Andy Benoit with an excellent Super Bowl defense article

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

This is great reading for laymen like myself, as a I think our rewatch threads are awesome, but I struggle to keep up with the analysis. This article does a great job in its overview of the defense and why it worked.

Before the game, I read one article that foreshadowed this, as Matt Patricia had the Lions play this quarters defense. While the Rams won the game easily, a film breakdown showed why this defense was so problematic. The Patriots added additional obstacles. They played a a 6-1 defense to cover the outside lanes (that’s the whole concept behind the Rams offense.) Essentislly they dared the Rams to change their offensive approach, and the Rams could not. Give credit to @luuked , who was very confident in this game because of the Rams single formation and lack of flexibility, which he thought Belichick would shut down. He was correct. McVay is a good coach, but it’s shocking that he didn’t have a Plan B. He and Goff looked like two deer in headlights all game.

SB Film Study: How the defenses won, the real MVP

 

[luuked]

Give credit to @luuked , who was very confident in this game because of the Rams single formation and lack of flexibility, which he thought Belichick would shut down.

Thanks for the that.

To be fair -- as the "Guess the Result" thread proves -- while I was expecting a 7-10 point victory I didn't think that BB and Phillips would be able to shut down the opponents offense that effectively. I expected us to have a big margin for error in the game because of how McVay designs his offense but I never expected there to only be a single redzone play.

Honestly I thought the game would have two early scores for both teams with the scripted plays. Then BB would limit the Rams to 3-7 points until around the mid/end of the third quarter and our offense would get a 2 score lead. And then McVay would adjust but it would be too late.

Turns out McVay really could not adjust at all.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

Thanks for the that.

To be fair -- as the "Guess the Result" thread proves -- while I was expecting a 7-10 point victory I didn't think that BB and Phillips would be able to shut down the opponents offense that effectively. I expected us to have a big margin for error in the game because of how McVay designs his offense but I never expected there to only be a single redzone play.

Honestly I thought the game would have two early scores for both teams with the scripted plays. Then BB would limit the Rams to 3-7 points until around the mid/end of the third quarter and our offense would get a 2 score lead. And then McVay would adjust but it would be too late.

Turns out McVay really could not adjust at all.

I don’t think anyone on the planet earth, including the players and coaches, saw this level of domination coming.

 

[hellolin]

This is great reading for laymen like myself, as a I think our rewatch threads are awesome, but I struggle to keep up with the analysis. This article does a great job in its overview of the defense and why it worked.

Before the game, I read one article that foreshadowed this, as Matt Patricia had the Lions play this quarters defense. While the Rams won the game easily, a film breakdown showed why this defense was so problematic. The Patriots added additional obstacles. They played a a 6-1 defense to cover the outside lanes (that’s the whole concept behind the Rams offense.) Essentislly they dared the Rams to change their offensive approach, and the Rams could not. Give credit to @luuked , who was very confident in this game because of the Rams single formation and lack of flexibility, which he thought Belichick would shut down. He was correct. McVay is a good coach, but it’s shocking that he didn’t have a Plan B. He and Goff looked like two deer in headlights all game.

SB Film Study: How the defenses won, the real MVP

Jared Goff is just a rich man's Mark Sanchez it appears, you take the game manager behind him off, he can do nothing but butt fumble or get chased by a defensive player and knee down while running.

 

[luuked]

Jared Goff is just a rich man's Mark Sanchez it appears, you take the game manager behind him off, he can do nothing but butt fumble or get chased by a defensive player and knee down while running.

That is the price if you take shortcuts with a developmental QB. And McVay giving Goff the answers to the questions in front of him via the radio is a shortcut that prevented him from developing to read defenses by himself.

I am honestly not sure what the Rams will do with him once the rookie contract expires.

 

[Redstorm]

The defense won’t get proper credit but it was one of the best playoff runs by a defense I’ve seen

The visual of 41-28 and 37-31 will blind people to this fact. In reality they beat the Chargers 38-7, and allowed 31 points to truly one of the greatest offenses ever fielded (3rd behind 2013 Broncos and 2007 Pats in points)

And the Superbowl was just another Belichick masterpiece.

 

[dustcover]

Outstanding film breakdown which clarified many points of intrigue for neophytes like myself. Now with an insight to what actually took place on the field, I'd love to watch a replay of the game with the newly acquired knowledge learned from this article.

 

[hellolin]

That is the price if you take shortcuts with a developmental QB. And McVay giving Goff the answers to the questions in front of him via the radio is a shortcut that prevented him from developing to read defenses by himself.

I am honestly not sure what the Rams will do with him once the rookie contract expires.

Trade him to the Jets, obviously, they miss their butt fumble guy.

