Some thoughts on the safety. I'm not a major X's and O's guy so I might have gotten some of this a bit off.
The safety was a big play. It gave the Gints two points and the ball. Plus, the Pats D had just stopped the Gints and forced them to punt, but the Pats D had just been on the field for, I believe, six minutes. Now they had to come back out again after only one play by the Pats offense. Not the recommended way to play the Super Bowl.
I don't quite understand what Brady was looking at during this play and why he threw the ball away down the center of the field.
The situation: Branch is wide left. Welker in the slot. Two tights ends with Hernandez (or tackle Nate Solder as the other tight end, can't tell from video) left and Gronk on right. Green Ellis is a RB in backfield. Brady under center. Brady fakes handoff to Green Ellis, who dives into line. Hernandez/Solder stays in to block. Gronk runs ten yards and turns and sits, looking back at Brady. Branch runs straight and then cuts to his right across the deep middle. Welker runs a shorter route and also cuts to the right across the middle. Gints safety bites on the Green Ellis play action and steps up. Gints outside LB drops back to cover Welker but then lets him go. The safety who bit on PA now tries to back pedal, but Welker runs right by the safety and the LB. Welker is uncovered as he runs to the right along the Pats 21-yard line. He raises his hand to tell Brady he's open. The other safety is behind him, but too deep for him to close on a well-thrown pass before it reaches Welker. Brady never sees Welker or maybe doesn't think he can throw to him, perhaps worried that the LB who has Gronk bracketed to Gronk's left will be able to get a hand on it and cause a deflection. But it seems to me that Welker is deep enough for Tom to get it to him.
What was Brady looking at? One theory is that his first read is Gronk. He wants to see if the gimpy TE can get open. It's a natural reaction to see just how Gronk performs with his ankle. Perhaps he focused on Gronk, who is triple bracket covered, and by the time he sees Welker, Justin Tuck is on top of him.
But here's the truly wacky part. Watch the whole clip and you'll see that Tuck, who forces the bad throw by Brady, starts out on the right side of the Pats line and stunts to his right. Sebastian Vollmer (No. 76) tries to stay with him, but can't. Even center Dan Connolly (No. 63) can't pick him up. But they both push on Tuck's back and he is losing his balance and looking like he is going to go down. But he runs right into Logan Mankins (No. 70) who has no assignment at that point. Tuck collides with Mankins. The force of the impact drives Mankins to his left and he can't recover his balance and block Tuck before the very athletic Tuck uses the impact to get his feet under him and redirect himself towards Brady. If Mankins is not in that exact spot, Tuck likely goes to the ground and Brady has another second to scan the field; Connolly and or Mankins might have even been able to circle around and block Tuck as he gets up.
Now, why does Brady throw the ball down the middle of the field when he throws it away? There are no receivers nearby and the result is a safety. This is odd because Gronk, Welker and Branch are all on the right side of the field. Why doesn't Brady throw the ball away over the right sideline? One reason may be that Branch ran the wrong route? Welker is running a drag to the right, Gronk is to the right. The better approach for Branch is to run an outside route or a straight go route, drawing his coverage away from Welker and Gronk on the right. Instead, he runs right, too. Perhaps Brady expected Branch to be running a go and thought he could over throw Branch and thus satisfy the requirement of having a receiver in the area so the play doesn't draw a grounding penalty.
If Brady had identified Welker earlier and thrown to him right after Wes raises his hand, the Pats start the game with a 20-yard completion and a first down, getting them out of hole. Interesting play. Would love to have Brady tell us what he was seeing/thinking on that one.
Here is Utube of that play (you have to wait until after the free kick to see the replays of the safety).
Patriots Safety @ Superbowl XLVI 2012 - YouTube
While Eli is the obvious choice for MVP, I might have given it to Gints punter Weatherford. He pinned the Pats deep several times with great punts. The Pats started with crap field position on almost every possession. That was a big factor in the game.
