Category Archives: Gee’s Thoughts

The Super Bowl Aftermath

06 Wednesday Feb 2019

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This is not quite the final post of the 2018 season for me as I have at least one coaching tape post that I am going to write on the Super Bowl, and frankly I’m tempted to do both sides of the ball for both teams but I’ll get to that in a bit.

So what can I tell you about the Super Bowl that you don’t already know or saw for yourself? I was intrigued by the game and I really am looking forward to digging into the coaching tape, but no one can claim it was a spectacle. For a season so dominated by high powered offences, the Super Bowl was a demonstration that not only can defences still compete, but they can still win championships.

I joked on Sunday that my dream of a game without touchdowns decided by a safety was still in play after the first quarter, but whilst we got a field goal in the second quarter, we didn’t see a touchdown until the fourth quarter and the game finished 13-3 to the Patriots.

Whilst all the headlines have understandably gone to Belichick and Brady as they won a sixth Super Bowl, it is worth pointing out that Brady had his own problems thanks to the Rams’ defensive coordinator Wade Philips and it was only due to an unpractised switch by Josh McDaniels in the fourth quarter that the Patriots scored any touchdowns. This is the first match-up I am going to look at in the coaching tape so I can see what was happening but Tom Brady started the with an interception on his first pass and the Patriots struggled to move the ball effectively all game. The obvious stand out offensive player of the game was Julian Edelman, which explains why he was declared MVP but as important as his contribution was to the Patriots win, in a game that was so dominated by two sets of defences, perhaps a defensive player should have won that award. After all, Stephon Gilmore finished the  game with five tackles, forced a fumble and picked off Jared Goff, which led to the Patriots effectively sealing the game with a second field goal.

To just put this into context, Bill Belichick and new Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores managed to limit the second best offence in the league by DVOA to a field goal. The surprising thing about this was given the innovation that Sean McVay and the Rams have shown all season, they didn’t find an offensive adjustment or try anything on special teams. I felt sure going into this game that McVay would have something up his sleeve, and I need to watch on tape to be sure of what happened but it didn’t feel like the Rams moved away from 11 personnel and that was something I had seen them do in the playoffs. I don’t know if we’ll ever know precisely what was going on with Todd Gurley, but with ten carries and a couple of pass targets he was not a big part of the game. In fact the Rams only gave CJ Anderson seven carries and for a team that builds its offence off running the ball and play-action, they were too often in a third and long situation. The Patriots managed to do what I thought they might, make Jared Goff drop back and beat them with his arm and he was not up to the task. Goff has already spoken up and shouldered the blame, whilst Sean McVay admitted he had been out-coached and veteran left tackle Andrew Whitworth reminded us we are going to die so whilst this loss is going to hurt for a while, I suspect that the Rams will learn and be competitive next season. There are a lot of free agents on their roster so we’ll have to see how they chose to go about assembling a new roster the off-season, but McVay will need to develop an adjustment to what happened in the Super Bowl as defensive coordinators around the league will be studying the coaching tape of it in the off-season.

As for the Patriots, would anyone be surprised if Bill Belichick was already working on next season. I think it is likely that we’ll see Rob Gronkowski retire given the toll his career has taken on his body and apparently he has been dealing with a bulging disk in his back this season, but Tom Brady is still planning to carry on. As I keep saying, I will believe the Patriots are done when they finally stop winning. They are the masters of doing just enough through the season and peaking for the playoffs so let’s see how they shape up, but given the premium they place on depth of roster I would expect their off-season to be quiet and who can argue with their success. How resilient do you have to be as a franchise to go to so many Super Bowls in a period where the league is designed for parity? As much as you may be fed up of watching them win, we are living through history and we should not take such excellence for granted. That said, a playoff tested Patrick Mahomes won’t be spotting the Patriots a fourteen-point lead at halftime next season so things could well be very different next times the Chiefs play the Patriots.

As I mentioned briefly, Patriots defensive coordinator Brian Flores has been formally announced as their new head coach. The Bengals have also announced that Rams quarterback coach Zac Taylor will be their tenth head coach. We won’t know how either of their tenures will go for a couple of seasons, but we are already into the season of hope as many teams announced via twitter pretty much the moment the Super Bowl was done.

I am going to take a look at the coaching tape of the Super Bowl, focusing on the Patriots offence versus the Rams’ defence this week for a post I hope to get up on Sunday, and I may well look at the job the Patriots defence did on the Rams the week after, but then I will focus on other things for a little while. I’ll write some posts round the major off-season events as well as occasional football posts but I won’t be posting more than once or twice a month until preseason starts.

In the meantime, thank you for reading all season and good luck with the long off-season, but between free-agency and the draft, there’s plenty of news to follow and soon it will be time for training camps.

There’s just one final thing I have to share today, but I’ll let Dan’s Dad, winner of this season’s pick competition and trivia master extraordinaire have the final say on the 2018 season

‘Well, there we go. Another season closes with a record breaking Superbowl in the bag but as we prepare for the quieter months to come we have to put a lid on the 2018 Trivia competition.

You will remember that this final game became a simple shoot out as Dan and Gee were on exactly the same scores so, literally, all to play for.

Question 1 wanted the player making the longest kick off return and it was Dan who took the early lead correctly identifying Jakeem Grant’s 102 yard return ending in a fine TD.

Question 2 asked the same for the longest pass of the year. Well, like the English cricketers the scorers were not troubled here. Patrick Mahomes was a logical choice but Big Ben Rothlisburger who threw a 97 yarder run in for another TD.

Third was a simple NFC/AFC question on which had won the most Superbowls. Well the score, before today, was 27 – 25 in favour of the NFC so Gee draws level.

Well done both on stotting that with 2 points at stake it was likely that there would be 2 QB’s who played in and won 4 Superbowls with no defeats. Well, I’ve dropped a few names into the mix recently so Gee’s choice of Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana against Dan’s Elway/Montana combo sees Gee gaining 2 to Dan’s 1.

Finally I asked about how many franchises have won a Superbowl. The answer is 20 so again, no points I’m afraid.