 

[ALP]

what i could use more explanation on: (because i think the win makes us talk about a team hoolding brady to 13 points too little, and it's very important to understand, our D having an awesome showing is understandable, our O having such a bad showing is not)

what specificaally did the rams do that confused brady and the Oline to make their zone look so much like man? and how difficult is it? no other team seems to have been so able to do that, that's what happened with the INT as well, it started off looking like man, but was actually zone, rams switched late enough to confuse brady into not realizing was actually zone until the moment the ball was about released from his hands, so how?

i think the rams D hid their zones so well, that's why brady played so poorly (for him) even after the INT, he was hesitant b/c wasn't as sure as usual if either man or zone, and thought the rush was getting to him when he had more time

it seems the usual put someone in motion was faked by rams to also look like man when it was actually zone, and what can we do in future to make sure we can see through this deception?

 

[patfanken]

A couple of thoughts:

1. It was REALLY cool to see the Pats come out with that 6-1 look. I mean in the late 70's the 6-1 was dated and if I were really honest, the last time the 6-1 was relevant was back in the late 50's.

2. One of the key defensive points of the game (which was missing from this article) came from the rewatch thread. It helped explain the success the Pats pass rush had. But there are some facts that had to be disclosed first so you can understand it.

a. The Rams OL was weaker than we thought. Evidently, even though the Rams OL was ranked #1 in some of the rankings and IIRC allowed the fewer sacks, or among the fewest sacks in the league; they had a weak link or two.

b. There is a basic rule of pass rushing that states if you have a weak link on the OL rush 5. You do that because that way the OL can't help the weak link.

c. And the corollary to that is that, when you need more coverage guys, rush 4 but make it look like you are rushing 5. (Jim Schwartz, a BB student, really breaks that down at a coach's clinic clip in the rewind thread)

Essentially you are" ghosting" one of the OLmen and hoping to get him to block air so you can single the weak link or create space through the middle.

Now that 6-1 look not only makes running the ball schematically difficult (especially when you are a zone blocking scheme) it also makes it easy to disguise your 4 and 5 man rushes and confuse the OL. What LA should have done was to spread the Pats out, which would have gotten them out of that scheme, but that's not who the Rams are and don't want to be..

The other thing I think this article missed was how often the Pats were in a zone coverage. Certainly they were in man the majority of the time, but they were in zone coverage more that they imply.

 

[luuked]

What LA should have done was to spread the Pats out, which would have gotten them out of that scheme, but that's not who the Rams are and don't want to be..

I think that will be the big lesson for McVay from the entire debacle. Don't be the master of one specific scheme but have a team that has diverse enough talent so you can morph between different modes of attack. Especially given how he was swooning BB about how amazed he was at our flexibility.

But that is extremely difficult to achieve because not only do you have to manage the cap space perfectly to have a lot of middle class players, you also have to find the ones that are flexible enough so they can do many things and then also correctly analyze how to attack your opponent each week.

The reason why so many coaches from the BB tree fail or look inferior is because they just don't have the same insight and talent to do all of that at the same level as BB. That's why there is only one team in the league that can be a ****ing chameleon each week even after 18 years of sustained success. It is ****ing hard.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

I think that will be the big lesson for McVay from the entire debacle. Don't be the master of one specific scheme but have a team that has diverse enough talent so you can morph between different modes of attack. Especially given how he was swooning BB about how amazed he was at our flexibility.

But that is extremely difficult to achieve because not only do you have to manage the cap space perfectly to have a lot of middle class players, you also have to find the ones that are flexible enough so they can do many things and then also correctly analyze how to attack your opponent each week.

The reason why so many coaches from the BB tree fail or look inferior is because they just don't have the same insight and talent to do all of that at the same level as BB. That's why there is only one team in the league that can be a ****ing chameleon each week even after 18 years of sustained success. It is ****ing hard.

And may I add, what you’ve stated is also the major reason why player values are often out of whack with conventional thinking when it comes to Belichick. How many WTF trades or releases have we seen, and how many “jags” have turned out to be incredibly versatile and therefore valuable? Belichick sees player values very differently.

 

[BTTA]

Love how Brady reshaped the Miami loss in his mind as a victory, and thus "we only lost once after the bye." Mind games of a champion.

And how Edelman's injury followed by the suspension caused him to come back with a vengeance, leading to the determined work to regain his quickness that turned into a SB MVP award.

 

[cmasspatsfan]

And may I add, what you’ve stated is also the major reason why player values are often out of whack with conventional thinking when it comes to Belichick. How many WTF trades or releases have we seen, and how many “jags” have turned out to be incredibly versatile and therefore valuable? Belichick sees player values very differently.

KVN exhibit 1

 

[BTTA]

I think that will be the big lesson for McVay from the entire debacle. Don't be the master of one specific scheme but have a team that has diverse enough talent so you can morph between different modes of attack. Especially given how he was swooning BB about how amazed he was at our flexibility.

But that is extremely difficult to achieve because not only do you have to manage the cap space perfectly to have a lot of middle class players, you also have to find the ones that are flexible enough so they can do many things and then also correctly analyze how to attack your opponent each week.

The reason why so many coaches from the BB tree fail or look inferior is because they just don't have the same insight and talent to do all of that at the same level as BB. That's why there is only one team in the league that can be a ****ing chameleon each week even after 18 years of sustained success. It is ****ing hard.

This...the Rams can't morph like the Pats because they've hired stars who are locked in to playing a certain way.