You watched a different game than me, because KC controlled that game and TB didn’t have the ball with the chance to take the lead at any point past the first quarter.
No doubt. But no matter what year it was, the Patriots were ALWAYS talked about as the sneaky team skirting the rules, no matter how far out they were from Spygate or Deflategate. Last year's Super Bowl narrative was the magical no look throws of Patrick Mahomes and how Andy Reid, the lovable loser, was due to win. F that. The narrative should be that these are the bad guys of the NFL and that Andy Reid is a morally bankrupt enabler. Just as no one was rooting for the Patriots but Patriots fans, no one should root for the Chiefs.
Tampa has a top-3 passing attack and a decent defense. They are legitimately a good team. Fluky plays happen on both sides and tend to even out; in the 3rd Q yesterday Rodgers had a pass batted that floated like a balloon for maybe 3 seconds but nobody on TB reeled it in because it went to perhaps the only place on the field where nobody was within 20 yards.
The Bucs were 2nd in overall DVOA this year and had the most "expected wins" in football. All 3 of their non-Saints defeats were by a combined 7 points. I think it's pretty easy to say they're for real.
How is it possible to "not see a way" that they can win? Tampa's offense has averaged 35.7 points a game over their last six contests, five of which have been on the road, and three of which were against very good or elite defenses. Tampa should have all their weapons, which means that KC will have to contend with a healthy group of Evans, Godwin, Brown, Miller, Gronkowski, and Brate. Tampa is playing at "home". And despite some extenuating circumstances, Tampa only lost by 3 last time these two teams met, in Arrowhead. Their last 6 games, KC has allowed an average of 24.8 points a game, which isn't godawful, but it's not great. And in their last 6 games with Mahomes, they've scored 27.3 points a game - or 8.4 FEWER than Tampa has averaged over THEIR last 6 games.
You are taking my post more literal than I intended. Of course, there are many ways I can envision TB winning. I just do not think the TB defense can slow Mahomes and the offense enough. I am hoping to be very wrong.
When KC is really clicking, they're almost impossible to handle for sure. I fully get the concern here. But missing Fisher could be huge for them. Tampa can exploit that and cause Mahomes some problems. And again, Brady and Tampa's offense is every bit as explosive if they are on their game too. And KC's defense is worse than Tampa's.
Sure, and if Mahomes plays like he did in the first three quarters of the last Super Bowl they'll probably lose convincingly too. I'm not expecting either of those guys to put up a clunker for the whole game (and they have both shown time and time again that they don't really need to be on fire for 4 quarters to put up a lot of points on the board).
It's really hard to take away both, part of what makes KC's offense great is that they are complementary threats. Hill forces you to play deep safeties which creates space for Kelce to attack the underneath zones. Buffalo chose to take away Hill's deep threat by keeping safeties back and Kelce burned them on the underneath stuff all game (13 catches on 15 targets).
I was writing a post saying exactly this, and you beat me to it. I think it is hard to overstate just how hard it is for teams to deal with Hill, especially because Mahomes can run around a little bit and extend plays. Hill is just so damn fast that he makes other amazingly fast guys look like JAGs -- like if track and field paid big money he might be doing that on the world stage instead.
Clearly Tampa had no answer for Hill the last time they played. Dude had 200+ yards and 2 TD in the FIRST QUARTER.
This is often Belichick's answer on such guys. I didn't track it during recent Pats-KC games, but Kelce had 3/70 yards this year and 7/66 last year.
Man, this never works against the Chiefs. You beat them by scoring 35+ and have to play that way. In a sense this has to be the ultimate "no risk it, no biscuit" game for Arians on offense.
Oh, I fully agree you need 35 (and that's the precise number I told buddies yesterday while complaining about the FGs!) But I think you can try to ball-control some on that path. I don't think you can beat them running 40 times (I guess, unless you're getting a lot per carry) or anything like that, but I do wonder about dialing the longer passes down (not to zero) and dialing the shorter stuff up a bit.
I agree that you need to be physical. You can bump Kelce, as there are LBs behind you that will cover him. Just knocking him off his route can have a significant impact.
One problem with bumping Kelce with an edge rusher is it slows the edge rusher down and weakens your pass rush.
Because the NFL likes scoring and flashy plays and the refs get confused...
I haven't seen anything, but not having your starting safeties against Mahomes would be a bigger problem than the Chiefs having a makeshift O-line.
Agreed. You'd need over the top coverage or drop into a zone after the bump.
They've been pretty disciplined in the playoffs. Really don't think coaching has let them down too much, aside from the questionable insistence on running the ball and the lack of play action.
I thought about him but I think he was moved to Colorado in the 1999-00 season, so his "first" year with Colorado was that year. It wasn't til the 2000-01 season that the Avs and Borque won, so really his second season with them.
I think so. And the Reid/Arians mismatch is the biggest in the Super Bowl, bigger than Kelce/Brate.
Reid is proof it all comes down to the QB. He was pretty smart in Philly but Donovan McNabb, a good QB, was not dedicated to his conditioning the way, say, Tom Brady always has been, at least as a pro. Reid is a genius now with timely offensive calls like the little shovel pass to Kelce for a TD yesterday, but the genius really is Patrick Mahomes.
If you get photos of Brady doing this leading up to the SB, he’ll get made an example of. Short of that, they’ll make sure he plays
SF won the line battles in last year's Super Bowl and lost anyway. One of Mahomes' best abilities is his ability to buy time and make accurate throws under pressure.
FO has looked at the data and found little to no connection between rush rate/rushing success and play-action effectiveness.