Therefore by just 1 point, for the record 22 to 21, this year’s champion in Gee. Congratulations to both for some interesting and impressive answers. I have the benefit of Google but this pair have only gone to it after they have made their responses so Kudos there! 

In closing I had set a tie breaker in case it was needed and, would you believe it, they both went for the same answer so it wouldn’t have got a result after all. I asked about the total Passing yardage for all 32 teams last season. 128,000 wasn’t a bad try but if you are interested it was 121737 – and for the geeks rushing delivered 58643 so now I see why a QB with a good arm is so valuable.

I hope you have enjoyed the quiz – its been an interesting thing to compile but I’ve been pleased by the responses. Enjoy the Off-season.’

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Super Bowl Sunday

03 Sunday Feb 2019

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Here we are on Super Bowl Sunday, and there’s a game to preview and a number of trivia questions to separate Dan and I in our competition.

‘A bumper crop of questions in the hope that a winner can be found – along with a tie breaker which would only come into play if we are still at loggerheads. So, here goes:

In the 2018 Regular season – who scored the

  1. Long kick return   (For 1 point)
  2. Longest Pass   (1 point)
  3. For Superbowl LIII I want to know which conference has had most wins in the preceding 52? To be clear the NFC includes the NFL and the AFC the AFL.   (1 Point)
  4. Which QBs have Played in 4 Superbowl’s and won all 4   (2 points)
  5. How many franchises, including teams that have relocated to another city, have won the Super Bowl?   (1 point)

And finally, the Hail Mary Tie-breaker……… IF it’s needed.

In the 2018 season what was the Aggregate Total of Passing Yards of all 32 Teams.

Its Game On – Over to you.’

So this is a pretty tough set of questions and I’ll try to work my way through with guess work as I don’t know:

  1. I’m struggling on this one, but I think Alex Erickson of the Bengals had a long one, like over seventy yards, and whilst it wouldn’t surprise me if there was one from the endzone, I can’t think of it.
  2. I’m not exactly sure on this one either, but I feel comfortable in plumping for a guess of Patrick Mahomes as it’s not exactly a stretch for him to have the longest pass of the season.
  3. Okay, so I’m going to go with the maths on this one, and hope that fifty-two is a large enough sample size for the big runs to even themselves out. However, whilst I suspect the numbers are close, I do remember the ridiculous run of NFC winners we had in the mid-eighties into the nineties thanks to the Cowboys and 49ers so I’m guessing NFC.
  4. This one is one that I think I have a solid guess at assuming I’m right in thinking two points equals two names, and whilst there are a few quarterbacks with a great pedigree, I’m going to name Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana as the logical guesses given their team’s successes and hope that Steve Young isn’t going to trip me up!
  5. So I think this is actually going to be surprisingly low given that there have been fifty-two games, but we have had a lot of teams like the Steelers, 49ers, Patriots who have won a lot so even throwing in moved franchise I’m going to guess at something like twenty-five

Bonus question time!

I could actually work this out from data but I’ll employ a little maths and as I know that the Chiefs threw for over five thousand yards, and guessing the lowest is somewhere around say three thousand so the mid-point is say four thousand yards. That would give me total of one-hundred and twenty-eight thousand passing yards for thirty-two teams as a rough guess.

‘Ok, my final trivia answers. With everything neck and neck (we promise it wasn’t planned this way!!):

  1. Long kick return – I feel this is unfair, but I’ll take it! Jakeem Grant of the Dolphins got a 102 yarder against the Titans week one. It was also the longest game of the season. I’ll take the extra point there too…!
  2. Longest Pass – Not sure about this, it really could be anyone. I’ll say Patrick Mahomes.
  3. For Superbowl LIII I want to know which conference has had most wins in the preceding 52? – Hmmm… bit of a toss-up here. I’ll guess at the AFC
  4. Which QBs have Played in 4 Superbowl’s and won all 4 – it’s going to have been a while back, so I’ll go with John Elway and Joe Montana
  5. How many franchises, including teams that have relocated to another city, have won the Super Bowl? This will be quite high, but I know not everyone has… I’ll go with 26

In the 2018 season what was the Aggregate Total of Passing Yards of all 32 Teams. – 128,000 is my guess. To show my working, I’d say the best teams get about 5000, and the worst end up on about 3000, so averaging at 4000 per team, over 32 teams, makes 128k.’

So with the trivia competition out of the way it is time turn our attention to tonight’s game.

New England Patriots vs Los Angeles Rams

I will start by looking at both teams when they have the ball and the I’ll throw in some final comments and there will be nothing left to write before the big game.

The match-up of the game for me will the Patriots’ defence going against Rams’ offence so that’s where I will start. The often-cited tactics of Bill Belichick is to take away what you want to do and force you to play left handed. I’m not sure who they will focus on in terms of coverage, but I imagine given how much of the Ram’s offence is based off running the ball and play-action, that the Patriots will want to force Jared Goff to be a drop back passer and dare him to beat them with his arm. Now the Rams almost lucked into a powerful backfield duo when they picked up CJ Anderson late in the season to spell Todd Gurley who was struggling with a knee injury. The Rams are insisting that Gurley is healthy despite him spending most of the Conference Championship game on an exercise bike and one of the big unknowns in this game is how effective Gurley will be. That said, Anderson has rushed for over one-hundred yards in three of the four games he has played for the Rams since getting signed in December.

The story of the Rams’ offence this season has been the use of 11 personnel and the myriad of looks and motions they build of this group of starters who predominantly play the whole game. However, in recent weeks they have been mixing in more 12 personnel with the extra tight-end helping in both the running and passing game. The don’t have a dominant receiver, with both Robert Woods and Brandin Cooks finishing the regular season over twelve-hundred yards and within fifteen yards of each other. The loss of Cooper Kupp to injury did seem to disrupt Jared Goff but Josh Reynolds has done what he can from the slot to replace him.

I am really looking forward to this match-up as it is the meat of the contest between the all time great Bill Belichick and the young genius as Sean McVay has been heralded, and I think it is likely to be the most important for the Rams if they hope to win. I’ll come back to that later, but for now I will just say that I am intrigued to see what McVay and his staff have cooked up in terms of things that run counter to the Rams’ usual offensive tendencies that will be tried in an effort to catch Belichick out.

