The 2020 Super Bowl pregame thread

[slash83]

You know Brady wants to stick it to Bill and show him this is what you could of had, had you kept me and gave me weapons to work with. I can’t pick against that.

 

[TB12TheGoat]

if you take out Fournette's 20 yard TD run, the bucs ran the ball 17 times for 1.9 avg yards on first down. Leftwich cant do this in the super bowl

 

[carmelo15]

if you take out Fournette's 20 yard TD run, the bucs ran the ball 17 times for 1.9 avg yards on first down. Leftwich cant do this in the super bowl

smh they’ll still do it it’s week 19 and he’s still doing that dumb ****

 

[TB12TheGoat]

smh they’ll still do it it’s week 19 and he’s still doing that dumb ****

i don’t understand why he doesn’t use play action on first down. i swear every time i look they’re pretty much starting a drive 2nd and 8 or 2nd and 9

 

[TB12TheGoat]

Brady needs to take over this game and say look, we’re running the offense that we ran from the 2nd half of the Falcons game through the Washington playoff game

 

[Lagaffe_07]

Brady needs to take over this game and say look, we’re running the offense that we ran from the 2nd half of the Falcons game through the Washington playoff game

I agree with you overall but we need to put thing in perspective a little bit. I didn’t watch the film so it’s mainly my opinions and guesses.

But in the second half of the regular season, the teams they played weren’t good defenses so the concept Brady liked were there.

In the playoff, they played #2, #5 and #9 D in the NFL. There is a possibility that those defenses were able to take away what worked in the last 4 games.

But yeah, they need to mix it up more on first down and maybe use more quick passes that can get 5-7 yards. They need to find a way to put themselves in 2nd-3rd and short

 

[Uptown]

Why does it seem as though nobody (DE, LB or S) ever chip blocks/gets physical with Kelce at the LOS? Well, except us. It’s as if he gets a free release every snap. “Here Kelce, welcome. Run past me en route to 8 receptions, 130 yds & 2 TDs. You’re very welcome!..” Stop playing soft & get that 87 filthy.

 

[Flash]

I hope Brady wins, but we should all be prepared for the inevitable "is Patrick Mahomes the GOAT" talks if KC wins.

 

[RobertWeathers]

i don’t understand why he doesn’t use play action on first down. i swear every time i look they’re pretty much starting a drive 2nd and 8 or 2nd and 9

Bruce is not a big play action guy. He likes for his QBs to have as much time as possible to read the D.

I don't know what Tom's preference is.

 

[Guts]

Why does it seem as though nobody (DE, LB or S) ever chip blocks/gets physical with Kelce at the LOS? Well, except us. It’s as if he gets a free release every snap. “Here Kelce, welcome. Run past me en route to 8 receptions, 130 yds & 2 TDs. You’re very welcome!..” Stop playing soft & get that 87 filthy.

Everyone playing KC should watch those Patriots games. Seems BB the only one who knows how to slow them down. That's without a pass rush too

 

[Lagaffe_07]

Everyone playing KC should watch those Patriots games. Seems BB the only one who knows how to slow them down. That's without a pass rush too

Tampa slow them down after the 1st quarter. Only scored 10 points the rest of the game.

Interestingly enough, TB scored more pts/g than KC this year

 

[TB12TheGoat]

 

[The Brandon Five]

I agree with you overall but we need to put thing in perspective a little bit. I didn’t watch the film so it’s mainly my opinions and guesses.

But in the second half of the regular season, the teams they played weren’t good defenses so the concept Brady liked were there.

In the playoff, they played #2, #5 and #9 D in the NFL. There is a possibility that those defenses were able to take away what worked in the last 4 games.

But yeah, they need to mix it up more on first down and maybe use more quick passes that can get 5-7 yards. They need to find a way to put themselves in 2nd-3rd and short

They also need to take a page out of Richard Sherman's book and knock the crap out of the receivers when Mahomes leaves the pocket (no illegal contact at that point). Put Hill on his ass.

 

[The Brandon Five]

doesn’t KC love to blitz? if they do then AB and Godwin need to eat them up with YAC which they’ve shown they’re more than capable of

Brady loves it too. He eats it for breakfast. lunch and dinner. If they blitz Brady a lot he will tear them apart.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

i don’t understand why he doesn’t use play action on first down. i swear every time i look they’re pretty much starting a drive 2nd and 8 or 2nd and 9

Bruce is not a big play action guy. He likes for his QBs to have as much time as possible to read the D.

I don't know what Tom's preference is.

Against the Saints in the 38-3 game, the use of playaction was a huge problem, as Brady was turning around and getting drilled without being able to process anything. They've moved away from playaction for the most part. I think it's a mistake to abandon it to this degree though. It seemed more like Payton/the Saints sniffed it out that was the bigger problem. They mainly run it now on 2nd and long, which doesn't really fool the defense anyway.

But the lack of creativity is utterly baffling. Despite that they're going to the Super Bowl, they've been incredibly inefficient on offense these last two games, and their insistence on the two-three yards then brick wall on first down approach is insane.

