Super Bowl Post Game Thread

[Shaw66]

5 minutes ago, dave mcbride said:

Good post. People have laughed at me for saying it was a good game, and I still believe that. At the end of the day, there were lead changes, just the right amount of scoring for my taste (24-21/23-20 indicates balance between offensive and defensive play, and the points don't come too cheap), and the good players on both teams made plays. For the Rams, Stafford delivered, Cupp delivered, Donald delivered, Von Miller delivered, and I'd even argue that Ramsey delivered outside of that one deep pass to Chase early one. He broke up the intended TD pass that held the Bengals to 3 a few plays later, and he was obviously blatantly facemasked by Higgins on the TD throw. For the Bengals, Burrow, Mixon, Higgins, and Chase all played well. On D, their good front seven guys played well too. 

 

Moreover, it came down to two final possessions. One team got it done, and the best player on the field -- Donald -- made sure the other team didn't on a couple of great defensive plays. The tackle on the third down was amazing, although I think if Mixon had run it he may well have made it. 

 

One could gripe about the reffing late, but the PI was definitely PI (the holding call was sketchy) and the non-call on Higgins obviates any claims by Bengals fans that it was rigged. 

 

Anyway, it was a hard-fought, balanced, and tight game. Not sure what people are looking for in these games. Last year's game was awful, and I felt this one was better than the previous three too (Rams/NE, KC/SF, and the no-defense Philly/NE game). I honestly think much of the criticism stems from the fact that Bills fans felt that the Bills were the more deserving team (they weren't--they lost fair and square to KC). 

These are all good points.   I've been saying for two weeks that Donald made the late play to force the INT against SF, and he made the two plays to end the game.  Good for him.  

 

I didn't like the game because there was no flow, and no continuing excellence.  Guys delivered, and then they didn't.  It just didn't have the look or feel of two excellent teams going at it.   But all of what you say is correct.  

 

And, to the Rams credit, it's very much a last-man standing kind of tournament.   It's about finding a way to win and advance, and the Rams did that.  

[mjd1001]

12 hours ago, Rico said:

Well, the 4th best team in the NFC beat the 4th best team in the AFC… nothing super about this watered-down SB at all. Not as bad as the Braves winning the WS this year though.

I think that is a good way to look at it.

To the causal/semi-casual football fan, this will be the game that in 5-10 years from now they don't remember much about.

It is also likely to be the game that...when you challenge your friends to tell you the last 10 superbowl winners, this is the one in the future that is the least memorable and most likely to be forgotten.

[Success]

It was a great game.  I hear some on twitter & elsewhere say it was "boring," but I grew up in the age of the SB blowout. This whole generation has had pretty amazing, hard-fought SB's for the most part.

 

The reffing was good. There were 2 bad calls/no calls, and they evened out (imo).

 

On a side note, we all complain about the coaching in the 13 second sequence, but there were some head scratchers last night from both coaches, and really, throughout the playoffs from the good teams.  No coach is perfect.  I think McD & his staff are as good as anyone out there right now.

 

[Billsfan1972]

8 minutes ago, Success said:

It was a great game.  I hear some on twitter & elsewhere say it was "boring," but I grew up in the age of the SB blowout. This whole generation has had pretty amazing, hard-fought SB's for the most part.

 

The reffing was good. There were 2 bad calls/no calls, and they evened out (imo).

 

On a side note, we all complain about the coaching in the 13 second sequence, but there were some head scratchers last night from both coaches, and really, throughout the playoffs from the good teams.  No coach is perfect.  I think McD & his staff are as good as anyone out there right now.

 

There are going to be mistakes throughout the game by coaches.  However you can not rationalize the last 13 seconds vs. KC....  Trust me the Bills & KC had coaching blunders throughout that game too.

[cale]

13 hours ago, LittleSammy said:

13 lousy seconds. I hope McDermott is up all night throwing his insides up. We could have beat the Rams....

Not with our current D. Stafford would have had all day to throw. Whatever else you wanna say about the Bengals their DLine sacked the QB when they needed to. Their secondary is crap. But they got to the quarterback. Our D can't hold anything for 13 seconds.

[Shaw66]

9 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

But there were equal or greater legitimate penalties that were going uncalled all game - the uncalled face mask on Ramsey by Higgins which clearly impacted the play, for example. 

 

It's distasteful to me that the refs kept their laundry in their pockets until the end, when it clearly impacted the result of the game.  They adopted a "let 'em play" mantra - until they didn't.

 

 

Yeah.  I didn't comment on the officiating, but I agree. 

