I am not going to be too harsh about Super Bowl LIII. Sure, there wasn't a lot of scoring--it was the lowest scoring Super Bowl ever and this was the first Super Bowl where no touchdowns were scored in the first three quarters. New England tied the New York Jets' 50 year old record, with only one TD scored during an entire game. The Los Angeles Rams dubiously tied the Miami Dolphins Super Bowl VI record as the second team not to score a TD in a losing effort.
Maybe it was the Rams' inexperience which hurt them greatly. That includes Sean McVay, who admittedly was outreached by Patriots sure-fire Hall of Fame coach Bill Belichick and his stellar staff. Rams' QB Jared Goff was repeatedly frustrated by the different looks the New England defense presented. Superior defensive lineman Aaron Donald was repeatedly rebuffed by the Patriots' offensive line, giving enough time for QB Tom Brady to make 10 throws for 141 yards to Julian Edelman, who was named the games M.V.P., or to open holes in the Rams defense for RB Sony Michel to penetrate deep into the their defense.
Even the kicking game was off, as New England's Steven Gotskowski uncharacteristically missed an early field goal attempt, and the Rams' Greg Zerulein was wide from 48 yards in the las minute of play, when LA got the ball back after Gotskowski booted a 41 field goal to give New England the final 10 point margin of victory.
Rams’ punter Johnny Hekker hit a 65 yard punt in the second half, a Super Bowl record, eliciting mock excitement from the CBS broadcast duo of Jim Nantz and Tony Romo. Hekker punted nine times in the game, an average of 46.5 yards per punt, landing five inside the New England 20 yard line. By far, Hekker was the Rams’ star.
Brady completed 21 of 35 passes for 262 yards, after opening the game with his only interception. Goff’s totals were hardly spectacular, as he compiled 229 yards on 19 for 38 passing with one interception. A key defensive play by Jason Mc Courty robbed Goff and wide receiver Brandin Cooks on what looked like it would be a certain TD.
I must give credit to Tom Brady and Bill Belichick—6 Super Bowl wins together. Belichick, a spry 66 year old, is the oldest coach to win a Super Bowl. Brady now holds the mark for most Super Bowl wins by a player and at age 41, he is the oldest QB to capture the Super Bowl. Two legends who are first ballot inductees in Canton.
Even when he did not have a stellar game, Brady once again showed why he is the G.O.A.T. in NFL QB annals. The man is now 6-3 in the Super Bowl. That’s 9 trips to the big game. Amazing. He willed the Patriots to win. And he may not be done yet.
I saw a graphic the Monday after the game. It showed the all-time leaders in championships in their respective professional sport. Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics had 11 along with Henri Richard of the Montreal Canadiens. Yogi Berra posted 8 championships with the New York Yankees. Then there was Tom Brady with his Super Bowl wins. That is special and remarkable. Somebody mentioned to Brady that he tied Michael Jordan’s 6 rings with the Chicago Bulls—the more modern comparison—a fact by which Brady was awed. Another commentator put that into perspective—it is harder to do this with a football team given the nature of the game, and that is why this feat may never be duplicated.
There is a segment of the population that was not among the 98 million viewers of the game. The fans who live in New Orleans. Rightfully so, I accept their anger and unwillingness to watch a game in which they felt their team should have played. However, from what I saw that night, I don’t believe that the Saints would have fared much better than the Rams. This was the night for the New England Patriots to re-establish their greatness after last year’s loss to the Philadelphia Eagles.
For all those who yearn for the high scoring shootouts that Goff and young guns like Patrick Mahomes, the league’s M.V.P. regularly fashioned, the time-honored cliche that defense wins championships was appropriate this year. Maybe next year and for years thereafter we may see plenty of points put on the scoreboard, but this year was throwback to another era. And who would be most likely to be in the center of this? Brady and Belichick, of course.
A few more Super Bowl side notes. The halftime program was a bust. Gladys Knight singing the National Anthem was much better, as would be expected. All of the pricey commercials for the Super Bowl were not really memorable. My favorite, which I could see repeatedly, was the one the NFL offered for its 100th anniversary. A must see.
Before you know it will be time for football. Wait—there are games this weekend? A new league called the AAF or the Alliance of American Football? Not watching it—I wan’t a fan of the World Football League or Arena Football. This a time for other sports—like basketball and hockey.
I made it to my first Division III basketball game for 2018-19. The top team in the Landmark League, the Drew University Rangers, hosted the Elizabethtown Blue Jays. It was fun. No pep band, no cheerleaders, a halftime number by the Drew Rangerettes dance team and a couple of students in an impromptu one on one game.
