By
Steve Kallas (posted by Rick Morris)
Prior
to and at the beginning of Super Bowl 52, this writer, like many, thought this
game would be reminiscent of the two Giants-Patriots defense-dominated Super
Bowls. As it turned out, it was much
more like the two 2017 Giants-Eagles offense fests, where Eli Manning torched
the vaunted Eagles defense but, in both games, the Eagles found a way to win. And that’s exactly what happened in Super
Bowl 52. Or, as Phil Simms put it on Inside the NFL, he watched the Super Bowl
“and an Arena Football League game broke out.”
We’ll
discuss the Belichick blunder of not starting and not playing Malcolm Butler
for even one defensive snap in this Super Bowl.
But, first, a few other thoughts:
1)
ALL CREDIT TO THE EAGLES AND NICK FOLES.
AND CHIP KELLY???
Well,
if you followed the Eagles all season, like this writer did, you had a feeling
what was coming. Not so much a team of
destiny (especially after the Carson Wentz injury), but, rather, a team with
the best combination of top defensive line and top offensive line in the
NFL. Add in lots of weapons and an
understanding of how good Nick Foles was in 2013, it was easy to like the
Eagles against the over-rated Falcons and the Case Keenum-lead Vikings
(although Keenum did have a very good year until the NFC Championship
game). As for the Super Bowl? Well, by then, the snowball was rolling down
the hill, getting bigger all the time and it certainly was a distinct
possibility that the Eagles could win (especially if you were prone to like the
Eagles as underdogs in every playoff game).
Having
said that, the Eagles made their offensive change that would help them win the
Super Bowl in the second half of the Atlanta game. After battling the wind in the first half,
the Eagles changed their offense to the run/pass option and, as a result, Nick
Foles looked like 2013 Nick Foles. He
proceeded to drive the ball down the field enough times against Atlanta to get
the win and then torch both the Vikings and the Patriots (in a down year for
the Patriots defense even though they were able to mask some of their
deficiencies and limit the points that were given up (until the Super Bowl)).
But
there has to be some recognition of, at least the similarity, between what Chip
Kelly did with Nick Foles in 2013 and what the Eagles did with Nick Foles in
the last two-and-a-half playoff games.
27 TDs, 2 interceptions in 2013 and a record-setting 73% completion
percentage and only one interception in these playoffs (and even that was on a
pass tipped up by his own receiver), Foles seemed much more comfortable
running, essentially, a run/pass option offense for most of the playoffs. Somewhere, one would think, Chip Kelly is
smiling.
2)
BASED ON 2017 CALLS, THE CLEMENT TD CATCH WAS INCOMPLETE
Many
complaints were made by Patriot fans and others on a few big plays. The Zach Ertz TD catch was definitely a
catch, a run and a TD, no matter what anybody says. The “illegal formation” on the Nick Foles TD
catch was probably OK, as Alshon Jeffery motioned to the official before the
play which, generally, means that the official was OK with his location, even
though he was off the line of scrimmage (this often happens).
The
fourth and one pick play (called a “good pick play” by Cris Collinsworth) was a
closer call: Brent Celek wiped out Devin
McCourty two-and-a-half yards past the line of scrimmage, enabling Ertz to get open
for a huge first down on fourth and one (if a pick is called there, it’s a
10-yard offensive pass interference penalty and the Eagles have to give the
ball back to Brady with the Pats up one and about five minutes left in the
fourth quarter). That was arguably a
penalty, but a ref has to decide that Celek intentionally ran into McCourty (as
opposed to running a route). Close call
but no call was made.
But
the Corey Clement TD catch, which put the Eagles up 29-19 midway through the
third quarter, a huge play in the game, was, until Super Bowl Sunday, an
incomplete pass. You saw the play:
Clement catches the ball as his left foot is down, but clearly the ball moves
and, by the time he recovers, he did not get two feet down in bounds.
Yet,
on Inside the NFL, there was video of Gene Steratore, the ref, talking with Al
Riveron, the NFL replay guy (who has taken a lot of abuse this year), about the
play. We can only here Steratore, who
says, “That’s all control, that’s all control, baby, that’s all control, big
guy. I agree with you 100%.” Shortly thereafter, Steratore is seen talking
with another official on the field, saying, “Is there a little ball movement?