 

The face mask didn't bother me, because it happened so fast, just as the ball was about to arrive, that I can understand the refs missing it.  I didn't see it live; I had to see the replay to realize what had happened.   Missed calls happen in every game, and they don't bother me unless they are obvious.  Frankly, I'm not so sure Ramsey would have made a play on the ball if it hadn't happened.  So, I was okay that they missed it, even though it turned out to be a huge play. 

 

But the officials got it completely backward, waiting to the end to throw the flags.  The end of games is when you have to let them play, because otherwise the flags help determine the outcome.  The holding call was really bad.  I think it was just a bad call, but it was the kind of call that causes people to wonder whether there's some motivation other than just keeping everyone within the rules.  For example, from a business point of view, in which city would the NFL rather have excitement about the home team, Los Angeles or Cincinnati?   LA, of course.  The League's been struggling for two decades to build interest in the NFL in LA.  (They're paying a big part of an eight-figure settlement to St. Louis for taking the Rams precisely because they wanted to rebuild a presence in LA.). What better way to do that than to have the Rams win the Super Bowl on their homefield?   I don't buy conspiracy theories, but it's at least an unfortunate coincidence that the officials made a phantom holding call to put the Rams in position to win the game.  

[Success]

2 minutes ago, cale said:

Not with our current D. Stafford would have had all day to throw. Whatever else you wanna say about the Bengals their DLine sacked the QB when they needed to. Their secondary is crap. But they got to the quarterback. Our D can't hold anything for 13 seconds.

 

I agree. The Bengals D kept them in that game - I don't think the Bills D would have been able to do the same.

 

[Shaw66]

14 minutes ago, mjd1001 said:

I think that is a good way to look at it.

To the causal/semi-casual football fan, this will be the game that in 5-10 years from now they don't remember much about.

It is also likely to be the game that...when you challenge your friends to tell you the last 10 superbowl winners, this is the one in the future that is the least memorable and most likely to be forgotten.

Yeah, you and Rico nailed it.  4th best against 4th best.  And QBs who may be good, but whose reps are not shining brightly.  Stafford now has a Lombardi to go with some great career numbers, but his performance last night certainly was not memorable.

 

 

On the other hand, of all this griping I've been doing is a fan's perspective.  If Stafford never wins anything else, he always will have this win and his ring, and there's no doubt that he deserves it.   The Bengals all hurt today, and the Rams all are celebrating, and they couldn't care less that their Super Bowl wasn't the best ever played. 

 

[Brand J]

Just heard Matthew Stafford is a future HoFer. Really? Matthew Stafford?

[cale]

4 minutes ago, Success said:

 

I agree. The Bengals D kept them in that game - I don't think the Bills D would have been able to do the same.

 

Also I didn't see many Rams games this season. But Kupp is a bad ass baller. Took him a loooonnnng time to develop, but it's paying off now. Jeff Fisher doesn't look so silly now. Drafting a WR from that powerhouse Eastern Washington...

[Hapless Bills Fan]

18 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

Yeah.  I didn't comment on the officiating, but I agree. 

 

The face mask didn't bother me, because it happened so fast, just as the ball was about to arrive, that I can understand the refs missing it.  I didn't see it live; I had to see the replay to realize what had happened.   Missed calls happen in every game, and they don't bother me unless they are obvious.  Frankly, I'm not so sure Ramsey would have made a play on the ball if it hadn't happened.  So, I was okay that they missed it, even though it turned out to be a huge play. 

 

But the officials got it completely backward, waiting to the end to throw the flags.  The end of games is when you have to let them play, because otherwise the flags help determine the outcome.  The holding call was really bad.  I think it was just a bad call, but it was the kind of call that causes people to wonder whether there's some motivation other than just keeping everyone within the rules.  For example, from a business point of view, in which city would the NFL rather have excitement about the home team, Los Angeles or Cincinnati?   LA, of course.  The League's been struggling for two decades to build interest in the NFL in LA.  (They're paying a big part of an eight-figure settlement to St. Louis for taking the Rams precisely because they wanted to rebuild a presence in LA.). What better way to do that than to have the Rams win the Super Bowl on their homefield?   I don't buy conspiracy theories, but it's at least an unfortunate coincidence that the officials made a phantom holding call to put the Rams in position to win the game.  

 

I don't know how refs are taught.  But while I couldn't see it from the initial broadcast angle, a replay closer to the refs onfield view showed Ramsey's head pivot in an unnatural fashion.  If I were training refs in a league that's supposedly trying to prevent head and neck injuries, that's something I'd train for them to watch.  I agree, Ramsey might not have made a play on the ball, but he very likely would have made a tackle.

 

I also felt the holding call was legit, from the replay - LB's arm wrapped around Kupp - not a Phantom Call at all IMO, and the knowledgeable folks I was watching saw it the same way as a legit holding call (again, from a replay with an angle closer to what the refs see on field).  But, we all agreed it was a call of the sort that was passing un-penalized earlier in the game.

