Before you make up comments like Brady missed on passes and badly, take a look at the film. Brady missed passes when being hit while throwing the ball. It is impossible to be accurate when you are hit in the throwing motion. I saw exactly one pass that looked like a poor throw, to Welker on the sidelines, and Bradys reaction clearly made it look like he expected Welker to run the route deeper.
Can we please refrain from making things up in order to write a post, when they are right there on film to see?
How the hell are we supposed to back into our indivudual critical amatuer conclusions if we are limited to the facts as they exist on film...
Brady calls the mike, he doesn't set the protections - that is Koppen's job. Brady calls the play in the huddle based on what his OC is sending in which is based on the game plan for down, distance and defense. That game plan is a collaborative effort based on film study of the Giants, Bill's input on their likely defense, Brady's comfort level with individual plays and players, prior game and practice performance impacting personnel packages, health of available players prior to and in game. Brady adjusts actual plays at the line only if the defense he's presented is different than expected and he sees a favorable matchup he can adjust to with the personnel package already on the field. Receivers and linemen are expected to sight adjust to coverage post snap as does Brady. If one guy gets the adjustment wrong the entire play can become toast. You can seldom diagnose who or what went wrong absent coaches film.
No QB in the league today calls his own game, including Peyton Manning. That is because personnel packages often dictate/limit available calls on any given snap. Manning gets sent in 2 plays from which to choose to audible although he can also audible out to something entirely different within the constraints of who is on the field with him. Although the Colts don't sub package nearly as often as we do. And yet he misses receivers a lot these days probably because his injury replacement players aren't quite up to the task.
Brady sending Stallworth deep to beat the double coverage on Moss is ******ed... It wasn't that Moss couldn't beat the double team, it was that Brady didn't have time to make any downfield throw without getting smacked in the mouth 3 out of 4 times...:violent:
Welker tied the superbowl records of Jerry Rice and Deion Branch for SB receptions. Unfortunately it wasn't enough. Other short options were so well covered they either resulted in too little yardget to extend drives or at times little or no yardage in part because things like screens actually take time to set up and Brady didn't have that and the Giants were defending short exceptionally well and dropping those targets at or barely beyond the LOS.
For whatever reason or a number of reasons the OL **** the bed. They lost the one on one physical battles at the LOS for all but the first series before the Giants got dialed in and the second to last series when the Giants D was gassed AND they make a substitution error on punt coverage that forced them back onto the field. They didn't execute the correct call or they got the call wrong or the Giants were able to disguise their limited blitzes so well that they could not adjust post snap to pick up the extra man because they were struggling just to block 4. Yet the kill skippy crowd wants to blame anyone but those linemen and their long time coach and assistant HC...and heaven forbid credit the Giants D for remaining consistent and committed to executing their DC's game plan.
Belichick was far more concerned with his defense, as well he should have been following that opening 10 minute clock eating drive. He appeared to have gotten that leak in the dyke patched while his offense marched down the field for a first drive score to take the lead. But then Spagnuolo got his defense on track too, and both remained there until Belichick's D gave up back to back TD drives in the 4th quarter. Belichick's O managed to sandwich a go ahead drive in between as the Giants D was finally gassed after 3 quarters of shutout defense had them sucking fumes. Our offense didn't get a legit shot at another drive because their defense couldn't get off the field for two and a half minutes with only three minutes and change left in the game. They had their chances, which is a sign of good coaching, but the players in position could not make the play, period.
You could say the same thing on offense - the game plan was sound - receivers could get open deep and open in the mid range. Problem was Brady was under so much pressure he couldn't get many of those kinds of throw off cleanly. As Manning would say, Brady had protection problems - and that was a result of an Oline who simply couldn't make/hold their blocks consistently. It wasn't scheme correctable because it wasn't one weak link we could support with a TE (although they weren't having a great day either...). The entire line had it's struggles, from the usual suspects to the guys you never worry about. Coaches can't overcome that, so they tried to merely hang on assuming the Giants would eventually run out of gas. They did, just a little too late, or a little too early - depending on how you want to look at the last several minutes of the game.
And yet, we were one key stop or one makeable FG not attempted from winning our 4th Superbowl in 7 years. Yeah, lets blame skippy...