When the Patriots have the ball things will be just as interesting, and the contest between Josh McDaniels and Tom Brady going against Wade Philips is hardly less intriguing what I’ve just written about. Particularly as Philips has already masterminded a winning defence against Brady and the Patriots on the way to a Super Bowl win with the Broncos. In Aaron Donald the Rams’ have a pass rusher every bit as effective as the Broncos’ Von Miller and they can also line up Ndamukong Suh next to him. The conventional wisdom is to beat Tom Brady you need to be able to get pressure with four pass rushers and with these two supremely talented tackles and Dante Fowler the Rams stand some chance of doing this. The difference between this defence and the one the Philips and the Broncos used to beat the Patriots is the secondary is not as talented and in a game such as against the Saints what the Rams have are explosive moments rather than consistent play. Yes both Suh and Donald has outstanding moments, but the Saints were able to get them on their heels and I have feeling that the recent tactics of the Patriots could well negate the Rams’ defence.

The Patriots, as has often been their want have recently reinvented themselves as running football team using 21 personnel and fullback James Devlin as both a lead blocker and pass catcher. In addition, in the last few weeks Rob Gronkowski has looked really effective as a blocking tight-end who has caught some passes and whilst he’s looked for from his league conquering best, in the last few games he has looked closer to it. The form of Julian Edelman in the playoffs has also been a big boost to the Patriots whilst their running backs committee was able to generate one-hundred and seventy-six yards and four touchdowns against the Chiefs. This may not be the high flying iteration of the Patriots’ offence that has so dominated previous seasons, but they have found a way to control the clock and win games comfortably having earned yet another playoff bye.

The advantage this gives the Patriots is that if they can grind out the game against a defence that was twenty-eight in the league against the run during the regular season then they can dominate time of possession and win a close game.

I am really excited by this year’s Super Bowl, which I think should be tactically fascinating but who do I think is going to win?

This has been a year where your defence only needed to be so good given the power of offence, but I feel like the Patriots have a slight edge in match-ups and I have more faith in Belichick and staff’s ability to maximise their team’s performance in the unusual circumstances of the Super Bow given they have been there nine times in eighteen and this is their third in a row. The Rams absolutely can win this game, and I would love for former Bengals stalwart starting left tackle Andrew Whitworth to get a Super Bowl win but whilst my heart wants Rams for this reason, my head says that in a close game the Patriots will edge out winners with their better balance.

Whatevver happens, I think I will have some great coaching tape to dig into next week.

AAF: LA Rams’ Defence

03 Sunday Feb 2019

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So for my final amateur adventures in film post I took a look at the LA Rams defence playing against the New Orleans Saints’ offence.

This was an interesting match-up as the Saints’ offence ranked fourth in league by DVOA and the Rams’ defence ranked nineteenth.

For most of this game the Rams did not play in a base 3-4 four defence, predominantly playing a 3-3 nickel or 3-2 dime defence. The hybrid defensive line consisted of three defensive linemen and Dante Fowler moving to either side of the line as a stand-up pass rusher. This highlighted how important the trade for him mid-season was, and against the Saints the Rams’ defence held them to under three hundred yards. However, whilst the Saints were only able to run for forty-eight yards, there were stretches where they were able to move the ball freely and Drew Brees threw for two-hundred and forty-nine yards and two touchdowns.

The Rams rush defence was not great this season, but they managed to bottle up the Saints pair of runners in Mark Ingram and Alvin Kamara, but this was partly due to moments of brilliant from Suh and Donald rather than consistent run fits, although that did happen on some snaps. Still, it was very impressive to see Suh pushing back a centre of the quality of Max Unger as happened on a couple of plays.

However, for a lot of the game I was more impressed with the design of the Saints offence, with combinations of routes creating natural picks between defenders and several times using motion to get players open in the passing game. In the much talked about play where Nickell Robey-Coleman committed uncalled pass interference and a helmet to helmet hit, he was behind the Saints’ motion from before the ball was snapped so you can see why he desperately flew across the field and committed the interference to stop a touchdown. The problem for him this week will be that he admitted it and so the refs will be likely watching him closely in the Super Bowl and so despite him having some impressive pass breakups in this game, I wonder if he could struggle in a match-up against Julian Edelman in the slot.

The Rams secondary has some impressive names at corner, but Marcus Peters in known to gamble for the big play and Aqib Talib is ten days away from his thirty-third birthday. Too often the Saints were able to move the ball with short plays or scheme someone open, even if Michael Thomas was kept to a modest thirty-six yards, but Ted Ginn continued to prove his used in stretching the defence, whilst Alvin Kamara picked up ninety-six yards through the air as various players tried to follow him round the formation and often failed.

Overall there are a lot of big names in the Rams’ defensive unit, but they are really designed to play with a lead and counter a team passing the ball to catch up. For most of the year this was absolutely fine, but we shall have to see how it fairs this week in the Super Bowl. What price they will pay going forward given the number of high-price free-agents that comprise their star players, but the new acquisitions for this season were meant to get the Rams to the Super Bowl, so as far as the Rams are concerned the gamble was probably worth it.

Super Bowl Build Up

31 Thursday Jan 2019

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So amidst the swirling and annually swelling Super Bowl coverage we have to take stock ahead of the big game on Sunday.

I’ll start with the continuing saga in New Orleans, and I mention the city rather than team as apart from what befell the Saints in the Conference Championship game, this past Monday NBA superstar Anthony Davis said he will not be resigning with the New Orleans Pelicans and put in a trade request. This was a story big enough to fight the Super Bowl for attention in American sports media, which has to really hurt fans of in New Orleans.

Still, it’s hard to tell too much about how these stories battled for attention from over here in the UK, but it was certainly interesting and there are still stories about the Saints coming out. We had Ben Watson calling out Roger Goodell’s silence a week ago in a well-reasoned complaint on twitter.

19-01-31bwatson

Drew Brees clearly is begging to prepare for next season, and his Instagram post certainly showed why he’s been successful for so long.