My wife and I sat close to the action, three rows from the floor, directly across from the Drew bench. We were among the E-town women’s team, victors over Drew in the first game, as they chowed down on delicious looking doughnuts from Berwyn, PA, pizza and hot chicken parmigiana sandwiches. We had a couple of peanuts to eat in comparison. I wondered if E-town had a nutritionist advising these girls, and when was the last time they ate—when they left Lancaster County before 9:00 am for the nearly three hour trek to Madison, New Jersey?
Drew outplayed the Blue Jays behind junior guard Riley Collins, who surpassed his seasonal average of 16.3 ppg with 18 today. The contest was played in spurts, with Drew leading, then E-town coming close to catching up. The superior play from the Rangers’ guards and the tough rebounding, led by 6’6” senior Nate Aldrich who hauled in 20 boards, plus ever-changing defenses made it tough for the Blue Jays to stay with Drew. Two E-town players fouled out of the game. Connor Moffatt led E-town with a game-high 19 points and junior guard Ethan DuBois garnered 12 rebounds and dished out 5 assists, before a noisy crowd of 518 who witnessed Drew win its 18th game against 5 losses as they stayed one game in front of Moravian College for the top spot in the Landmark League.
Today I visited the Allan P. Kirby Center on the campus of Lafayette College, where the home team entertained the Holy Cross Crusaders in a battle of two of the lower ranked Patriot League teams. In a nail biter, the Leopards prevailed, 69-67, after blowing a 47-35 advantage and trailing by 2 late in the second half. Five Leopards, all underclassmen, scored in double figures, and the team shot 48.3% from behind the three-point arc. Still it took two free throws by his scorer Justin Jaworski (18 points) to seal the victory with 5 ticks remaining. Holy Cross now 13-12 on the year, employed an aggressive zone defense in the second half to wipe out the halftime deficit, forcing the young Leopards into numerous bad passes or bad choices. Lafayette now has won two game in a row for the first time this season. Their overall record stands at 6-16, and they are tied with Holy Cross, as both teams have 4-8 conference records.
A couple of take aways from this trip. First, the players at this level are bigger, stronger and faster than in D-III based on what I have seen the last two days. They also shoot a little bit better from outside the three point stripe.
As to more interesting tidbits, Lafayette has a pep band; Drew does not. Drew has white folding chairs on three sides of the court; Lafayette has all fold out chair seating. The scoreboard in the Kirby Sports Center showed something that I have never seen before—the team that was ahead in green numbers, while the losing team score was in red; if tied, the scores were in yellow. The Drew dance team was much better than the Lafayette dance team. And the crowd made more noise at Drew, because there were far more students in the gym than at Lafayette. Lafayette did have cheerleaders present, but I hardly noticed them.
Two games in 22 hours. See my Facebook page for some pictures. Sunday’s game was broadcast on CBS Sports Network; it was over in 1:53. The D-III contest was over in 1:33, as there were no mandatory TV timeouts. Tonight I will watch most of the Miami-Golden State game, as the contest starts at a reasonable 8:30 p.m. as opposed to the normal 10:30 start from Oakland. All totaled, I will have watched on TV the exciting end of the Lakers-Celtics game on Friday night from Boston, where Rashon Rondo, a former Celtics’ star returned home to act as a spoiler by hitting the game-winning shot; the final minutes of the Rutgers-Illinois affair which the Illini won in OT; UConn at Memphis, because my wife’s second cousin’s son, Darren Goldwater, handled the play-by-play; and the Heat and the Warriors. Plus I will have attended two more games in that span. If there had been a Jonathan Dayton High School home game to go to, I might have made that, too. The best I could do was see the uniformed Dayton girls’ team running around The Mall at Short Hills on Friday night. I could have seen more, including #2 Duke taking on #3 Virginia, but I opted for an informative HBO premiere of a documentary on Mr. Rogers.
Any more games would have seemed to be a bit childish. Besides, I managed to see some of the ceremonies honoring the 1993-94 Stanley Cup Champion New York Rangers on the ice at Madison Square Garden.
You get my drift. Why would I need to watch more football or care too much about the moves the Jets and other teams might make in the coming weeks leading to the NFL Combine and then the draft?
I have basketball, some hockey (how about the turnaround of the New York Islanders under Head Coach Barry Trotz, who led the Washington Capitals to the Stanley Cup last season?) to keep my mind occupied. I have a trip to Edmonton and Vancouver with my son to see the Devils in action. Conference tournaments and March Madness are almost upon us.
Dare I say that pitcher and catchers report to MLB camps this week and Manny Machado and Bryce Harper remained unsigned?
No comments:
Post a Comment