dave mcbride

Robert Woods played with a torn groin for the Bills and wasn't listed. Hogan played with torn wrist ligaments for the Bills and wasn't listed. Injury reports are a joke. Gurley is clearly injured. Even in the Dallas game, where he put up impressive numbers, he didn't have many touches. Anderson had nearly twice as many rushes that game.

Parcells HIRED Belichick and mentored him to the point where he became a head coach. Building a good staff is job #1 for a head coach. Parcells also hired Coughlin, the one guy who has beaten Belichick on the biggest stage (twice). As I've said before, Belichick may be Sauron, but Parcells is Morgoth.

Good post. Hogan, who is a decent player, didn't have a great game and simply couldn't get open. I think that Phillips did something really smart: he appeared to decide to take away Hogan completely, knowing that you can't take away everyone and that Hogan would be easier to take away than Edelman. By taking Hogan out (e.g., putting an elite cover guy - Peters - on him), the Pats had no deep game. Everything was underneath, which works fine until you get to the opponent's 30 yard line. Incidentally, Gronk, who had a great game, has now played in 16 postseason games -- a full season. Factor that in when thinking about the wear and tear he has accumulated. In those 16 games, he has 81 catches for 1,163 yards and 12 TDs -- basically, an all pro-level season. Re: the Gilmore non-call, that was good defense by Gilmore. That sort of subtle arm bar happens all of the time and is never called if it's not flagrant, which that one clearly wasn't. It was a good play by him.

No offense, but that's a sample size of less than ten. See above about the ratings in LA. That's what is driving this. New Orleans only had a 26.1 rating, which is abysmal for a football-crazy city. I of course understand why they had low ratings there ... Brady vs. Brees would have resulted in sky-high ratings.

We're just getting started. Some of those games in the first 20 years were AWFUL. This was a good game that was a real chess match. It was tied until there were 7 minutes left, and LA had a real chance to tie with over four minutes to go. The game really wasn't over until Burkhead had his big run for 26 yards on the Pats' final possession.

LA *only* got a 44.6 rating, which was LOWER the national average. That's terrible because LA had a team in the freaking game! https://www.si.com/nfl/2019/02/04/super-bowl-53-patriots-rams-low-ratings The SBs in which the Pats' faced off against Seattle and Philly were extremely high. Again, LA is the problem.

It has little to do with the presence of the Patriots. They've been in a ton of highly rated SBs, including last year's. It's the presence of the Rams that's the problem.

Good post, but Gurley is *clearly* injured. I won't be shocked if we find out that he's going to have surgery soon.

I think it's more "Rams! Rams!" than "Defense! Defense!" The Rams-Cowboys game in LA was for all intents and purposes a Cowboys home game, and the ratings for the Pats-KC game blew away the Rams-NO game. If the Saints had been in the SB, the ratings would have been a lot higher. It's hilarious to me that the league thinks that a team in LA improves their ratings. It very clearly doesn't as of yet because people in LA largely don't care about the Rams - at least not enough to regularly watch them. Just wait until the Chargers make the SB - then you'll see the lowest ratings of all time!!

A close friend of mine who is at once a true-blue Buffalonian, a fanatical Pats fan since early childhood, and one of the smartest football fans I know said that given the Rams LB corps, the smartest bet of all was taking the over on James White catches (the line was 6.5). I haven't asked him yet whether he actually made that bet!

On that second one, Gilmore had excellent D (a very subtle arm bar that NEVER gets called), and Harmon delivered a big hit just after the ball arrived. That is not an easy catch at all, especially when you're using one hand. It was a good throw, but it was basically into double coverage with one of the coverage guys being their top corner. It was well defended.

There have been a ton of worse games. SF-Denver in 1989, Raiders-Eagles in 1980, Raiders-Skins in 1983, SF-Miami in 1984, Denver-Dallas in 1976, Bears-NE in 1986, Bills-Redskins in 1992, Bills-Cowboys in 1993 ... that’s just a start. I didn’t even list any Vikings games or even all of Denver’s blowout losses.

This thread: LOL.

Good game. That’s all it was.

No, a thousand times no. Are you an NFL fan?

Two things can be true at once. Williams absolutely mailed it in that season. His performance against the Redskins was one of the lowest-effort games I have ever seen by a name player. Don’t make excuses for him.

This. He never said he was great. That's a misrepresentation of what he was trying to convey.

The first reader comment is hilarious: "Somewhere in Boston, an intern is secretly creating a “Known Rapist” chyron for next season."

This 100 times. Christ, I am still not over “just give it to ‘em.” That call screwed up the Bills playoff seeding that season.

The OP said they would have had 15 seconds left. That’s not true, and that’s my point.

Care to quantify the difference in favro of the Pats that you’re positing? Because from my perch, this play was a 48 yard swing in crunch time in favor of KC (38 yard pass plus missing 10 yard penalty), and in terms of egrgiousness, it went unmatched in the rest of the game. It really doesn’t get more blatant than this.

The worst call of the Pats game by far was the non-offensive PI call on KC that let KC take the lead 28-24. It was such blatant offensive PI that the blocking KC receiver took out not one but TWO NE secondary guys, and made zero attempt to make it look like he was actually running a route. It led to a 38 yard pass play to Watkins that put KC at the 1 yard line, after which they punched it in. It was a far worse ref mistake than the PF call on the blow to the head. The NO non-call was legit terrible, but please regarding the NE/KC game. The Pats got no favors in that game when you measure it against what KC got themselves.

Actually, it's been a massive media event since the mid-70s (SB ad rates set records every year back then too), but most of the games sucked in that earlier era. It was rife with blowouts.

Good list. Honestly, the Baltimore/SF game was a freaking phenomenal game too.

Not true. When the Saints got a first down at the 13, the Rams had two TOs and there was 1:58 left on the clock. Assuming 2 seven-second plays, then running down the clock to the end, and the then the 4 seconds it takes to kick a FG, the Rams would have gotten the ball with roughly 1:00 left.