‘I’ve spent this last week navigating the heartache and disappointment from the game. Some things within our control and some outside our control that caused us to fall short. So much of our motivation is to represent the Who Dat Nation with determination and resiliency. We want to play for you, fight for you, and win for you. You deserve that. 
The longer I play I realize that we truly are one heartbeat with our fans. Our success is your success. Our disappointment is your disappointment. We are inspired by one another to accomplish things far greater than what we could ever do on our own. 
Everything that has ever happened to this community, we have bonded together, galvanized and leaped forward every time. 
The frustration we feel now can be channeled in the same way. Pour that passion and emotion into your families and communities. Inspire others with your focus & determination and positive outlook. This will make us stronger, this will bond us tighter, this will be a source for our success in the future. 
There is no place like New Orleans. There is no community like ours. No fans like the Who Dat Nation. I refuse to let this hold us down. I refuse to let this create any negativity or resentment. I embrace the challenge. 
So keep your chin up, hold your head high, puff your chest out because WE are the Who Dat Nation and WE will always persevere.’

Drew Brees Instagram

Meanwhile his head coach Sean Payton has revealed that he spent several days locked in his office with ice cream and Netflix, and this was a story on NFL.com that followed only the Goodell press-conference when I looked at lunch time.

I was fighting my schedule again this week and as a result I was juggling when to publish posts, but part of the reason I held my mid-week post back a day was so was I could hear what Roger Goodell might have to say, but the honest answer is not much. This seems to have very much been the approach for Goodell this season who has kept a low profile, as demonstrated by his slow response to the bad no call that everyone is talking about. Even then he didn’t move past general quotes supportive of the referees and said we’ll look at replay in the off-season. Now he was never going to reverse the winners of the game and the Saints’ fans trying to bring a law suit won’t get too far either, but the interesting nugget I did read was that one of the reasons that the missed call against the Saints couldn’t be reviewed is that teams have always been against the review of no-calls. Now this will be to do with limiting the effect on the flow of the game and the influence of replay, but for something to change it has to get through the competition committee and then pass a vote amongst the owners. We shall have to see what comes out of that, but I am not expecting anything radical to come of this process. Certainly we have got used to Goodell not saying much of anything.

Getting back to the game, the media circus is in full swing with a mixture of really good break downs and less football related antics of media scrabbling for news round the Super Bowl. I’ll get to the game in my Sunday post, and I am not going to write a complaint about the quality of some of the media coverage here, but I do want to take note of it taking place.

The reason I want to do this is picking up from something Solomon Wilcots was saying on the Inside the Huddle podcast, namely that you can’t win a Super Bowl in the week before the game, but you can lose one. Now the story he tells is of the 1989 Bengals team who lost Stanley Wilson to a cocaine relapse on the eve of the Super Bowl, and his job was to block Ronnie Lott. Now I very much want to not say something like that is going to happen, and we have learnt a lot about addiction in the intervening years and it still wasn’t enough to help Josh Gordon stay clean whilst with the Patriots this season. However, with all the demands on player’s attentions and the unusual circumstances as well as changed to their routine like the extra-long half time, the team who adjusts to this environment the best will set themselves up with a good chance to win. The Patriots have been to nine Super Bowls in eighteen years and this is the third straight year they have reached the big game. That is a simply phenomenal record and has to give the Patriots some kind of edge in their preparation. The attention to detail of Sean McVay is also pretty well know so I’m not saying that the Patriots are going to walk the game, particularly given all the Patriots Super Bowls have been close, but it could be a small detail covered in a meeting this week that turns the game. Now to be fair, mostly it will be decided by the players on the day, but you never know.

I’m really looking forward to this game given both teams use a lot of deception as part of their scheme and I think it could be a fascinating match up to study in coaching tape, but for now enjoy the build-up and look forward to Sunday.

There’s not long left to go now!

AAF: Patriots Defence

28 Monday Jan 2019

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For the first coaching tape I watched in preparation for the Super Bowl was me taking a look at the Patriots defence and how they contained the Chiefs offence, holding them scoreless in the first half and limiting them to under three hundred total yards. In fact their two hundred and ninety total yards was the lowest for the Chiefs’ offence all season and only the second time they were kept under three hundred yards.

So how did the Patriots manage this and how did the Chiefs score thirty-one points in one half of football?

Well the game plan was pretty consistent through both halves and I will start with the coverage choices and work my way forwards. It is a well known fact the Patriots will often double cover a team’s best receiver, but they will use their best corner to cover the teams second best receiver. Now I confess that I didn’t track which corner was covering each player through the entire game as I have to limit what I track to get posts out. If someone wants to pay me to go more in depth I’m all for it! What I can say is that the Patriots doubled Tyreek Hill for the entire game and played with one high safety. This was a gamble that paid off and it needed to as this meant they were effectively playing cover 0 for the rest of the Chief’s receiving options. However, Hill was only targeted three times in this game and had one catch when running a route from the slot where he got a clean release and therefore was able to use a fake in and out break to find a soft part of the bracket coverage and catch his one pass that did go for forty-two yards. The rest of the receivers were then singled covered and whilst Sammy Watkins did catch four balls for one hundred and fourteen yard, he got no touchdowns. The other thing to mention regarding the Patriots’ coverage was they were hardly ever in what would be considered a base defence of 3-4. Mostly they played a mixture of 2-4 nickel and 3-2 dime, using the extra defensive back(s) to cover Travis Kelce, who himself only had three receptions from three targets although he did get a touchdown.

The counter to lining up with this kind of personnel and formation would be to run up the middle with more power, but whilst the Chiefs did use more 12 personnel in the second half, full back Anthony Sherman only got one snap on offence in a goal line formation. In case you are curious, Sherman did have twenty-three snaps on special teams so it is not like he was not contributing to this game, but he was not a part of the offensive game plan. The Chiefs were not however, able to get their run game going consistently on this game anyway. Their longest run of the game was a ten yarder by Damien Williams, and if you remove that from his rushing totals then Williams’ pedestrian three yards per carry drops to a woeful two point two. The second longest run was Patrick Mahomes, who scrambled for nine when the defence opened up before him but he is not a rushing quarterback and with that I have covered all the Chiefs’ runs in this game!

