Super Bowl LIII: New England Patriots vs. Los Angeles Rams

8 fistfights
3 misdemeanor arrests
1 kid, 1 pregnant girlfriend
4 "uncles" that mom calls "daddy"
2 homedrawn tattoos branded on by Tommie from down the block
780 SAT
0 Class

Massachusetts: the Cradle of Liberty, but only by the sword

 

Rams 2-0
Panthers 1-0
Seahawks 1-0
Falcons 1-0
Eagles 1-1
Giants 0-2

 

The situation is where the calls almost always go your way and even moreso when the game's on the line. A perfect world would not yield such results, but this world isn't perfect and the NFL is an obvious example of that.

 

Congrats, NFL, you fixed the game to have the most boring Super Bowl in history.

Saints would have been a shootout.

 

It was almost as if Bill O'Brien took over as all-time OC for both teams. I've never seen both teams playing not to lose in the Super Bowl like that before.

 

If you didn't say "Tommie" in your head like you were in the movie "The Town", you're doing it wrong.

 

Talk about a wet fart to end a football season.

 

They also have 12 picks in this up coming draft, 6 or 7 of them in the first 3 rounds.
They will reload with young talent and with talks and rumors of Antonio Brown possibly going to NE (wants to play for a winner)...

wow...

 

Exactly. I know BB and Brady are old, but the talent around that team is good and just going to get better over the next season or two. Couple that with parity in the NFL and the fact that the Chiefs have some cap issues and defensive issues; it is possible that the Pats have another Super Bowl title or two in them.

 

Yup.
Barring any catastrophic injury, they will be right atop the AFC East again. The Bills, Fins and Jets are a nobody in that division, giving them a bye in the playoffs then a home playoff game in Foxburogh where they're damn near undefeated. That alone guarantees them a visit to be in the AFC Championship again next year.

Its insane what we are whitnessing. We will never see this again in the NFL

AFC Teams Has Left The Chat

 

I said it earlier.... the “smartest” thing McVay could have done would be to completely throw out his old playbook and design something new for this game.

Belichick has more than enough knowledge to shut down “any” offense. He’s already shut down some of the greatest of all time QB’s (Montana, Kelly, Warner)... ironically, its mediocre guys like Nick Foles, Jake Dellhome, and Eli (to some extent) that end up “surprising” him and having success.

The game plan the Rams trotted out was EXACTLY what the Patriots expected them to do. Pass on first down. Run unsusscessfully on 2nd down. Bring pressure on 3rd and long.... rinse/repeat. Send LB help to cover WR’s.... raise hell up front and counter the eventual protection adjustments with well designed blitzes.

I was actually more impressed that Wade’s defense shut down Brady as long as he did... his defenses almost never seem to fair well when a team actually prepares for it, or as the season goes on.

 

The low rating might have something to do with how the conference title games ended. People felt that this SB wasn't really legit.

I love how the pre-game interview of the ref (what's his name) asked what could have done about the blown call, and he just brushed it off with a 5-second assertion that it's a judgment call and shouldn't be reviewable BS.

 

I’d take the “low” in low ratings with a little bit of salt.

It will still end up as the most watched television program all year. Ratings are down for all things television (sports, dramas, sitcoms, award shows). Likewise, the ratings system is still severly outdated and I’d be utterly shocked if advertisers still solely use those numbers when making decisions.

As far as the pre-game interview goes, no ref is going to speak out against their own... and yes, the judgement call excuse needs to be less relied upon in this day/age where you can see every single replay with multiple angles in ultra crisp HD and slow it down to a fraction of a second.

My biggest concern with replay going forward is that the games are truly long enough all ready. If they’re going to expand its usage, they also need to streamline the application (let somebody in an office, watching the game free of elements and home crowd bias, make the call vs. having the ref go under the hood to do it).

 

No need to lengthen the game. The whole challenging mechanism can still work. You just expand the reviewable calls. IMO, calls like PI are too important to be missed and too easily discernible with today's HD videos to be put into "judgment call" categories. How is it more "judgment" than plays like out of bound and fumbles etc.? Seems arbitrary to me.

And while I understand that no ref is going to say anything against their own kind, this particular call has been shown a billion times and every sane person knows that it was blown. There is no need to cover it up or brush it aside. IMO, it would have made the league look better if they just came out and say that it was an honest mistake and they needed to change something to prevent this kind of big-impact mistakes to happen again.

 

You do understand that by increasing the number of reviewable calls, with the current format, there will be more actual reviews... and the games will be longer. Calls within 2 minutes have nothing to do with challenges. Teams are also awarded additional challenges for getting successful ones done earlier.

The league head of officiating already admitted they blew the call. It doesn’t mean any current ref, or ex-ref, is going to come on national TV and re-iterate that their colleague screwed up royally. They don’t want the attention to be on blown calls... they want to let it be known that they have a very hard job, making snap second calls in real time, usually after having to run a significant distance to be in position to see it.

 

He couldn't stop the eagles or the Falcons. At the end of the day its about players making plays. You know the Brady is going to Edelman or Gronk, but the Rams couldn't stop them from doing that.

 

Idc as much about missed calls, even when they go against my interests,as much as I care about a smooth viewing experience. I hate penalty stops, forget about how long it takes them to conduct reviews. I don't have a problem with sacrificing some bad calls overall, seems like a tragedy in the moment, but eventually over time they're going to average out +/-. So I'd even go so far as to go BACKWARDs, no reviews at all!

 

College games are way longer and people still watch. If you like football then you will watch the game.