Yes. But that does not mean loss of control. You know it goes from here [he
points to his wrist or hand], sticks on the forearm right back to the
hand. Touchdown.”
Well,
not exactly. On Inside the NFL, both
Boomer Esaison and Brandon Marshall said that the call would have been reversed
in the regular season. Esiason also said
that the catch rule seemed to have changed in the playoffs.
This
writer thinks it’s deeper than that. The
Patriots were the recipients of a number of “bobble calls,” for lack of a
better term. The worst (or best for the
Patriots ) was a call against Jets TE Austin Seferian-Jenkins on October 15,
2017. Seferian-Jenkins appeared to catch a pass and then run into the end zone
at the pylon. That catch, called a
touchdown on the field, was not only reversed, but was turned into a touchback,
a huge swing in the game.
At
NFL.com, Al Riveron has a rules video about this call. Seferian-Jenkins fumbles right before going
into the end zone at the pylon. He
regains possession (it was loose in his arms but doesn’t hit the ground) and,
as he goes to the ground, according to Riveron, he does not “maintain control
of the ball.”
Why
not? Well, Riveron says, “Does he maintain control of the ball? He does not.
THE BALL IS MOVING.” (emphasis added). Therefore, it was a fumble out of
the end zone and the Patriots got the ball at the 20. When asked further by an NFL Network anchor, Riveron
reiterates that he did not control the ball because the ball was moving.
Based
on that, do you see the problem with the Clement catch when the ball was
clearly moving as his left foot hit the ground? I believe both Esiason and Marshall were right
in saying this would have been overturned for sure in the regular season.
There
was another play where Kelvin Benjamin of the Bills, on December 24, 2017, had
a TD catch called incomplete for not getting two feet in after it looked like
he did. But there wasn’t control until
it was too late to keep two feet in bounds. This was also against the
Patriots. Finally, there was that famous
Jesse James TD catch (also against the Patriots) on December 17, 2017, which cost
the Steelers, arguably, home field advantage in the playoffs. This call was clearly correct and Al
Michaels, in the Super Bowl, was unable, at least initially, to see the
difference between James catching the ball as he was falling into the end zone
and Ertz catching the ball at the five-yard line and taking three steps before
crossing the plane as a runner.
All
three of the above catches were correct under the rule and all three benefitted
the Patriots, which gave rise to Al Riveron getting killed on social media and
in other places and towns (Pittsburgh, New York, Buffalo, to name three).
On
the Clement play, the ball clearly moved, and, as Marshall and Esiason both
said, that was enough, during the regular season, to rule the pass incomplete.
In
addition, a few weeks ago, Commissioner Roger Goodell came out and actually
said that he wants the “catch” rule to be changed this off-season.
The
real question is whether it was changed for the Super Bowl or did Al Riveron,
after intense criticism (not his fault, in all three catches mentioned above,
he seemed to abide by the rule as he saw it) during the regular season and
after the commissioner said the rule had to be changed, inwardly feel that he
would be excoriated again for “giving” the Patriots another perceived gift in
the biggest game of all?
As
many people believe, the Clement “catch” was a reversible call given the calls
that were made all season long. Finally,
when Gene Steratore says the ball “stuck” on his forearm well, obviously, it
didn’t stick (if it did it would not have moved). It moved from one part of his
arm/body to another part of his arm/body.
Prior to the Super Bowl, that was an incomplete pass. Plus, again, see
the Al Riveron nfl.com video where he states multiple times that Seferian-Jenkins
of the Jets did not have control because “the ball moved.”
3)
LEGARRETTE BLOUNT – Well, anybody who listens to Joe Staszak on 97.5 the
Fanatic in Philly or the podcast Kallas Remarks, with Joe Staszak and this
writer, knows that, from training camp, we clamored for Blount to get the ball
early and often. It never really
happened all year (even after that Kansas City fiasco early in the season when
Blount carried only once and even that was called back for a penalty).