Now part of this is to do with game flow. The Patriots set out to run the ball and control the clock, which they managed to do and having put up a lead and amassed double the time of possession, the Chiefs had to rely on their explosive offence to catch up. It took time for Mahomes to adjust to what the Patriots were doing and to find ways of completing passes. Often there were no receivers open and Mahomes got bailed out a couple of times by defensive holding or pass interference penalties, several of which were given away by JC Jackson. Mahomes also got sacked four times as the Patriots racked up ten quarterback hits, but the good news for the Chiefs going forward is that Mahomes did find those ways in the second half and going forward he is only going to improve in such situations as he gains experience.

I’ll finish up with the two players in the front seven who particularly caught my eye. The obvious candidate is Kyle Van Noye who lined up all round the linebacker spots and racked up ten tackles, eight of them solo, as well as two sacks and a quarterback hit as well as forcing a fumble. If Van Noye was the all action super star, then Trey Flowers was the man causing the disruption in the front seven with his hand in the dirt. He may have only got two tackles but he paired that with a sack and two quarterback hits as well as getting one of those tackles for a loss.

It is kind of appropriate for a team like the Patriots to not have people leaping of the screen all over the defence, but to posses a collective doing their jobs to make an effective whole. There’s no guarantee that the same players will shine in the Super Bowl, or that the same scheme and personnel groupings will be used. I suspect they could well use the coverage trick I described a start of this piece again, but seeing what they come up with to limit the Sean McVay and the Rams’ offence is probably what I’m most looking forward to watching this Sunday. Until then, I shall take a look at the Rams defence given that I watched the Rams offence only a couple of weeks ago.

Trivia for Pro Bowl Weekend

27 Sunday Jan 2019

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With a week to go until the Super Bowl we have had a bit of fun in the Pro Bowl skill competitions and I have watched my first game of coaching tape that I will write up, but we also have two trivia questions to contend with so here goes:

‘And then we move onto Week 21, the Pro Bowl and there are 2 questions this week with 3 points up for grabs.

Firstly, in the 2018 Regular Season who (player) kicked the most field goals? As a bonus How Many was that?

Secondly, for 1 point, whose foundation (player not team) raised a record $41m following Hurricane Harvey?’

So the second question is the easiest for me to answer as the damage that Hurricane Harvey caused in Houston was very memorable, as was the fund raising effort that was led by JJ Watt.

As for field goals, I’m going to plump for probably the best field goal kicker in the league, who just happens to play for a team who relied heavily on him and their defence for the first half of the season so I’m plumping for Justin Tucker and say he got thirty-two field goals.

‘Ok, quick answers this week. Question one I should really know as the kicking connoisseur of the group, but I’m afraid it’s going to be a guess. I’ll go with Baltimore’s Justin Tucker with about 38 kicks made.

Question 2 is easy, and unfair as the answer is Gee’s Spirit Animal and all round good guy, Mr Julian* Jonathan* Watt!

* – may not be his real names… it’s JJ Watt.’

Farewell to the Teams who Fell at the Final Hurdle

24 Thursday Jan 2019

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We now know the Super Bowl participants and before I really focus in on that matchup and the stories of those teams, it’s time to say goodbye to the pair of teams that fell at the final hurdle.

New Orleans Saints

This is the second straight year where the New Orleans Saints suffered a gut wrenching loss to send them out of the playoffs. Last year, a last minute miraculous play from the Vikings combined with an awful play by a safety saw the Saints crashing out. This season their hopes were dashed by a third down play that could have seen a flag thrown for pass interference or a helmet to helmet but received neither. The player admitted the foul as he was worried about giving up a touchdown and Sean Payton received a phone call telling him that the refs had blown the call. I don’t know if by the time the competition committee meet in March that things will have died down again, but there is a reason that Bill Belichick has been calling for all plays to be reviewable and no one, be it player, coach or referee wants to see a game turn on such a moment.

But what about the Saints’ season?

Well they went to the playoffs for a second straight year and were my tip for the Super Bowl for a number of weeks, but unfortunately this was not to be. Drew Brees turned forty this week, and whilst he threw for fewer yards this season, he set a record for completion percentage as he led the Saints to 13-3 record that was only matched by the Rams team that beat them at the weekend. The Saints may have started the year with a loss to the Buccaneers, but they were not the only team to concede a lot of yards to that Bucs’ offence and they promptly won ten straight games until they lost to the Dallas Cowboys in week thirteen, but I will come to that in a minute.

The Saints’ defence took a few weeks to come together, but the offence scored forty-points three times in their opening five games and for a large part of the season they looked to be on a level with the Chiefs and Rams as the best in the league. However, they really struggled against the Cowboys in week thirteen and never quite looked the same again.

How much of this was because coordinators saw something in that game that they could apply I don’t know, but there were other problems. The Saints struggled for a reliable second receiver for much of the season and relied on Alvin Kamara coming out of the backfield to supplement Michael Thomas. More worrying was through this end section of the regular season and into the playoffs Brees struggled with the long ball, under-throwing passes and getting bailed out by receivers but also getting intercepted. It would not surprise me if he has been carrying an injury as almost everyone playing in the NFL at the end of the season is managing something, but I wouldn’t push the panic button. However, if the big focus of last year’s draft was the addition of a pass rusher, and they gave up a lot to trade up and pick Marcus Davenport, then the Saints should make sure they have the receivers to utilise Brees’ time left. He has stated that he intends to return and the Saints for the past two season have been very competitive and were definitely worthy of the Super Bowl this season, but that doesn’t mean you win them. Brees has at least won one though, which is more than some Hall of Fame quarterbacks have managed. It makes sense to come back for another year with this team as in tact as possible, which is good as the Saints have one of the smaller amounts of salary cap space available in 2019 but even if they manage this there’s no guarantee that they will be as good next year and that is what makes this loss so painful. There’s hope for next season, but there’s no sugar coating the fact that the Saints are up against the clock with the age of Drew Brees. I would really like him to win another Super Bowl, but only time will tell if this was his best chance.

