Rosenfels breaks down Brady's and Belichick's greatest achievement
Sage Rosenfels is a former 12-year NFL quarterback who writes, does radio, and podcasts about the NFL and college football.
There have been 51 Super Bowls, and Sunday night’s game was without a doubt the greatest of all time.
Going into the Super Bowl, the media were having a field day analyzing the back stories and strategies of the game. Two weeks didn't seem like enough time to delve into all of the finer details. Both teams had high-powered offenses with quarterbacks who had MVP-caliber seasons. The head coaches came into the game from two very different perspectives. Dan Quinn, the young and personable leader, going against the greatest and grumpiest head coach in NFL history. How was Bill Belichick going to slow down the league-leading Atlanta Falcons offense? Could the Falcons' defense get off the field against the well-oiled machine which is the New England Patriots offense? Is Tom Brady the greatest quarterback of all time? Every question that was put to me last week during my time on media row in Houston came to fruition Sunday. Instead of trying to tell a story about the game, I’m going to break down the various aspects of the contest which I believe were the difference-makers.
But first, let’s get something straight. Before Super Bowl LI kicked off, Brady was already the greatest quarterback of all time. This performance was 10 cherries on top of a mound of whipped cream. His high level of performance during his long career, going to 11 AFC Championship Games and seven Super Bowls, is unmatched. Winning last night's game the way he did, in my opinion, is his greatest accomplishment. I came into the NFL the year Brady replaced Drew Bledsoe as the starting quarterback in New England. I have watched him win numerous games he had no business winning. Super Bowl LI is his most improbable victory.
The Falcons had an extremely simple game plan. Atlanta played man-to-man coverage on the vast majority of the snaps. Quinn knew he couldn’t outsmart Brady with complex blitzes or coverage schemes, so he decided to play him straight up. The Falcons brought a four-man pass rush, had one safety deep, and played man coverage underneath on the five Patriots' eligible offensive players. This means the Falcons' defense had one extra defender lurking around the middle of the field to help those man-to-man defenders. To combat this defense, the Patriots ran tons of shallow and deep crossing routes. These routes take a lot of time to develop and put stress on an offensive line. As we saw in the game, the Falcons defensive front was less effective as the game went on, and didn’t achieve as much pressure in the fourth quarter as they had the rest of the game.
Quinn is going to look back and second guess himself. Of course, you are thinking about the Falcons’ decision to throw the ball late in the fourth quarter, instead of simply running it a few times and kicking a 38-yard field goal to go up 11 points. But defensively, he stuck with man coverage all game instead of playing zone. I believe man-to-man was the correct coaching strategy against Brady, but not in a scenario where the Patriots ran 93 offensive plays. That is a lot of chasing for the Falcons defenders, whether it be chasing a receiver or chasing Brady. Quinn’s defense was tired by the end of the game and it showed. The pass-rush was less effective and the defensive backs were a step behind the receivers. The Patriots had 263 yards in the fourth quarter and overtime while exclusively throwing the football. Would more zone coverage have been a better option to slow Brady? This is one of a myriad questions the Falcons’ coaching staff has on its mind today, and for months to come.
Speaking of the 93 plays by the Patriots, have we ever seen a close NFL game in which the play count was so lopsided? The Falcons were extremely efficient with their 46 plays last night - less than half of the Patriots’ play count. Usually, that play count discrepancy would mean a Patriots blowout by 21 or 28 points. The more I look at the statistics, the wackier this game looks on paper.
My favorite stat of the night: In the NFL history, teams were 0-124 when down by 17 points in the fourth quarter of a playoff game. At one point, the Falcons had a 99 percent chance of winning the game. Then Arthur Blank showed up on the sidelines and this all changed. Bad things seem to happen when an owner comes to the sideline when the game still has a chance to be lost, especially against Brady/Belichick.
The ending of last night’s game reminded me, and many Miami Dolphins fans, of the Week 17 matchup in 2002 in Foxboro. I was the third-string quarterback for the Dolphins and we built a 21-point halftime lead. All we needed to do was hold off a young Brady and we’d be in the playoffs. As Brady inched his way back, our team started to tighten up. With about five minutes left, the Patriots were down 11 and had the ball backed up inside their own 20. Brady quickly moved his offense down the field against our top-ranked Dolphins defense. They scored with about 2:30 left, went for two, and got it. We put our hands team on the field and, like last night, the Patriots kicked it deep, but not into the end zone. The kickoff landed at about the 5-yard line and spun in place. We started the drive inside the 10, went three and out, and punted away to the Patriots who ended up kicking the game-tying field goal. We went into overtime, and like last night, didn’t get the ball back.
Brady grew up watching the greatest clutch quarterback of all time in Joe Montana. Then he went out and took that title from him.
Speaking of clutch, though he missed an extra point, the kickoffs by Stephen Gostkowski in Super Bowl LI were perfect. He’s always been a high ball kicker, but he had perfect touch on his kickoffs to pin the Falcons back inside their own 15. As a quarterback, it's not a great feeling to start drives inside your own 20. It feels like you have a tall hill to climb and one mistake can end with points for the other team. Belichick understands putting pressure on the other team better than anyone in the NFL. He found a way to put a mountain of pressure on the Falcons by his brilliant kickoff strategy at the end of the game. It was Belichick’s idea, but it was Gostkowski’s execution which made it happen.
I’ve long been an advocate of Falcons offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan. I think he's one of the best offensive minds in football - if not the best. He just coached Matt Ryan to an MVP season and his play designs were nearly perfect in the Super Bowl. Obviously, even if he won’t say it, he should have run the football three times in a row and kicked a short field goal to go up 11 with under four minutes left. Regret is tough to handle as a player and coach. Shanahan is young and now will reportedly become head coach of the San Francisco 49ers. He has a lot to do in the coming years to rebuild that team, but I imagine the decision to throw the ball while in close field-goal range will leave him sleepless a few times in the coming months.
In conclusion, this game had a mix of the greatest of all time. I believe it was the greatest Super Bowl ever played. Brady is the greatest quarterback of all time. Belichick is the greatest coach of all time. Most importantly, I believe this was their greatest game ever. The Belichick/Brady combination will forever be linked. No game in the history of their long relationship showed the brilliance of their careers. Brady was spectacular and Belichick was masterful in the path to victory. Even if you can’t stand the Patriots, they deserve your respect. Nobody has ever done it better than Belichick and Brady. Sunday night was the pinnacle of their unprecedented NFL careers.