I have to give half of Brady's luster to the system and his coach, which is why I recognize his greatness, but can't crown him as the GOAT. He'll never be that for me for a few reasons. The 11 win season Bill managed the year he wasn't playing. The two losses in SBs against the lesser Manning, and the memory of Montana. That said, there's just no denying he's the Jabbar of the NFL at this point.
Picking your brain: You speak of Brady being a "system QB." Didn't Manning play in the same system while at Indy, and didn't he transplant his system when he went to Denver? What I mean is, didn't Manning play his whole career in pretty much the same system all throughout? And Brees has been playing in NO for idk how long, hasn't his system been more or less the same during his tenure there as well?
Your line looked stout enough against the pass rush of KC. The Rams do have the talent up front to apply more pressure though... Release and scheme will be the difference, I think. And I have more confidence in your guys on that count than I do in theirs.
That's what I'm looking forward to...but I KNOW Bill will bring a great plan. I'm only confident the other guy will.
Good point. But last year's SB is still fresh in my mind, and I knew that Belichick would bring a great plan then to Nick Foles's and Doug Pederson's offense for that game, and he failed, by many accounts, by sitting one Malcolm Butler. It may well have been the difference in the game, given all the uncharacteristic missed tackles in the secondary that game, many of which Butler was known to be better able to execute than his replacements. So hopefully no comparable repeat on that mark for this game.
He took a qb no one was excited by and made him into an MVP candidate for much of the season. He had an off day with his go-to running back and replaced him effectively enough. That is, he adjusts well on the fly, which he'll have to if he wants to compete with Bill and that staff.
Agreed on all counts.
Haven't broken it down yet, but I'm conflicted. Before this year, outside of the first Rams game, I rooted steadily against you on general principle, but I think I'll be pulling for you this year. One for the aging guys out there. Keep the youngsters at bay for another one. Us against time.
If you won and lost on paper you wouldn't have made the championship game. No, Brady looked less than impressive for most of four quarters. He looked like he has all season. Bill did the impossible and silenced the most potent offense in the league with brilliant defensive calls and note worthy effort by the players and kept it close.
He befuddled the Chiefs for much of the first half, but once they figured out how to address whatever NE was doing, they were like a freight train, and scored almost every drive.
Then Brady became the lion in winter, rallied his and broke theirs.
Brady taught the young Mahomes a valuable lesson. When he threw that interception in the endzone early in the game, that made it so that at the half it was 14-0 instead of 21-0, which is probably what it would have been, had they instead scored on that drive (they were on the 1 yard line if memory serves), and the game might have gotten out of hand. But in ensuring the win at the end of the game, Brady showed Mahomes how, just because you throw a pick in the endzone, doesn't mean that you have to lose the game. In their first meeting in week six this year, Mahomes himself threw an endzone pick, and this was a lesson for him that he can't blame that pick for the loss. He's got to, if he wants to be a champion, rise above even the problems that he himself causes. As a football fan, you hope that Mahomes learned that lesson well.
It literally changed me and my mindset in a drive. I looked at my wife and said, "That's it. I'm beaten and on board." Watching a genuine underdog struggle, seeing them take the late charge of KC as the kid who will likely be king came to life and overcame that effort and gameplan with sheer ability, then witnessing the KC heart breaking drive, capped for me by Brady leaping onto a teammate like a kid...you can't love the game and not love that.
That game affected more than just you on that mark. I'm hearing now even more sports writers refer to Brady as the greatest ever, due to the preponderance of evidence already under his belt, with this game's performance seemingly tipping many peoples' calculations.
But all that aside, I just want to see another SB victory, by hook or by crook. No pun intended.
I've been noticing a more public private side to Brady of late. Showing us that at the end was a continuation of that more open door and I think he'd have been beloved beyond the confines of NE if he'd done that early, if he'd worn his heart on his sleeve instead of posing for GQ and showing the chip on his late drafted shoulder, if he'd postured less as a talented but aloof guy with the supermodel wife and the odd health care pitch. But better late than never.
His performance on the field is the most important thing in all this, and that's borne out in his statistics, and in his W's. Could his public image be better outside of NE, and even in Boston? Sure. But I'm one fan who couldn't care less, so long as he delivers the goods on game day. He and Belichick taught me that.
The money that came in for the Pats definitely moved the line.
I hear it's up to three points now in the Pats' favor. I still am churning through the data, trying to arrive at a prediction for the game. I just don't have a good feel for that Rams team. When they lost to NO earlier in the season (bby 10 pts) I then thought that they still were up-and-comers and still had not truly arrived yet, but they proved me wrong in both their game against Dallas and this past weekend's game against NO in NO. That takes spunk, which I didn't see in them before. When they eked out that win against KC during the regular season, that didn't tell me as much about them as it seemed to have influenced others, because I thought that their defense must have some weaknesses, but now having watched KC in their two playoff games, and how truly explosive that offense was ... well that's why I'm still searching for something more before I put together an estimate for this SB.
