PatsSweFan

One crucial mistake was to not let Giants score on the play before Bradshaws td run...we called a time out from the 8yds line with less than 1 min to play...

So, how much would our chance increase if we let them score on the play before and got around 55 sec left with two time outs..?

PatriotSeven

Good question. That's what I'm wondering too and that's what they were talking about Mike and Mike in the morning.

We got outcoached as far as clock-management goes.

But due to new revealing evidence, I'm not sure who the coach was for the Giants. Eli might deserve even more credit.

Coughlin was defending going for the touchdown, which was a bad decision from their end, as if he wanted to score all along, but I just heard Eli say he did, in fact, tell Bradshaw not to score.

So.....who's the liar?

HowardRoark

That was a good read, thanks. My big problem with INT in the Superbowl was that it was on 1st down. I believe you need to factor in those 3 lost downs when you are comparing it to a punt.

JFK

Bradshaw did the right thing in scoring even though it looked like he didn't want to. Fgs can be blocked. Fumbles can happen

Canuck

Great analysis. The only problem I have is you say the Welker drop cost us only minus 6%. The truth is a catch would have been been at least a +6% or likely alot more. So that drop was more like 12% or greater. Manningham's catches were +15 and +22%, so Welker's catch would have been just as much. I think if I read it correctly that we were at 80% chance to win and Welkers drop lowered it to 74%. A catch would have probably jumped it to +90%

IndianPat

Good analysis. The way I look at that interception is that it meant a loss of ONE possession. Every possession means there is a possibility of a score. In that sense, that interception brought down the probability of a win by a huge percentage.

The Brandon Five

Thinking about the safety some more, I think that we actually would have been better off if Tom threw that pass into coverage. Even a pick-six would make it 7-0 rather than 9-0 after the punt and it would have been 20-19 on the final drive. All we would have needed was to get into field goal range (assuming Giants kick the PAT after their final TD). Fake an injury or two and voila!

Makes you wonder why anyone would take the chance of the safety...unless they are assuming that they can get a stop after the punt. Try running those numbers!

The Brandon Five

This was just bad situational football. We get the ball on the six. We haven't run a snap on offense yet so we have no idea how the pass protection will hold up (Vollmer got beat on the play). What do we do? Dial up a play with a five-step drop so that the QB ends up deep in the endzone. Awesome play call there.

cstjohn17

The stats are fun but the Safety and INT were huge. Basically as soon as the Safety was called the Patriots were doomed to lose the time of possession battle, giving the Giants extra possessions and putting more pressure on the defense.

The INT was not as good as a punt, it was thrown on first down. Instead of moving into possible field goal range or worst case taking another 2-3 minutes of the clock the Giants were given another possession. With two high quality offenses possessions are critical.

Interesting (or not) the Giants and Patriots were essentially operating at the same efficiency just that the Giants had more chances:
Measure 1) Yards per play
Giants - 396/71 = 5.6 yards per play
Patriots - 349 / 62 = 5.6 yards per play

Measure 2) 3rd down efficiency
Giants - 6/11 - 45%
Patriots - 6/12 - 50%

In the end the Patriots did it to themselves, I thought they were out played but despite it all still had a chance to win but couldn't close the deal.

Oh well, there have been worse loses.

C'est la vie, enjoy the nice weather everyone.

The Brandon Five

I think we would have needed at least one first down conversion to ensure that they didn't have time at the end. They go the ball back at the end with 3:46 to go. A field goal would still have won it for them, so they didn't need to drive all the way to the goal line (not that we were able to stop them at that point with the defense having been out there a lot).

I hate football right now.