Kansas City Chiefs

If the Saints are fighting against Father Time as well as the rest of the league, then the Chiefs in the opposite position thanks to how impressive Patrick Mahomes has been in his first full season. The only other quarterback to throw for five thousand yards and fifty touchdowns was Peyton Manning in 2013 when he threw for five thousand four hundred and seventy-seven yards and fifty-five touchdowns. If you consider where Manning was at that point in his career and compare to how young Mahomes is then it is truly frightening for the rest of the league and particularly for the rest of the AFC West who will likely see him twice a season for the next decade and hopefully more with injury luck.

For most of the season the Chiefs offence has enthralled and entertained with motion, quick breaking plays and quick scores. They were not even that heavily affected by the loss of Kareem Hunt after he was dropped by the team once video emerged of an incident in a hotel in the off-season where he shoved a woman to the ground and kicked her. Their Achilles heel has been the defence, and ultimately defensive coordinator Bob Sutton has paid for this with his job. Given the range of talent the Chiefs possess, the offence should be just as potent next season, possibly even more so as Mahomes gains experience and he proved in the second half of the Conference Championship game that even after difficult starts he can rise to the big occasions. The Chiefs are just above league average in salary cap space for next season, and given the team they have put together already, if they can improve their defence to merely average as opposed to twenty-sixth in the league by DVOA then this team could be terrifying. There are still questions about some of the ways that Andy Reid runs the clock, but for all the jokes he has a really impressive coaching record and we could be about to see the years where he gets the Super Bowls to go with the wins.

It has now been forty-eight years since the Chiefs made it to the Super Bowl, I would not be at all surprised if they are playing in next year’s.

Conference Championship Games

20 Sunday Jan 2019

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Tonight we get the top two teams from both conferences competing to see who goes to the Super Bowl, which is much more important than our trivia competition but we’re doing it anyway!

‘For this week I’ll keep it simple and its ONE point for each of the 3 questions.

In the 2018 Regular season who had the most sacks?

We have already asked which team has made the most Championship appearances (The Steelers with 16) but who has made the second most?

Finally, which team has won the most Championship games?

Dan still has a 1 point advantage – will that be the case come Sunday?’

Okay, so this is a varied set of questions, but let’s see how we go. I’m pretty certain that the answer to the first question is Aaron Donald, which just goes to show how impressive he is as he got them playing defensive tackle.

I’m slightly worried that there is a trick to the other questions because this brings back to my mind the overall record post I did in the summer before this season and so I am sure that the team with the most championship wins is the Green Bay Packers, but were they super-efficient and got it on fewer tries or are they second to the Steelers in terms of appearances? The Packers got thirteen championships (I have the spreadsheet to prove it) and if the Steelers were first with sixteen then the Packers were in at least thirteen championship games so I’m sticking with them for both questions. I look forward to being proved wrong…

‘I’m really feeling the pressure here – after a terrible pick-em season, I’m desperate to win the trivia competition, and with 3 weeks left (I think) I’m getting nervous!

Question one I’m going to go with Aaron Donald – it’s a bit of a guess but he’s been a sack machine for years so I’ll go with him for the most this season.
Sorry to jump around, but I’m going for the Patriots as the team who have won the most Conference Championships in Q3 and I’m between them and the Packers for second most appearances in question two… I think I’ll stick with the Patriots for both answers.’

LA Rams @ New Orleans Saints

The first game on Sunday sees the LA Rams take their second ranked offence and nineteenth ranked defence by DVOA to play the slightly more evenly spread New Orleans Saints. The Saints actually rank fourth in offence and eleventh in defence but fourth in overall DVOA.

What does this all mean given that all four teams playing this weekend are ranked in the top seven by DVOA?

At this stage of the season I’m not entirely sure. Neither team’s offence has been at the peak of their form in recent weeks, but the Rams performance on the ground against the Dallas Cowboys’ run defence was particularly impressive so you have to think that running the ball will feature heavily in Sean McVay’s game plan. The combination of CJ Anderson, picked up as a free agent late in the season, and a now healthy Todd Gurley created a fearsome tandem that the Rams used to amass two hundred and thirty-eight yards between them with both rushing for one hundred yard. I have again run out of time to finish the coaching tape I was watching this week, but I did see how the Rams managed to run the ball so effectively with 11 personnel. The mix of repeated jet motion, moving the tight end, and even end around runs by Josh Reynolds and fakes of the same created consistent motion going both ways that served to make a good run defence a step slow. The Saints rushing defence actually ranked two places higher by DVOA at the end of the season that the Cowboys, but a big question in this game is how will the injury to defensive tackle Sheldon Rankins last week affect the Saints ability to pressure and hold up in the middle of their defensive line.

The Saints might not be too dissimilar in the way they attack the LA Rams defence given that the Rams finished the season ranked twenty-eighth in rush defence by DVOA and the Saints have both Alvin Kamara and Mark Ingram able to run and catch passes out of the backfield. Kamara is devastating in space, whereas Ingram is a more powerful runner and the Rams will have their hands full dealing with this duo. Getting Ted Ginn back from injury has allowed the Saints to stretch the field more, but the awkward truth is that these days Drew Brees struggles a little to get the ball deep as the opening play interception in the game last week demonstrates because Brees underthrew Ginn. The worry for the Saints is that whilst the Rams rush defence is not great, they do have Aaron Donald who is probably the most disruptive defensive player in the league and left guard Andrus Peat is playing with a broken hand. I know offensive linemen are a different breed when it comes to injury, but this is not a great time to be nursing an injury and the Saints also had centre Max Unger dealing with a knee injury during the week.

In recent years it has been the home teams who have been getting through to the Super Bowl, but this game feels really tight. The Saints have a great home advantage, and the experience at head coach and quarterback, but there are some injury concerns and the Rams have several players who can take over a game as well as a really well schemed offence. I would lean to the Saints still, mainly because of Drew Brees’ experience as compared to Jared Goff and Sean Payton’s knack of being aggressive at the right time but it wouldn’t exactly be a surprise if the Rams won.

