SITE MENU
Registered Members experience this forum ad and noise-free.
CLICK HERE to Register for a free account and login for a smoother ad-free experience. It's easy, and only takes a few moments.
It's very possible. One of the main reasons is bc we have no real threat in the AFC. Obviously anything can happen but I expect we return to the Super Bowl and beat whoever we find there pretty covincogly
Remember: the game against Seattle really wasn't as close as the score indicated
It's amazing to me how so many people keep ignoring the Ravens as a threat to the Pats in the AFC. The NFL Today did a debate on the weekend about whether it will be Peyton in Denver or Luck in Indy, but completely ignored Flacco in Baltimore. Have they been living in a cave?
I just don't see the Packers making it back to the Super Bowl under their current regime. It seems every year they are favored to go deep but some stupid stuff happens on their part and they lose. Chalk it up to bad coaching or Rodgers being average in the playoffs.
They're coched to be too conservative. The best example was on the INT with 5 minutes left and the D linemen and one or more of the players near the spot of the INT were waving him to go down. It looked like he had enough room to possibly make it a pick 6. The do have the talent to be great though.
The Packers remind me of the Steelers under Cowher, who lost to the Pats in 2004 even though they were home and sporting a 16-1 record when they played in round 2. The reason they lost is because they went for a FG at the 1 down by two TD's in the 4th quarter. You could feel the air go out of the stadium after that move.
Belichick is conservative in some ways, but not in others. He gambled by not taking the time out to give the Pats more time at the end of the SB.
Ahhhh yes, the famous Seattle " bend but don't break " defense. I forgot all about that. And their offensive gamelan to Dupe the Patriots by not completing a pass until there were five minutes left in the half...... Pure genius.
The Seahawks had them all the way...........
In the first quarter, the Patriots earned 75 yards, and the result of all those yards was no points and an interception. That is called "bend but don't break," which is a defensive concept that our own coach Bill Belichcick has touted for years. That drive by the Patriots reminds me of the first drive (if I'm recalling correctly) that the Colts had in the AFC Championship game in 2003. Manning drove the Colts down the field like Brady did, and he threw an interception (to Rodney Harrison) just like Brady did. What the Patriots displayed their, just like the Seahawks did, was text book bend but don't break defense. That was the biggest drive of the quarter and the Seahawks won that battle.
I already talked about how the Seahawks defense was bend but dont break in the first quarter. You conveniently ignored it. Here it was:
Just to understand you correctly.. we have a conversation here about who outplayed who in the game and you are giving the first quarter to the team that was not able to go anywhere until they caught a fluke deep pass late in the second quarter. Also you give credit to a Seattle defense that caught an interception on the goalline but yet completely ignore how the Patriots defense totally shut them down for more than 2.5 quarters. Right..
If Seattle really played "bend don't break" - and I completely disagree that they did - then they broke all the time once the Pats got a drive going.
Reality is Seattle got outcoached and outplayed in a game that should never have been close. If you truly are in control of a game and have a two possession lead with less than a quarter to go, you bring it home.
No one said anything about luck, but the Patriots didn't "dominate" the game.
Being down 24-14 at the start of fourth quarter is not a sign of dominate play. The only time the Patriots were dominating was in the fourth quarter. Their dominant play in the fourth quarter is what won them the game. Not their play in the first three quarters. Their play in the first three quarters resulted in a 24-14 score.
One of those drives ended in an interception, and by halftime they were all tied up. This means that the collective effort of both teams resulted in a score that was equal. This means that the game was extremely close going into halftime. I fail to see where the domination is. Would you like to point it out to me? I would really appreciate it.
You can't just say "Yeah the Pats dominated the game. Except for that time the D falling asleep, and those two interceptions our quarterback threw, and all deep bombs they completed on us... But other than that yeah we dominated!" No, those are all mistakes the Patriots made as a team. The results of those mistakes are what contributed to the Patriots being down 10 at the start of the 4th. That's not dominating football. To dominate something is to have complete control over it. You can't say the Patriots had complete control over the Seahawks when they were losing 24-14 going into the 4th. I don't see why it's so hard to grasp that we won a very close, competitive game.I've simply asked where the actual domination is and you've failed to point it out. As I've asked multiple times, how can the Pats have dominated if they were down by 10 points going into the 4th quarter?
The whole thing about the first quarter was to show the Pats weren't dominating. Do you consider a turnover and zero points in the first quarter dominating? Is them being down 24-14 going into the fourth quarter being dominant?
I voted no. Pats were loaded and mostly healthy this year but were life and death to even get to the AFCCG because of the Ravens. They probably should have lost XLIX too, but they outexecuted Seattle. They've lost 5 important players, which will become 6 if they lose Connolly, because that was the cost to get loaded. If they barely win when loaded, I'm having a hard time seeing how they win with so many losses, that's just how hard it is to win a SB. So, I view that the odds are against them winning one for the thumb.
But I'm excited to see them try and think the chance of a repeat isn't zero!
I think next year might be Green Bay's year to win again. I hope I 'm wrong, but they were a great team last year and have their roster for the most part intact.
Why bother trying to use a statistical case when you have already made clear that the score is the only stat that you are looking at? And while I would agree that the score is the only thing that matters when all is said and done the claim that it is always an accurate reflection of what is going on during the game is total crap, and anyone who watches sports knows that. And your claim that the first quarter was a draw when the Patriots dominated them on both sides of the ball shows just how warped your view of that game is. And the exact same thing can be said of the NFC Championship game, where the Packers beat the Seahawks up and down the field all day long but failed to put them away and lost because of it. Seattle won but no one who watched that game would claim they outplayed Green Bay. In the end the score is all that matters but claiming that it is the only indicator of how the game was played is ridiculously simplistic. Had the Seahawks won the Super Bowl they would have deserved it but the idea that the Patriots were lucky is crap, they were the better team and showed that over the course of the game. And if the shoe were on the other foot and Brady didn't get his first completed pass until there were five minutes left in the half while the Seahawks moved up and down the fieldagainst them any Patriot fan who tried to claim the first half was a draw would have been labeled a blind homer. It was a great Super Bowl but the better team won the game, and they outplayed the Seahawks for three of the four quarters.
Through 3 quarters, the Seahawks had outgained the Patriots 321-245. Your perpetually rose-colored glasses may tell you otherwise, but the Patriots dominated the fourth quarter, not the game.