in the grand scheme of things I can’t help but feel that we’ll remember last night less as a victory for the Patriots and more as a blown opportunity by the Rams.