Bill Belichick is the best coach. Tom Brady is the best quarterback. And they’ve put it up there so high that I don’t think anybody else will compare anytime soon.
The Patriots have been to seven Super Bowls in the last 17 years, and they’ve been able to do it in the free agency era, constantly adjusting their roster. The Steelers put together a great group and won four Super Bowls in six years. With the Patriots, they’ve constantly had to re-tool. I saw an article in The Seattle Times on Sunday showing that only three of the offensive starters for the Patriots started in their Super Bowl win against the Seahawks two years ago.
Other Super thoughts …
Would coulda shoulda: Patriots were the better team. If they played 10 times, New England would win more of them. But Falcons had this one in their hands. If kick the field goal after the Julio catch, they win. But Ryan instead takes the sack; he’s got to throw the ball away. Even at that point, they’re attempting a 53-yard field goal that Bryant will likely hit – then they get the hold. The sack/fumble to get the Patriots back to 28-20 was huge; third-and-one, and they run it there (or even just throw an incompletion) that might help win it. Big picture, I’d put it more on the offense. Atlanta’s defense was really good for most of the first three quarters but just ran out of steam. Similar to the Seattle Super Bowl, I thought, when the Seahawks defense fizzled late, in large part because of the Cliff Avril injury.
Super Catches: For whatever reason, there seems to be more of this insane, unbelievable catches in Super Bowls than in regular games. There was the David Tyree helmet catch. Santonio Holmes had the great toe-tapper against the Cardinals. Jermaine Kearse had the remarkable, falling, juggling catch. And Mario Manningham had a great sideline catch late in Giants-Patriots II. This game had two of them. Julian Edelman’s 23-yarder contributed heavily on the game-tying drive. The Julio Jones catch had an even higher degree of difficulty and should have salted it away.
Pick Six: When Robert Alford scored on his interception return with 2:21 left, there was nobody within 30 yards of him. I was thinking at the time that he should hover at the goal line, seeing if he could maybe take another 10 seconds off the clock. Would have made it harder for the Patriots to drive to get the half-ending field goal.
Clock operating: They apparently weren’t using the same clock operator who handled the Patriots-Rams Super Bowl. With 7 seconds left in that one, the Patriots snapped the ball, Adam Vinatieri kicked a 48-yard field goal, and they let the clock run out. For this one, the Patriots had the ball with 5 seconds left in the first half. They were able to snap and kick a 41-yard field goal, and the clock guy cut it off really quick, leaving 2 seconds on the board. The Patriots then had to kick off, and with it being a touchback, the Falcons then had to come out for a kneeldown.
Halftime show: Technically impressive, with all the equipment and special effects. Lady Gaga jumped (or was lowered) from the top of the stadium while singing. I would be nervous singing that opener if I knew I had to do a bungee jump into the stadium in 60 seconds. But I would prefer if they treated it more like a regular football game, with a 12-minute halftime. I don’t like seeing the teams shut down for 30-35 minutes. I saw a graphic where the Falcons offense had been off the field for an hour and 8 minutes. As I recall, it was even worse for the Super Bowl between the Giants and Bills, when New York closed the first half with a long drive, then got the third quarter kickoff and embarked on another long march.
FOX stats: They flashed a graphic pointing out that New England hasn’t scored a point in the first quarter of any of the seven Super Bowls that Belichick/Brady have competed in. Pretty remarkable, with New England scoring 28-plus points in over half of those games. I also liked Troy Aikman’s comment about Dan Quinn wanting to build a fast defense. Aikman said something along the lines of, ‘other than at defensive tackle, at every other position they’ll take speed over size every time.’
Malcolm Mitchell: He fizzled late in the year, but he resurfaced in this game, with 6 catches for 70 yards. Overall, a nice rookie season, and he looks like an up-and-comer for 2017. Chris Hogan can play; he’s pretty good. But I expect I’ll have Mitchell higher on my board next summer. Julian Edelman will catch more passes but is utilized more on short shorts.
Mr. Clean: I see that many others are ranking it among the worst of the commercials, but I thought Mr. Clean was the best. There were some others that were clever and funny. The yearbook ad was pretty cool. But what product was it pitching? I didn’t even remember and had to go back and look it up this morning. The pitch for avocados from Mexico had a lot of clever lines and humor (especially the extended version that’s online, including a Deflategate reference). But with Super Bowls, probably 80 percent of viewers are watching in groups, so you don’t have their undivided attention. People are talking, eating snacks and whatnot. With the Mr. Clean ad, the brand – Mr. Clean – is in the commercial throughout. It was sexy enough to get your attention (where are they going with this?), and it had the nice funny closing. It’s memorable. As we walk down the aisle of the grocery store, we’ll see Mr. Clean on that product and remember the outrageous stunt he pulled during the Super Bowl. There were some other cleaning products – Bill Nye was involved in one, and Terry Bradshaw was driving around with a stain on his shirt – and I don’t even remember what the products were. Mr. Clean ad, I think, will be a lot more effective.
Roger Goodell: There has been no forgive and forget with New England’s fan. Goodell was handed the mic and the trophy. He spoke for 34 seconds. He was heavily booed for the entire time he was speaking. It will be hard for him to show up for the season opener in Foxborough in September – he would be a distraction. Robert Kraft didn’t help with his acceptance speech, which I’ll bet he considered carefully beforehand. “Two years ago, we won our fourth Super Bowl down in Arizona and I told our fans that was the sweetest one of all. But a lot has transpired over the last two years. And I don’t think that needs any explanation. But I want to say to our fans, to our brilliant coaching staff, our amazing players who were so spectacular: this is unequivocally the sweetest.”