Eagles and Goats

I know I am pretty late with this Super Bowl wrap-up, especially in this day and age of live tweets and instant highlights, especially in these days of breaking news, especially in these days of big news every hour in the NBA and other leagues. Life just got busy and I figured it's better late than ever. First off, congrats to the Eagles for convincingly defeating the GOAT QB and the GOAT coach. They showed us that only NFC East teams can beat the Pats in the big game. The thing that stood out from the very first snap of this game is, how the Eagles offense and Nick Foles were fearless! They didn't give a rat's you know what about the enormity of the Super Bowl or the greatness on the other sideline. That kind of attitude had to have percolated down from the coaching staff. And then the QB and the players had to make sure they were not overwhelmed by the situation. Kudos to the entire organization for pulling this off in style.

The crazy trick pass play to Foles in the end zone on 4th and goal was a microcosm of how the Philly approached, coached, and executed in this Super Bowl. Eagles went for it on fourth down again in their own side of the field and converted in the fourth quarter for another pivotal play after they fell behind for the first time in the game. Another gutsy decision when the momentum appeared to be shifting, but Todd Peterson and the Eagles wrested it back with a vengeance. That drive ended in a Zack Ertz TD and bled the clock to a point where Pats ran out of time. By the way, if NFL ever needed proof that it’s catch/no-catch rule is completely messed up, the fact that even Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth were totally clueless on that Ertz TD catch was it. How can that catch even be in doubt after Ertz took like 28 steps with the ball is beyond me. I don’t blame the announcers, but the NFL for letting it get to this point.

We could say the Eagles were aggressive. Or, we could also say this is the only way you can beat the Pats and the Goats. They don't die easy and they never take the foot off the gas. Unless you match that aggression both strategically and execution wise, it's going to be very hard to beat them. And the fact that the Eagles were the underdogs playing with their backup QB made it easy for them to be super aggressive and play like they had nothing to lose because they really didn't. Going in, I thought like many others that the Eagles defense will provide some resistance to the Pats offense and that will be the difference in the game. I actually thought the Eagles had a decent shot. But the Eagles D provided even less resistance than the Pats D, which was horrible. It was Eagles offense that dominated the game. Luckily, the Eagles defense made one play at the end of the game that saved the day for them. Without that strip-sack-fumble on Brady, did any of us have any doubt the Goat was going to drive down and score? 

My only hope for the Eagles when Brady got the ball with more than 2 minutes left on the clock and down by just 5 was that he would leave some time on the clock for the Eagles to win it on offense. Eagles defense didn't do anything to bother Brady the entire second half. However, that fumble clinched it, though I would say the play of the game still was the 4^th and goal trick play. Pats offense deserve a lot of credit for neutralizing a pretty decent Eagles defense, but on the flip side, Pats defense gave themselves no shot against the Eagles with the way they played. Neither did Foles who played a great game and won a deserving trip to Disney World with his MVP hardware. Fans always love it if offense and scoring dominates the game and this Super Bowl was a treat to watch.

The offensive efficiency and some of the offensive numbers in this Super Bowl were ridiculous from the start. My jaw dropped sometime during the game when I saw the stat that there were 9 different players who had plays of 20 yards or more in the game. That’s insane! I also literally jumped out of my comfortable seat to celebrate that crazy trick play by the Eagles for a TD. The ball was just moving up and down the field and the game went rather effortlessly from featuring the most yards in the Super Bowl to most yards in any NFL post-season game to most yards ever in a NFL game in history  as the quarters rolled on. Tom Brady was flawless with 505 yards and lost. The Patriots never punted in this game and still lost! The game went against all expectations and all kinds of conventional wisdom, but was a lot of fun. It was even more fun for guys like me who never mind the Hoodie and Brady losing. 

What makes the Pats defensive futility even more interesting is the one controversy that erupted in this game. Hoodie and the Pats benched Malcolm Butler and didn't even put him in to play defense all game. This guy is no Deion Sanders and hard to say if he would have won it for the Pats, but he did play 98% of their defensive snaps all season! How bad can he be if he is good enough to play 98% of your defensive snaps? He may not be great, but that stat at least proves he is better than his backups who played in the Super Bowl. Even if he is not better, he probably has more familiarity, feel, and chemistry with his defensive buddies on the field. Just on that account, I have to say he would have made a difference. I am convinced this benching decision by Hoodie and the coaching staff was costly. Hoodie will never tell us what Butler did, but in a game that was this close and where Eagles offense was unstoppable, a play here or there by Butler might have made a big difference.