The
Eagles decided to go with a three-headed running game and, when they got Jay
Ajayi from Miami, he eventually became the lead back. But, with the money on the line and in the
biggest game of the year, it was Blount who set the tone early with two
scintillating runs – one for 36 yards in the first quarter (setting up Jeffery’s
TD catch) and another for a 21-yard TD to make the score 15-3.
Without
question, Blount’s two runs set the tone and made Nick Foles’s run/pass option
plays all the more effective during the entire game.
The
Eagles certainly need to bring Blount back as he was lightly used (173 regular
season carries) compared to last year with the Patriots when he led the league
in touchdowns (299 regular season carries).
While the three-headed monster worked, Blount never got the chance to
carry 25 times and really lay the wood on opposing defenders for an entire
game.
But,
by limiting him, the Eagles have extended his career.
4)
THE TOM BRADY “NON-CATCH”
It
apparently has been universally accepted that Tom Brady, on a third and five at
the Eagles 35 in the second quarter, dropped or failed to catch a pass he
should have caught from Danny Amendola (this was right after Brandin Cooks had
been knocked out of the game (for good) by Malcolm Jenkins).
The
reality is that the pass was simply too high.
There was no need to lead Brady.
He’s 6’4” tall and the only goal was to get five yards for the first
down. Conversely, the pass thrown by
former college QB Trey Burton a few minutes later to Foles was right at his
head – an easy catch.
Interestingly,
the Patriots have their own college QB, Julian Edelman, but he was lost for the
season so they had to rely on Amendola, who should have thrown it right to
Brady, not lead him in that situation.
5)
DID BILL BELICHICK LOSE THE SUPER BOWL BEFORE THE GAME STARTED BY BENCHING
MALCOLM BUTLER?
By
now, you probably know all of the stats: Butler played in about 98% of the
defensive snaps in the regular season.
He also played in 100% of all the defensive snaps in both the Titans and
Jaguars playoff games. It would make no
sense to keep him out of the defensive line-up for the entire game.
While
rumors about Butler’s off the field activities were rampant (he denies them
all), Bill Belichick simply said it was a football decision. He told Michelle Tafoya at halftime, when
specifically asked about the Butler benching, “I made the decisions that gave
us the best chance to win.”
Let’s
assume that to be true. There’s an
article out there that talks about how Belichick might have wanted to use
bigger defensive backs (than Butler) against the Eagles taller receivers.
Well,
the problem with that, of course, is that you had guys like Eric Rowe starting
and covering Alshon Jeffery (while Rowe did make a couple of nice plays against
Jeffery, he also gave up a 16-yard catch to Jeffery very early and was torched
for that early 34-yard TD catch). And
eventually, either Belichick or defensive coordinator Matt Patricia saw the
error of that move and put Stephon Gilmore on Jeffery to shut Jeffery out the
rest of the game (which Gilmore did).
But
it also meant giving a lot more playing time to Johnson Bademosi and Jordan
Richards, two guys who are not nearly as good as Butler – and it showed.
To
point out the most extreme examples (and plays that would eventually lead to
Eagle touchdowns), Richards (#37) is the defender seen flailing after Corey
Clement when, in the second quarter on a third and three, Clement ran a 15-yard
wheel route that became a 55-yard catch and run to set up a first and goal that
resulted in the Foles TD catch.
Bademosi,
on a third and six, with about 11:27 left in the third quarter and the score
22-19 Eagles, had a clear shot at tackling Nelson Agholor three yards before
the first-down marker (which would, in all likelihood, have caused a
punt). But Agholor slipped away and
turned a three-yard gain, short of the first down, into a 16-yard gain, a first
down and, eventually, the Clement disputed TD catch.
So,
if these were really the guys who put the Patriots “in the best position to win
the game,” it sure didn’t work out that way.
Did you see this ESPN stat: when Gilmore guarded Jeffery/Agholor, Nick
Foles was 0-4; all other defensive backs covering Jeffery/Agholor, Foles was
12-14. Pretty scary.
In
any event, the Patriots, the masters, by all accounts, of “half-time
adjustments” or general changes, especially defensively, to win games (see
taking Rowe off Jeffery and putting Gilmore on him for the resulting shutout
the rest of the way), clearly dropped the ball here (no pun intended).
