Did the Best Team Sunday Win The Super Bowl? (1 Viewer)

[Godsbrother]

College football is designed to proclaim who the best is. The NFL is designed to proclaim who the champion is. There's a difference.

That may be the goal but it simply doesn't work. I'll take playoffs and tournaments over the BCS and goofy bowl system any day.

 

[Bill Young]

I don't necessarily believe that the Patriots O-Line choked, or that Tom Brady choked. I think that the Giants have superior athletes in their defensive line, over the athletes in the Patriots offensive line. Also remember, the Patriots starting right guard was hurt early; that didn't help the Patriots O-Line at all.

I believe the last New England drive highlighted why they were so successful all year.

I swear that every pass Brady threw on that drive did not stay in the air longer than 5 yards. Tom Brady drops back three steps, surveys the field under 10 yards for a receiver, and hits him; said receiver (usually Wes Welker or Kevin Faulk) then makes a play. That type of offense even neutralized the Giants D-Line, resulting in the Randy Moss TD.

Why in the world didn't they use that offense for the better part of the game? And why not use it in the last 00:28 to at least give Tom Brady a halfway decent shot at a bomb at the end? Remember, New England had three time outs. You can't tell me they couldn't have gotten to the 50 yard line in time to give Tom Brady one, if not two, shots at the end-zone.

And don't give me that they tried it. I'm not talking about the screen passes that failed early in the game. I'm talking about those designed passes that leave receivers open within 5-10 yards past the line of scrimmage.

Not that I minded the Patriots performance, mind you. They played just well enough at the end to turn Eli Manning into an MVP!!!

 

[Ice Cream Man]

Giants aren't a better team than the Patriots. The Patriots just have a dominating offense (along with a solid D) that can overwhelm almost any opponent.

But head-to-head? It appears the Giants matchup better than anyone else in the league against the Pats and would probably win 6 or 7 out of 10 contests.

To see Brady get hit, bumped, and harrassed like he did in the Superbowl was just a sight. I mean, the Patriots could and did score at will against excellent defenses, all year long. To see Brady on the ground so often was simply shocking. This is largely what happened to Romo a few weeks ago -- unrelenting pressure.

As we saw with the Giants, Eagles, and the Ravens.. a team with a great O-line can afford to double Moss all day and not get into trouble.

 

[John Mamula]

Spinnoff of the "Patriots choked" tangent. I see a lot of people saying that. I don't know that's the case.

Did the best team Sunday night win?

I highlight that because that's really all that matters. Not the best team this year. Not the best team in the playoffs. The best team Sunday night.

J

There isn't a poll option for how I feel.The Pats are absolutely the best team, but the Giants played about as good as they could against the Pats and Brady just didn't look right.

I wouldn't say the Pats choked. Sometimes even the absolute best team will lose to an inferior team.

 

[PMENFAN]

Spinnoff of the "Patriots choked" tangent. I see a lot of people saying that. I don't know that's the case.

Did the best team Sunday night win?

I highlight that because that's really all that matters. Not the best team this year. Not the best team in the playoffs. The best team Sunday night.

J

I'd say the game was about even, but at the end the Pats defense missed their opportunities to end the game, allowing the Giants a second and third chance. In Championship football that costs you a tight game.

 

[GregR_2]

I think the Giants were the better team Sunday night. And I emphasize team, because the PAtriots had more talent at pretty much every position across the board. But the Patriots leaned too much on Tom Brady. I don't think the Pats choked, I think Brady did.

Wow! Switz, I usually agree with a lot of what you post, but you're way off here. Brady played incredible under the circumstances. He didn't turn the ball over once, either by fumbling or throwing an interception, under what was a relentless pass rush all game. He brought them down the field and scored to put them in a position to win at then end, and they came up short. This game was 100% won in the trenches. The only ones that should be hanging their heads today is the pats O-line. Brady has nothing to be ashamed of in my opinion.

My God welcome to Big Ben's world EVERY GAME. Brady looked flustered the first time he was pressured all season. Did Brady choke? Probably not but to say that he played "incredible under the circumstances" is crazy.....

I think this is an area worth exploring. Brady was always the first in line to give credit to his OL. But I think we saw last night just how important that is. As Brady said during the year, it's not hard to play QB when you have that much time. And in the same way, maybe some of these QBs we criticize aren't as bad as their OL's make them look.J

The area I'm having trouble getting my mind around is that in my opinion Brady is one of the best, if not the best, at the combination of being elusive in the pocket and getting rid of the ball before the pressure can get to him. In the playoff loss to the Broncos, for example, they were constantly throwing 7 and 8 man blitzes at him and he'd still get the ball away. For me that has been a differentiator between himself and Peyton. Peyton can also read the defense and know to get rid of the ball early, but he's not elusive enough to buy an extra second or two as consistently as Brady is.But that Brady didn't show up to the Super Bowl. He didn't elude much of anything, and I'd say he only did a fair job of getting rid of the ball in a catchable way when he needed to. Maybe it had to do with his ankle causing more problem than the Pats wanted to let on. Or maybe my opinion of him was faulty in the first place. With my opinion of him having formed from a couple years worth of his play, I'm not apt to just believe that opinion was completely wrong on one game's play. Which makes me wonder if the ankle really did play a role in the outcome of the game.

ETA: I'm not trying to take anything away from the Giants O-line here... they soundly beat the Pats O-line. But based on past play of his, I would have expected Brady to handle the pressure that got through better than he did.

 

[Aabye]

I have to give credit when it is due. The Giants deserved to win. Their defensive line treated the Pats O-line like little school girls all game long. To say that they are the better team is sort of ridiculous when you consider that last week we were still discussing whether or no this Pats team was the best of all time. If the Giants are the better team then we would have to be considering them as being the best team of all time. Are we?

Being considered among the greatest teams ever means winning it all. Historically, the '07 Pats were essentially the '98 Vikings - a high powered offensive team that couldn't get it done in the playoffs. If the Vikings had beaten the Falcons and gone on to win the Super Bowl, they'd be in the conversation for best team ever. But they didn't. The Patriots had a similar shot at being in the conversation and they couldn't do it when it counted either. So the measure of the Giants isn't that they beat one of the best teams in NFL history. They beat a very good team that set a lot of regular season records.I don't know how, watching that game, one could argue that the Patriots were the better team. The Giants beat them up front and really bottled up a very explosive NE offense. They made plays when it counted, and the Patriots didn't make enough. I think anything else is just sour grapes. These teams were pretty evenly matched and the Giants played the better game. Hence, you have to call the Giants the better team.