Pats fans and apologists like The Ringer's Bill Simmons are saying Butler is not great and he would not have made a difference because the defensive front 7 didn't put any pressure on Foles. To that I say thats exactly why Butler might have made a difference. When your defense is worthless and doing nothing, why weaken it further by benching a player who played 98% of your plays? Hoodie better have a good reason for it. Unless Butler knocked on Hoodie's hotel room door at 2 AM on Super Bowl Sunday with a stripper in one arm and a bag of cocaine on another, you figure out a way to put Butler in that game. Especially in the second half when it was obvious they had no answer to Foles and the offense. Hope we hear the really story some day. I also wonder if Brady is upset with the Hoodie for costing him the 6th ring with this benching. Overall, great Super Bowl to cap a solid NFL season. Can't wait for next season, though NBA will keep us busy the next 5 months.

The wait is over

I don't usually watch pre-season in any sports, but it's always a happy day when the NFL pre-season games start. Football is back and not a day too soon. After spending an inordinate amount of time since the Super Bowl in jails across the country, footballers are back to doing what they do best - entertain America on the field. The hall-of-fame game was nothing special, but the hall-of-fame class this year was. Bill Parcells, Chris Carter, and Warren Sapp were worthy inductees this year. Now we are ready to start thinking fantasy and football. The only downside with the training camp and pre-season is, we have already started losing stars to injuries. Jeremy Maclin, Percy Harvin, and Dennis Pitta are some of the high-impact offensive players who are injured causing a minor consternation to their actual teams and major disturbance to fantasy rankings.

Maclin's injury gave an opening to Eagles wide receiver Riley Cooper, but then he opened his mouth and ruined his career. He hurled a racial epithet at a black security guard at a concert and like everything else these days, this video ended up on youtube. This is a very  delicate situation for the Eagles as some of Riley's black teammates are still understandably upset. Vick sounded forgiving, but not all of his teammates share Vick's opinion. The Eagles have to play this just right given this is a new coach's  first year. It would be sad if Coach Kelly lost the locker room even before he coaches his first game. Cooper is probably a certifiable racist to have said what he did and his career is in jeopardy. He is now in "counseling", which seems to be a fashionable thing to do these days for any celebrity in any kind of trouble. This is not the most auspicious start for coach Kelly, but he will try and make the best out of this.

Of course the Patriots are probably laughing at the Eagles for making a mountain out of a molehill because the Pats were dealing with a real mountain of a problem for a while. Aaron Hernandez is accused of murder and the Pats have cut him. He makes Gronk look like a choir boy. What a tight-end combo for hoody both on and off the field. Brady has lost quite a bit of his offensive weapons to surgery, free agency, and murders. But he is still Tom Brady and a deep playoff run is very much on the cards for the Pats. As for Hernandez, the crimes he is accused of are mind boggling and unfathomable. He might have thrown his entire life away, and for what, nobody knows. It's good to get the games going so we can start taking about the action on the field instead of all this nonsense off of it. We have all taken the first step starting last weekend. Football is back on TV again and everybody is thinking and talking about it.

Kolb in da house!

The only thing better than football being back in our lives is having a QB back in our team. As a closet Arizona Cardinals fan, I am used to mediocrity and failure more than success and excellence. Kurt Warner changed all that for a couple of years, but then the Cards went back to where they belong once Warner retired. As bad as Matt Leinart was and as much as I hated him, it still was a bad idea to let him go last year just because they had no other option. As soon as the lockout was lifted this week, there was a flurry of activity around the league and I was glad the Cardinals triggered one of the bigger moves right away. They traded Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie and a second-round pick to the Eagles for Kevin Kolb. They then signed him to a 5 year 63 million dollar deal. Big money for a new QB.

Did they pay too much for Kolb? Probably. Is Kolb still unproven for the most part? You bet! But you are nothing without a QB in this league. You might as well stay locked out. And the QBs don't come cheap. You either pay for promise or pay a rookie similar money and wait for a year or two hoping he turns out to be a Sam Bradford and not Alex Smith or Matt Leinart. I would rather pay for promise and somewhat of a known entity like Kolb instead of gambling on a rookie in the draft who has taken just as many NFL snaps as me. It was also important they did this now because Larry Fitzgerald is a free agent next season and there is no way he resigns without a good QB. So I am perfectly fine with this trade and this is one more reason I am looking forward to this NFL season.

The Eagles were involved in the other big splash too. They signed Nnamdi Asomugha as if DRC and Asante Samuel were not enough in that secondary. They now have 3 stud corners and given all that talent on offense, they are now promoted to a title contender status - may be even ahead of the Packers. They just need to take care of DeSean Jackson and they will be a great team this season for sure. The Raiders, the other team I like, are a losers here but they never had a realistic shot at retaining Asomugha anyways. The Patriots are working the phones as always. They got themselves 2 huge gambles and if it works out, watch out for the hoodie. Lets hope Chad Ochocinco and Albert Haynesworth are not a "programmatic non-fits". I absolutely love all this NFL chatter.