It's especially bad when they have two solid pass catching tight ends who also block on most running plays in Gronk and Brate. This team has remarkable depth and versatility to cause a lot of different problems for defenses.

Is there any rule against a shotgun formation on first down, still using big formation, and handing it off half the time? That would certainy seem to solve the issue of Brady's field vision and the other issue of the laughable predictability. They're literally running a binary system of "running personnel" on early downs and "passing personnel" on third down. You never see any motion like flexing Gronk/Brate out wide and clearing a linebacker away from the middle of field.

I'm not sure how their base formation on first down isn't shotgun with Brady-Fournette-Gronkowski-Evans-Brown-Godwin/Brate with Godwin and Brate rotating in and out. It's criminal to be approaching a Super Bowl and treating Antonio Brown like a situational player, going up against a team that's going to score 30+. With Evans and Brown split wide, defenses would have major problems selling out against the run; right now they just jam their linebackers and safeties into that dumbass big blocker formation with zero consequences for selling out.

 

[Kontradiction]

i don’t understand why he doesn’t use play action on first down. i swear every time i look they’re pretty much starting a drive 2nd and 8 or 2nd and 9

Maybe they’re saving their best for last.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

Maybe they’re saving their best for last.

Literally made me laugh out loud. Because to some degree, you know it's actually true, in the mind of Arians.

 

[TB12TheGoat]

Maybe they’re saving their best for last.

hell I’ve gone from they’re saving their best for the playoffs to maybe they’re saving their best for the super bowl

 

[Kontradiction]

Literally made me laugh out loud. Because to some degree, you know it's actually true, in the mind of Arians.

He thinks it is. Their play calling was night and day in the first and second halves in Green Bay. First half, they did what ended up getting them to the dance. Then I heard Arians say, “we need to be aggressive” at halftime, and rolled my eyes. Sure enough... bombs away. Lots of plays with 3-4 vertical routes that Green Bay’s defense was obviously all over. The bad thing is, the Fappers were GIVING them the underneath routes. Arians and Leftwich just didn’t want to take it, and they ended up letting Rodgers and Co back into the game. Of course, Brady also should not have thrown those three balls off his back foot under duress. Stupid ass decisions. But hard to hate on two of them. One was in plus territory where he was hoping Evans would high point the ball and the other was also in plus territory and was basically a punt.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

He thinks it is. Their play calling was night and day in the first and second halves in Green Bay. First half, they did what ended up getting them to the dance. Then I heard Arians say, “we need to be aggressive” at halftime, and rolled my eyes. Sure enough... bombs away. Lots of plays with 3-4 vertical routes that Green Bay’s defense was obviously all over. The bad thing is, the Fappers were GIVING them the underneath routes. Arians and Leftwich just didn’t want to take it, and they ended up letting Rodgers and Co back into the game. Of course, Brady also should not have thrown those two balls off his back foot under duress. Stupid ass decisions. But hard to hate on two of them. One was in plus territory where he was hoping Evans would high point the ball and the other was also in plus territory and was basically a punt.

"We need to be agressive"...lmao...and the best part is how the gameplan didn't change when the Packers gave them 7 more points to start the second half. All that power running in the first half in the name of "ball control" and then fire a bunch of downfield bombs into double coverage up 28-10. How is this team in the Super Bowl??

I'm not sure if you watched All or Nothing on Amazon Prime, but it's a much better version of Hard Knocks and featured the 2015 Arizona Cardinals, so there was quite a bit of Arians, and you know he's going to act exactly the same on camera as he would behind closed doors.

It's startling how little he seems to understand about strategy in light of winning/losing. There are a few times when the team makes idiotic decisions, and yet he basically thinks they were "good bad decisions" because they worked that one time or because the team won the game. It's similar to earlier this season when Ronald Jones started, Leonard Fournette came in and was so much better, and Arians claimed it was evidence that starting Jones - and giving him the bulk of the reps - was correct because Fournette ran down the defense in the fourth quarter. No self-awareness or critical thinking that, should you put the weaker running back in for the first three quarters, you're less likely to have a fourth quarter lead.

Which is why I fear he looked at the gameplan against the Saints, which was really not a good one but made some sense in protecting the ball and limiting risk due to the previous disaster, and reasoned that it was the right move because they won and then recycled it for the Packers game, which they won. It's like he thinks his bad gameplan was the reason the defense forced two major fumbles and the offense has scored almost all their touchdowns getting the ball in opponent territory. The offense over the last two games has three turnovers and has been borderline abysmal considering their talent and especially considering the job the offensive line has done.

He should be looking at it like this: they're not going to win against the Chiefs if Brady averages 6 yards per attempt and completes about 55% of his passes, with a running game that averages 1.9 yards on first down. But he probably won't. He's probably giddy about taking the same approach and ramming into the Chiefs defensive line when the Chiefs secondary and the Bucs healthy receivers should be setting this up for a track meet.