 

Otherwise, I not only agree that it's completely backwards, but it's unfair to the players.  The players use the early part of the game to figure out what the particular ref crew in question will allow or call (inconsistency between crews is another issue).  So it's a real "bait and switch" to start calling penalties in the final 2 minutes that passed uncalled earlier in the game. 

 

It's a very bad look for the "integrity of the game" to have most of the called penalties in the game occur on the goal line in the final 2 minutes and result in extra tries at the go-ahead score.

[Shaw66]

6 minutes ago, Success said:

 

I agree. The Bengals D kept them in that game - I don't think the Bills D would have been able to do the same.

 

I don't see how you can think that.   The Bills were first in the league in yards allowed and first in points allowed.  The Bengals were 18th and 17th.  This narrative that the Bills defense is somehow hopelessly leaky is wrong.  The Bengals were better against the run than the Bills, but they were hopeless against passing all season.  If the Rams hadn't lost Woods, Higby, and Beckham, the Bengals would have been in deep trouble throughout the game.   The Bengals gave up 100+ yards per game rushing over the season and gave up 42 to the Rams, which means the Rams' running attack was really feeble.   No reason to believe the Bills couldn't have held Akers in check.  Bills and Bengals had the same number of sacks over the season, and there's no reason to believe the Bills wouldn't have done a better job shutting down the Rams passing attack. 

 

 

[RoyBatty is alive]

2 hours ago, simpleman said:

Yes. When the officials suddenly started calling everything they could against Cinci in the last 2 minutes, when the Rams needed a TD to win, while letting almost anything goes by either team previously during the rest of the game.  I thought about the WWE's style of entertainment, rather than the sport.

 It ended like it started. A former WWE star imitating an WWE announcer. And it ended with the NFL officials giving the RAMS more and more chances to score, whenever they missed on their previous chances. Until they finally won it. 

I knew the NFL had identical values to the WWE's values about the integrity of the sport. I also thought about Bench still being banned in baseball, while the NFL is actively all in on profits from gambling. Integrity of the sport be dammed.

I never bought into these, what I used to say ridiculous conspiracy theories BUT last night it got to an absurd level,  Yep, not much different than the WWE.

[Shaw66]

2 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

I don't know how refs are taught.  But while I couldn't see it from the initial broadcast angle, a replay closer to the refs onfield view showed Ramsey's head pivot in an unnatural fashion.  If I were training refs in a league that's supposedly trying to prevent head and neck injuries, that's something I'd train for them to watch.  I agree, Ramsey might not have made a play on the ball, but he very likely would have made a tackle.

 

I also felt the holding call was legit, from the replay - LB's arm wrapped around Kupp - not a Phantom Call at all IMO, and the knowledgeable folks I was watching saw it the same way as a legit holding call (again, from a replay with an angle closer to what the refs see on field).  But, we all agreed it was a call of the sort that was passing un-penalized earlier in the game.

 

Otherwise, I not only agree that it's completely backwards, but it's unfair to the players.  The players use the early part of the game to figure out what the particular ref crew in question will allow or call (inconsistency between crews is another issue).  So it's a real "bait and switch" to start calling penalties in the final 2 minutes that passed uncalled earlier in the game. 

 

It's a very bad look for the "integrity of the game" to have most of the called penalties in the game occur on the goal line in the final 2 minutes and result in extra tries at the go-ahead score.

The fundamental rule for all officials is if you don't see it, don't call it.   They are in fact trained NOT to call the face mask when they see the head turn, because although it PROBABLY turned because the defender pulled the face mask, you simply don't know.   You have to see the hand on the face mask to make the call. 

 

As for the hold, I thought that it had all the indicia of a hold except for one important characteristic, which is that it didn't any way (so far as I could see) impede the receiver from running his route.  He made his cut and kept running.  Yes, the hands were in a position that looked like a hold, but the receiver never seemed to exert any energy to overcome the fact that the defender had hands on him.   Defenders have hands on receivers all the time, and there's no call made.   

 

Having said that, I will readily admit that it looked like it may have been a hold in real-time, so I can't get too upset about it.  And, as someone else said, although it's not the objective, the two most questionable calls (one a non-call) of the game evened out.   Each was critical to a scoring drive, and one went each way.   I don't think the officials determined the outcome of the game.  

