Wheelman
Pro Bowl Player
- Joined
- Dec 15, 2012
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Taking off my Pats glasses, the author has a point and the film does back that claim. Three of Edelman's catches were in the first half, two against Alford. One was a nice inside-out that Alford played well. The other was the broken play right before the Blount fumble. After that, there were a bunch of incomplete passes to Edelman with Alford almost exclusively in coverage and defending a few. Edelman's fourth catch came on the highlight play of the game where Alford made a great play nonetheless. His fifth and final catch was that sick throw Brady made in OT with Alford draped all over Julian, even getting his arm on the ball instantly to break it up, but Jules did a great job holding on.
It's a credit to Brady and the offense that they were able to spread the ball around and put up 20pts on drives where Edelman was shut out.
Regards,
Chris
Are you simply basing Alford beating Edelman on incomplete and completed passes? I quickly looked at the plays Edelman was targeted. Edelman was beating Alford almost every time. There was just different issues happening.
One time Edelman dropped the ball and would have had a 1st down breaking Alford's tackle.
Another time Brady threw it behind him. That would have been a TD if Brady threw a better ball.
Another time it looked like Alford had Edelman covered when Brady threw it to him but if you watch the all-22 Edelman clearly had Alford beat and even raised his hand running across the field laterally. but Brady was looking the other way, and then when he finally looked to Edelman(whose route had ended and just slowed) he was getting pressured and just threw it out there what really looks like a throw away as he started to get pressure. That's on Brady I guess for not seeing Edelman when he was open.
There's the deep throw to Edelman that looks like Brady missed Edelman wide open. This is not true. Brady actually threw a perfect ball. The play design was really good too. Problem was Edelman contacted with a Falcons defender as Edelman and Amendola criss-crossed in the deep middle. Brady throws the ball before Edelman and Amendola criss-cross. Edelman rid himself of Alford but unfortunately lost momentum when he contacted the other Falcons defender. You can see this clearly in the broadcasts' closeup replay of Edelman losing momemtum. If Edelman is not slowed down the play looks more similar to Brady to Amendola after the 2 minute warning in the 4th quarter.
Another incompleted pass that technically was Edelman as intended target looks like a throw away because Edelman's route ran to another defender. Maybe Edelman was supposed to stop his route and catch the ball where Brady threw it. Who knows.
Another incompleted pass was Collins on Edelman which either Edelman ran the wrong route or Brady threw it away because Collins covered it well.
There was the play where Brady looked like he made a silly throw to Edelman. But Brady was actually targeting Malcolm Mitchell on that play. Alford gets the credit on this play for not allowing Edelman to run his route and thus getting in the way of Brady's intended target.
There was the deep pass to Edelman where Edelman got open. But let's be real here. Brady and Edelman's deep connection has always sucked for some reason.
These plays aren't in order, just writing it off the top of my head. Sorry I didn't include screenshots, I don't have time to do that right now. But it's all there in the all-22. There's no real debate on what I've stated besides whether Edelman would have broken Alford's tackle or not when he dropped the ball.
I used pro football reference to find Edelman's targets. 5 for 13 targeting Edelman. So if it's not correct let me know.
Super Bowl LI - New England Patriots vs. Atlanta Falcons - February 5th, 2017 | Pro-Football-Reference.com
In conclusion, if your measure of whether Alford won the battle or not is simply whether a ball was completed you are correct. If it's how many times Edelman got open against Alford when targeted, I do not agree.
However, I haven't watched all of the all-22, only Edelman's targets according to pro football reference. Is the writer basing it off of the entire game? or simply when Edelman was targeted according to stats keepers?
When I have a chance I'll watch the all-22 of the entire game and look for when Alford is covering Edelman and see how he fared.
Edit: I only looked at incomplete passes, obviously Alford also made a great play on the miracle catch by Edelman.
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