Some Thoughts on the Super Bowl
I know it’s easy to overreact to recent events, but that will go down as the greatest Super Bowl ever. Tom Brady is the greatest quarterback ever. Bill Belichick is, without question, the greatest coach ever. Julian Edelman’s catch was one of the greatest catches ever. And Brady cucking Rogel Goodell in front of the entire world will go down as one of the greatest F U moments of all-time.
The Patriots played above their heads all year long. Without Gronk, their offense is Belichick’s genius and Brady and not much else. Edelman is fine, but a product of a system much the way Duke always has one really good white guy. No one else is that good. I’m catching shit for my first half Tweet saying as much, but I still stick by it. Their running backs are a gaggle of scrap heap one-dimensional runners, their other receivers consist of guys who will never play anywhere besides New England, Martellus Bennett is slow and immobile, and their offensive line isn’t particularly good.
All of that said, having the greatest coach and quarterback in football history is one hell of a trump card. It follows in a line of age-old sports questions– what wins, great pitching or great hitting?, great offense or great defense?, a shit pile of castaways or Tom Brady and Bill Belichick? It’s very much the latter.
The Falcons, for my money, were the better team, this season and last night. But they choked about as badly as one can choke. I can’t think of an example where the cliché about not knowing about to win applies more. The Falcons struggled to close out games all season. They could’ve been 14-2, but they had three gut-wrenching losses to the Seahawks, Chargers and Chiefs. Like last night, when Matt Ryan took a late sack that pushed the Falcons out of range to kick the Super Bowl-clinching field goal, these three regular season losses all came as a result of Ryan and the offense locking up like a fainting goat with their late lead.
Seahawks: Ryan, who was 0-4 on his final four passing attempts (including what should’ve been a pass interference call on Richard Sherman), threw a late interception that slipped through Julio Jones’ sure hands with the Falcons up one, setting up the Seahawks’ game-winning field goal.
Chargers: A week later, Ryan was picked in overtime, again targeting Jones, leading to the Chargers’ game-winning field goal.
Chiefs: Ryan, going for a late two-point conversion to take a three-point lead, got picked by Eric Berry, who returned it for a touchdown.
Yeah… not good, bro.
There’s plenty of blame to go around, and sometimes you just have to tip your hat to pure greatness. But Matt Ryan and the Falcons choked again night, in the greatest Super Bowl ever played.
Side note: Is it just me or were the commericals awful? Not like oh they sucked this year, but like it seemed no one was even trying. Other than a handful of traditionally creative ads, I can’t think of more mundane, Tuesday-night-drama fare. Well, except this one:
ROGER THAT. This Tom Brady commercial is one of the best 😂💀 https://t.co/XkXkxNshEu
— Steve Noah (@Steve_OS) February 6, 2017