New England Patriots @ Kansas City Chiefs

I have been one of many who have wondered about the form of the Patriots this year, but that does not mean that I think they suck as Tom Brady claimed after their win over the Chargers this week. We are all pretty familiar with the legend of the sixth round quarterback and how he is still using that slight and others to motivate himself. Given the success that him and Bill Belichick have had over the years I was definitely not overlooking them last week, and lo and behold, they demonstrated what they are truly capable of. We had Julian Edleman throw back the clock and catch nine balls for one hundred and fifty-one yards whilst James White caught fifteen balls out of the backfield on screen plays and gained ninety-seven yards. Meanwhile Sony Michel ran for one hundred and twenty-nine yards, helped by the blocking of fullback James Develin and in particular Rob Gronkowski. Gronk may have had only one reception in this game, but he blocked effectively and looked good doing it as the Patriots put up forty-one points to give themselves control for the entire game. Now they take this offence to Arrowhead stadium and have to try to keep up with a great Chiefs’ offence. This the Patriots can definitely do, but it is frequently foolish to try to predict how the Patriots will approach the game. I suspect they will try to use their multiple running backs and short passing game to slow the Chiefs’ pass rush and given that their defence ranked twenty-sixth by DVOA at the end of the regular season they may stand a chance, but I’ll come back to that after we’ve talked the Chiefs properly.

The Chiefs have been one of the dominant teams of this season as well as one of the defining narratives thanks to the performance of Patrick Mahomes in his first full season of starting. The young quarterback has continually wowed with his ability to throw the ball as he racked up fifty touchdowns and over five thousand yards during the regular season. He showed few signs of nerves last week as the Chiefs made short work of a Colts team who had been as good as anyone in recent weeks. The defence has been the weakness of this team through the season, but they looked really good against the Colts even if Eric Berry continues to sit out. The Chiefs lost 40-43 in New England earlier this season and this was one of the few games where Mahomes showed some nerves and he threw two of his twelve interceptions that week. However, this week they welcome the Patriots to their own turf in what should be a second great game this.

This game is really hard to call, there is always an unpredictability to the approach that Bill Bilichick will take, whilst Andy Reid’s team has looked great all season. If anybody can silence the raucous Arrowhead crowd it is Tom Brady, but with a defence that is mid-table by DVOA the Patriots will need to keep up with the Chiefs offence. Given the time of year and the weather we may not get the explosion of points there were in their previous meeting, but Patriots have not been good on the road this season and so despite never wanting to bet against the Patriots I am leaning towards the Chiefs in this one.

We should be in for two great games today and then all of a sudden we’ll have two weeks full of news and no football (no, the Pro Bowl doesn’t count) and then it will be the big day. I’m looking forward to all three games as there are simply no bad matchup in any combination of the four teams left, let’s hope the games live up to expectations.

The Divisional Dismayed

17 Thursday Jan 2019

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There are two games and two weekends left between now and the Super Bowl, and I will give full attention to the teams in the Conference Championship games on Sunday before the teams take the field, but it is time to say goodbye to the divisional dismayed who fell last week.

There is a reason that teams fight for the top two seed and last weekend the advantages told as all four home teams won, and so to the losers.

Indianapolis Colts

The Colts might be the least dismayed team to lose this round. Their performance against the Chiefs was worrying as both sides of the ball struggled in the cold of Arrowhead but in head coach Frank Reich’s first year the Colts were really competitive and this bodes well for the future. Reich’s tenure started late after Josh McDaniels pulled out of the job late after the Patriots’ Super Bowl loss, but Reich and the coaching staff have already established an identity with a roster that has been turned around in only a couple of off-seasons by GM Chris Ballard. I expect them to be a real force next season given that Ballard has another draft and the most cap room for the 2019 season to further augment this team. Whilst there is no guarantee of success given the volatility of the NFL and injury luck, I do tip the Colts to be right up there with the best next season now they have surrounded Andrew Luck with the talent to make the most of his skills. Luck has looked really good in this latter half of the season, although he seemed to be off last weekend, but after it looked for a while like we might not seem him play again the success this season is hopefully laying the ground work for future seasons. I just hope I’m not jinxing the 2019 Colts by being this optimistic about them.

Dallas Cowboys

I’m conflicted about how the Cowboys will fare next season as whilst there were definite positives to take from this season, there are also a bunch of question. This starts with head coach Jason Garrett who survives another year as Jerry’s man, but the nine year head coach added just his second playoff win to a record of three playoff visits and Garrett has never got beyond the divisional round. The defence looked really good for long stretches of this season, but we know that defence is more volatile than offence, and the Rams ran all over the Cowboys on Saturday and that was the strength of this Cowboys defence. Meanwhile, the offence desperately needs more options around Dak Prescott who is about to go into the final season of his rookie deal. For once the Cowboys cap number does not look bad as they have the tenth amount of space in the league when looking at 2019, but the big question will be how much of this space will Prescott’s deal take and the Cowboys have frequently not been afraid of handing out big deals to starts and regretting it towards the end of the deal. They have enough young talent to be competitive again next season, but I do wonder if there is a ceiling to what they can achieve without some serious tweaking. Everyone will be watching the Cowboys anyway, but I don’t know if the 2019 team will be able to break into the elite strata of teams truly competing for the Super Bowl.

LA Chargers

There is a lot of good to take from the Chargers season but they are another team that head into the off-season with a lot of questions surrounding them. They got thoroughly outplayed by the Patriots on Sunday, and kept seven defensive backs on the field for longer than they should have so that tells you the linebackers need upgrading. The offensive line also gave up too much pressure and so re-enforcements would be a welcome addition, but the not so secret question is how much longer can Philip Rivers go? The thirty-five year old quarterback has won one of his nine games against the Patriots and is 0-5 in Gillete Stadium. I’m not saying that he can’t win, but the Chargers don’t have a lot of time to turn things round and whilst Anthony Lynn has done well in his first two seasons as head coach of the Chargers, there is still work to be done and very little cap room for next year. The Chargers are not exactly bringing in the fans from LA either, despite being a competitive team. If Joey Bosa can be healthy all next season then the Chargers could be right up there with the best in the league again, but in the longer term we might be looking at quarterback controversies and a franchise that hasn’t been able to truly establish itself in a demanding market. There was no football in LA for a long time, and teams have struggled and moved away from the city before, and with the Rams’ previous history in LA serving them well I can’t help but wonder where the Chargers will be playing once Rivers calls it a day. For now though, let’s enjoy what we have.