 

 

[Success]

6 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

I don't see how you can think that.   The Bills were first in the league in yards allowed and first in points allowed.  The Bengals were 18th and 17th.  This narrative that the Bills defense is somehow hopelessly leaky is wrong.  The Bengals were better against the run than the Bills, but they were hopeless against passing all season.  If the Rams hadn't lost Woods, Higby, and Beckham, the Bengals would have been in deep trouble throughout the game.   The Bengals gave up 100+ yards per game rushing over the season and gave up 42 to the Rams, which means the Rams' running attack was really feeble.   No reason to believe the Bills couldn't have held Akers in check.  Bills and Bengals had the same number of sacks over the season, and there's no reason to believe the Bills wouldn't have done a better job shutting down the Rams passing attack. 

 

 

 

I put almost not stock into those stats, or our #1 ranking, which to me was a mirage.  We built those stats against bad teams and middlin' QB's.

 

The Bengals had a better line.  They could pressure the passer in a way that I don't think the Bills could have.  It kept that game close.

 

There is no way to really know. It's just how I see it - I don't think our line would have had an impact.

 

[Rico]

37 minutes ago, mjd1001 said:

I think that is a good way to look at it.

To the causal/semi-casual football fan, this will be the game that in 5-10 years from now they don't remember much about.

It is also likely to be the game that...when you challenge your friends to tell you the last 10 superbowl winners, this is the one in the future that is the least memorable and most likely to be forgotten.

Also, when ranking the Super Bowl winners, this Rams team will be close to the bottom of the list. I don’t think they were close to being considered the best team in the league all season long (until after the final game).

[RoyBatty is alive]

9 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

I don't know how refs are taught.  But while I couldn't see it from the initial broadcast angle, a replay closer to the refs onfield view showed Ramsey's head pivot in an unnatural fashion.  If I were training refs in a league that's supposedly trying to prevent head and neck injuries, that's something I'd train for them to watch.  I agree, Ramsey might not have made a play on the ball, but he very likely would have made a tackle.

 

I also felt the holding call was legit, from the replay - LB's arm wrapped around Kupp - not a Phantom Call at all IMO, and the knowledgeable folks I was watching saw it the same way as a legit holding call (again, from a replay with an angle closer to what the refs see on field).  But, we all agreed it was a call of the sort that was passing un-penalized earlier in the game.

 

Otherwise, I not only agree that it's completely backwards, but it's unfair to the players.  The players use the early part of the game to figure out what the particular ref crew in question will allow or call (inconsistency between crews is another issue).  So it's a real "bait and switch" to start calling penalties in the final 2 minutes that passed uncalled earlier in the game. 

 

It's a very bad look for the "integrity of the game" to have most of the called penalties in the game occur on the goal line in the final 2 minutes and result in extra tries at the go-ahead score.

 

Yes it was "legit" BUT 1) it was incredibly ticky tac 2) playoff football  is very DB friendly with calls 3) as you mentioned,  the Refs had barely called anything all night and suddenly at crunch time they do, you shouldn't change they way you have been calling the game.

[Shaw66]

4 minutes ago, Success said:

 

I put almost not stock into those stats, or our #1 ranking, which to me was a mirage.  We built those stats against bad teams and middlin' QB's.

 

The Bengals had a better line.  They could pressure the passer in a way that I don't think the Bills could have.  It kept that game close.

 

There is no way to really know. It's just how I see it - I don't think our line would have had an impact.

 

I put no stock in minor differences.  If I'm 4th and you're 11th, fine.   But #1 and absolute middle of the pack is not a mirage.  

 

Maybe their line gets better pressure than the Bills line, but the sack numbers suggest that the Bills got more coverage sacks, and they would have gotten coverage sacks against Stafford, because the Rams had no receivers other than Kupp.   The difference between Kupp and the rest of his teammates in the receiver/tight end room and Tyreek Hill and his mates is almost laughable.  

 

You're right - no way to know.   But you can't be statistically the best defense in the league with smoke and mirrors.  Opposing coaches are too good to let you get away with that.  

[Bleeding Bills Blue]

1 hour ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

I disagree with the sketchiness of the holding call on Kupp.  But the rest of your point stands.  If it's OK to grab a DB's face mask and yank his head around and hold earlier in the game, don't change what you're allowing or calling in the red zone in the last 2 minutes.

 

 

They weren't phantom calls - they were legit - but there were equally non-phantom calls that weren't penalized earlier in the game IMHO.

 

Don't hold at critical moments of the game.  When Kupp can't get away from a middle linebacker... there's likely something going on there.  Downfield underthrown passes are so difficult to defend you could probably call a penalty on either team on like every one.  

[What a Tuel]

I'm not sure why people think that 1) officials changed how they are calling 2) players thought grabbing a face mask and twisting their head around was green lit after the no call? We didn't see a free for all of helmet twists, so not sure how later on defensive holding calls are wrong and changing the calls?

 

 

Edited February 14, 2022 by What a Tuel