First things first. Several SU subscribers came very close to the point spread from last night’s Super Bowl. Note everyone who picked the Pats was way off on total points but several were right there on the differential:
- Jeff: Pats 31 – 20
- Seth: Pats 33 – 20
- Pete: Pats 38 – 29
- Mark: Pats 34 – 26
- Steve: Pats 37 – 28
But… one person nailed the 10-point differential: long-time subscriber Jeff B. who had the score Pats 34 – 24. He is this year’s winner and, of course, has earned a year’s free subscription to SU along with the SU-logoed windbreaker, gym bag and coffee cup holder. Congrats to Jeff!
Please remind me to never, ever again complain that the NFL games have become too high scoring and are like video games. Watching the Kansas City Chiefs is the most fun and I would much prefer a 52 – 45 game vs. a 13 – 3 puntfest. There is no comparison. Especially when you are playing indoors with no wind, no cold, no rain and on turf. It is just not compelling. As Tony Romo correctly pointed out, the Rams are a run first team and if you take away the run and force them to throw, they are not nearly as effective. You have to figure that Todd Gurley has been playing about 70% for several weeks now and just can’t go full speed for a full game. Belichick is Belichick but the reality is that his defense did not exactly soar against the Chiefs in the last round. But he came up with a great scheme to throttle the run and then put tremendous pressure on Goff who took a lot of hits.
The good news is that the refs did not influence the outcome – thank goodness. SU is not a fan of the Patriots but you have to tip your hat this year to Brady who did not have a truly All-Pro wide receiver to throw to all year. Boston is now Championship City and the Celtics have a legit shot to make it the hat trick if they can get their act together going into this year’s playoffs. As a NY fan, it brings me no joy to say that.
Sports Update Intergalactic 
I thought for sure the defense would tire in the second half and we would see more scoring for both teams. I am not a Patriots fan (although I was the single person rooting for them at the party) but all the talk of how Rogers, Brees, Manning, Plummer, etc. are better quarterbacks than Brady just needs to stop. Quarterbacking a team is just that – leading that team no matter what your stats are. People can point to Belichick at the reason for all these Super Bowl appearances, but Robert Kraft garbled it best when he said that the two of them are the reason for their success. The NFL 100 commercial was the best of a mediocre crop of advertisements this year.
What I enjoyed in this year’s Super Bowl besides Edelman’s mastery of getting open was the sure tackling by the Pat’s. Their front 7 had Goff on his heels so often that the secondary looked all world as well. Yeah it wasn’t a wild offensive explosion but for the football purist it was a good game.
Did you know that there wasnt 1 pass interference call. That has to set some kind of modern day record.
I didn’t mind the game at all. Maybe I’m a purist but I’d rather watch that than see teams fire off 15 yard gains all game long.
The Rams had a hard time getting things going in their game vs. the Saints. Things were about to get out of hand when their fake punt seemed to shift the momentum. I didn’t think the Patriots would give them a similar opportunity. The only chance I saw was when they failed to convert on a 4th down in the 1st half. But the Rams didn’t capitalize there.
Good job by the officials mostly staying out of the way (unlike in the conference championship games). I got worried early when they called unnecessary roughness on a Rams defender for a play that really couldn’t have been avoided. But after that they mostly kept the silly calls to a minimum.
My Michigan ties had me rooting hard for the Patriots, so I was happy with the result, but I’m going to take a bit of an issue with your comment on the officiating. While the Pats definitely deserved to win, and there was nothing equivalent to the Saints-Rams debacle, I think the officials made a terrible call on a really important play in the game. With about 11 minutes to go, tie game, the Rams had just gotten a couple of first downs and Gurley broke a big run that gave them a first down at the Pats’ 44 yard line. At that point I said to myself that the game had just slipped away from the Pats and was about to turn the other way. The officials called a completely phantom holding penalty on the Rams, so instead of first down at the Patriot 44, they had first and 20 on their own 33. They did nothing after that, punted, and the Patriots went down and scored the winning TD. As I said, this did not taint the game like it did 2 weeks ago, and there is no way to predict the outcome if it wasn’t called, but you can’t tell me a play like that at that time and situation can’t be a huge factor. I think it was and I am surprised nobody is talking about it today.