Super Bowl Thoughts

Well, it's all over now. I was right about who would win the Super Bowl, but not about how the game would play out. The Eagles were more effective offensively than I had expected in my game prediction. In the end, I think the game came down to two things. One, McNabb, though he certainly did many things well, made several pretty bad throws. Three interceptions, and a fourth one nullified by a penalty. It's pretty hard to win, even when throwing for 350 yards, with that on your back. The other point was the Eagle defensive line's ineffectiveness. In the NFC title game, the defensive ends in particular were constantly in Vick's face, thwarting his running and his ability to make passing plays. Against the Patriots, they were non-existent. Jevon Kearse only got camera time when he went down with cramping. Burgess made one sack, but did little else. Brady had all the time in the world to make his reads and throw the ball. Look at the touchdown to Givens that everyone is talking about. Givens was his third read. A quarterback can only go through his progressions like that if the defense is not applying pressure.

So much for Owens being ineffective. I am truly impressed that he not only played, but played well. It's unfortunate that his efforts will be overlooked because they were in a losing effort.

The game will go into the books as yet another 3 point win for New England. But the game was not really that close. Once New England's offense got into a rhythm in the second quarter, they moved the ball at will, something the Eagles were never able to do. They had some good drives, but those were isolated. The Eagles never got into a rhythm. Even when the Patriots had to punt, it was usually after a few first downs. The Eagle defense just couldn't stop them consistently or efficiently. The Patriots should have won this by at least 14. The Brady fumble cost them at least a field goal, if not a touchdown, and the Eagle touchdown at the end of the game only happened because of sloppy play calling by New England's defense.

In the end, it was a surprisingly sloppy game from both teams. The Patriots came out with false start penalties early in the game. Their first significant drive ended on a fumble because of sloppy execution of a play fake by Brady. At the end of the game, leading by 10, the Patriots made a bad defensive call (man coverage with a rookie backup safety on the fastest receiver in an Eagle uniform?) that allowed the big touchdown. For the Eagles, there were the bad passes from McNabb. But the killer was horrible clock management at the end of the game. Down by 10 with 5 minutes left, against a defense that has basically had your number all day? Hey, take your time! They ran off three minutes to get that touchdown, and even then they needed a big pass play to get it. With better New England defense, they would have needed another minute or two to get down field, which would have left no time for the second score. Running so much time off forced Philly to go for the onside kick and, on not recovering it, condemned them to trying to score with no timeouts and 45 seconds left. Terrible management by Andy Reid.

Of New England's three 3-point wins, the only game that was as close as the scoreboard indicated was the Panther game last year. That one really was nip and tuck all the way. This year's game was sloppy, allowing the Eagles to get much closer on the board than they should have. The only reason the Ram game was close was because the Patriot defense was exhausted by the fourth quarter, allowing the Rams to run off two quick touchdowns to erase a 14 point Patriot lead. A few more first downs by the Patriot offense in that game, and it's not that close.

Somebody wrote that we were due for a boring Super Bowl, after a string of pretty good ones. Well, we got it.

The Super Bowl ads really stunk. The only ones I really even remember were CareerBuider.com's monkey ads, and those were only memorable for their total stupidity. But it was really nice to see a halftime show where the musician allowed the music to speak for itself. When you write good music, you don't need hundreds of scantily clad dancers and breast-baring publicity stunts to make an impact. You can just go out and perform. Maybe it will be a new trend to look for actual talent instead of mere exhibitionism. Yeah, right.