If
all of Belichick’s statements are true, then it seems obvious that, by halftime
with respect to the terrible Richards coverage on Clement, or less than four
minutes into the third quarter by the whiff by Bademosi on Agholor, this “plan”
was failing miserably.
Even
if there was some team violation (which both Butler and Belichick deny), it
should have dawned on somebody (head coach, defensive coordinator?) that they
needed Butler in the game to stem the tide.
To think otherwise, by that point of the game, would be, to be kind,
foolish. If that had really been the
plan, it wasn’t working, and there was still a chance to, you know, win the
Super Bowl.
If
Belichick was making a point, that might be fine in week 5 (again, assuming it
wasn’t just for football reasons). But, in the Super Bowl, that’s cutting off
your nose to spite your face.
For
some reason, Malcolm Butler, who, in this writer’s opinion, made the greatest
play in the history of the NFL against Seattle (make the play and win the Super
Bowl; don’t make the play and Seattle either scores there or, after sanity
comes back to the Seattle coaching staff, on the next play when they hand the
ball off to Marshawn Lynch), has never quite received the respect that he
deserves. Giving Stephon Gilmore four or
five times the money Butler was making without extending him was pretty sad
(yes, the realities of free agency), but Butler is a tough guy, battles you
tooth and nail and might just be the best in the NFL at knocking a pass out of
a receiver’s hands after the receiver has caught it (you know, on the way to
the ground).
But,
maybe, as some have intimated, Butler wasn’t a Belichick favorite.
So,
if Malcolm Butler had played, would the Patriots have won the Super Bowl? Well, Phil Simms thinks so: When asked by James Brown on Inside the NFL
to fill in the following, “If Malcolm Butler played, the final score would have
been,” Simms said,
“THE
PATRIOTS WOULD HAVE WON THE GAME (emphasis added). Because when he came out of
the game, it changed the whole sequence of their defensive backs. Everybody had to move positions. It’s like saying, oh, we lost our center so
let’s move everybody down the line and move these guys over and I thought it
created a lot of bad match-ups.”
Simms
continued, “The strength of the Patriots’ defense is their secondary because
why, they have no pass rush. Now you
don’t have the pass rush to protect you, the defense is weakened by Malcolm
Butler not being in there and they gave up easy plays.”
While
this writer won’t say that the Patriots would have won the game if Butler had
played (obviously, we’ll never know), it seems clear that they would have had a
better or even much better chance to win the game if their starting cornerback
had, you know, started at cornerback.
Without him, the secondary became much more average and bore no relation
to the secondary for every game prior to the Super Bowl (because Butler played
almost every snap all year).
6)
FINALLY, WHOSE LEGACY IS HURT MORE BY THIS LOSS: BILL BELICHICK’S OR TOM
BRADY’S?
Well,
that’s an easy one. As you may know, Tom
Brady became the first quarterback in the history of the NFL in any game
(regular season or playoff) to throw for at least 500 yards, at least three
touchdowns with no interceptions and LOSE THE GAME. It’s never happened before. He did this with
no Julian Edelman (yes, he missed the season) and, more important than that, no
Brandin Cooks (his only real deep threat) for almost the final three quarters.
So,
in a 41-33 game, with a starting corner on the bench (actually standing up with
his helmet on, ready to go in) while guys who were behind him on the depth
chart all year were getting torched, fooled and/or missing tackles, all in the
name of “a football decision” that obviously had gone very wrong by halftime,
it’s pretty clear who takes the biggest hit.
This
one’s on Bill Belichick who, arguably, is the best coach ever.
But
after watching the Seattle coaching staff lose their minds and make a Super
Bowl-losing call and, then, last year, after watching the Atlanta coaching
staff lose their minds and try and throw the ball when they could have run it
into the line three times and let Matt Bryant kick a 40-yard or so field goal
to put them up 11 (and, that late in the game, clinch the Super Bowl), you have
to now wonder if this decision (to not play your starting corner on defense at
all) puts a great coach on this list of bizarre, in the first two instances and
maybe the third, Super Bowl-losing calls.
©
COPYRIGHT 2018 BY STEVE KALLAS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