Philadelphia Eagles

The defending Eagles did well to get back to the playoffs given the way the season started for them and how many injuries the roster sustained. They will be hoping to return a lot of players next season, but will need to add some speed to an offence that couldn’t stretch the field and find a consistent running game as well as shoring up the back of the defence. For all his playoff magic, Nick Foles, Super Bowl winning quarterback, will be playing for someone else next season, but Carson Wentz’s stress fracture will be healed in plenty of time for him to have a full off-season and I suspect he will be even better for the Eagles another twelve months away from his knee surgery. After all the turnover in the coaching staff last season, where the offence suffered a real brain drain, I think that the Eagles will be raring to go next season. They may be solidly in the middle in terms of cap space, but Howie Roseman has demonstrated his aggressive strategy of draft trades and free agent moves can build incredibly deep rosters and after this season, I would expect the Eagles to be back at it again next season. I can hear the fans singing, ‘Fly Eagles fly!’ already.

Sunday Divisional Games

13 Sunday Jan 2019

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Following on from Saturday’s contests, we have the Sunday Divisional games, although I have to fail at the trivia competition first:

‘First then, for the 2018 Regular Season only who scored the most touchdowns? Name, Team and Number for a max 3 points.

My second Divisional related question was triggered by the chaos which followed the Vikings TD as time expired last year.

What penalty is to be applied if a team lines up for scrimmage with fewer than 11 on the field? 2 points available here.’

There was a clarification on the first question that a quarterback running the ball would count, but not passes as we were looking for the play crossing the goal line with the ball. This immediately made me think of quarterbacks and suspected Cam Newton, but I just don’t think that quarterbacks get enough of an opportunity to lead the league in touchdowns so I’m going to jump positions on the Panthers and plump for Christian McCaffery, who had a fantastic year and I’m going for eight touchdowns.

As for the penalty, I’m not sure there is one but my guess is illegal formation as what else could it be? Well, I’ll find out later in the week!

‘Tricky questions again this week, and I feel a bit more pressure now I’m leading!

Question one I had to clarify as I was originally thinking of a Quarterback who will have thrown the most touchdowns, but apparently that doesn’t count. So I think it’ll be a running back, and I’m a bit torn between Todd Gurley and Alvin Kamara…. I think I’ll go with Saints Number 41, Alvin Kamara.

Second question I think is a bit of a trick. Obviously there’s a penalty for having too many players on the field, but I don’t think there is one for having too few. I’m just struggling to justify why that answer warrants 2 points and whether there’s another answer to go with it, but I’ll stick with that!’

LA Chargers (5th) @ New England Patriots(2nd)

Another year, another division win for the New England Patriots but this is the first time in nine seasons that they didn’t get at least twelve wins. There have been several, is he slipping moments for Tom Brady in recent seasons, which is perhaps not that surprising given that he is now forty-one, but the Patriots have not been as convincing this season as in recent years. Part of this is the relative weakness of their receiver group, which was worrying enough that the Patriots took the risk of trading for Josh Gordon. The troubled receiver did supply help on the field for a while, but even the Patriots couldn’t help Gordon off the field and it may be that the football environment may not be conducive for Gordon staying healthy. Back on the field, Rob Gronkowski has laboured all season and doesn’t look himself, but Brady has thrown for over four thousand yards and the Patriots do rank fifth in the league by DVOA so all is not terrible. They have lost some surprising games but their defence ranks better by DVOA than last year they still earned a bye week for the start of the playoffs.

This week the entertain one of the more dangerous fifth seeds of recent years in the twelve win LA Chargers. I didn’t get to watch all of the coaching tape from last week, but the Chargers played with seven defensive backs to counter the Ravens running game, reminding everyone just how good a defensive coordinator Gus Bradley is. It also helps that in Joey Bosa and Melvin Ingram, Bradley has the players to get pressure on the quarterback whilst rushing four, which is the nearest anyone has found to a formula to stop Tom Brady. For all his regular season success, Philip Rivers has not had the playoff victories he wold have hoped for and has a pair of playoff losses to the Patriots from the 07/08 seasons to avenge. The Chargers have really played well this season and stand as good a chance of dethroning the Patriots as anyone has in recent years. However, winning in Foxborough is never easy and particularly not in the playoffs and so I must give the edge to the Patriots as I don’t think you can count them out until they have lost, but this is a dangerous game for them.

Philadelphia Eagles (6th) @ New Orleans Saints (1st)

The New Orleans Saints took a step forward last season with a draft that yielded the offensive and defensive rookies of the year and finally pairing a defence good enough to help the always proficient Drew Brees get back into the playoffs. They carried this momentum forward into this season and continue to make moves in an attempt to maximise the chances of getting Brees another Super Bowl in the time the veteran quarterback has left. Their offence was truly terrifying for a lot of the season, and even when it cooled off they still found ways to win and finished with only three losses all season. In securing the first seed they ensured that they got to play with their impressive home field advantage. They currently rank fourth of the elite offences through the season, and if there is a weakness in the offence it is the talent behind Alvin Kamara and Michael Thomas, although Mark Ingram did also run the ball effectively in the games he played, but the creativity of Sean Payton and Drew Brees has been more than enough to carry them through.

This week they welcome the Philadelphia Eagles and the supposed playoff mojo of Nick Foles. There is not a large enough sample size to declare that Foles is especially effective in the playoffs, but he has certainly done brilliantly for a backup over last season and this. Still, we shouldn’t forget how effective the Eagles defensive line was against the Chicago Bears last week. Still, the Saints at home are a different prospect and Fletcher Cox and the rest of the defence will need to get pressure up the middle to disrupt Brees. It is possible as the Cowboys demonstrated earlier this season, but right now the Saints are my tip for the Super Bowl. Brees may have thrown for under four thousand yards for the first time in fourteen years, but he also has the highest completion percentage of his career and the lowest number of interceptions. The route to the Super Bowl runs through New Orleans and I don’t see the Eagles disrupting that this week, although of course all things are possible.