Super Bowl Thread

[MacReady]

Unless Malcolm Butler murdered someone, beat Tom Brady senseless or did something that would get him shanked in prison, I would never bench my second favorite corner in the Super Bowl. 

[packfanfb]

Just now, HorizontoZenith said:

Unless Malcolm Butler murdered someone, beat Tom Brady senseless or did something that would get him shanked in prison, I would never bench my second favorite corner in the Super Bowl. 

You'd think especially given BB and his reputation that he'll do anything to win. Alas, NE also sat Alan Branch the entire playoffs who is twice the player RJF is. Branch and Butler play, NE probably wins. 

[MacReady]

Just now, packfanfb said:

You'd think especially given BB and his reputation that he'll do anything to win. Alas, NE also sat Alan Branch the entire playoffs who is twice the player RJF is. Branch and Butler play, NE probably wins. 

Whoa!  PatsFanTB has something critical to say about BB. 

[packfanfb]

1 minute ago, HorizontoZenith said:

Whoa!  PatsFanTB has something critical to say about BB. 

Happiest moment for me last night was knowing that Patricia is coaching the Lions next year. 

[CWood21]

20 minutes ago, packfanfb said:

I'd argue Philly's model has been just as successful as ours...1 SB win in the last 7 years. Difference....they've played 6 of those 7 years without a decent QB while we've had Aaron Rodgers. We need to get past this complacent attitude. The way we've been doing business the last 7 years is not working. We need to get more aggressive in talent acquisition and focus on winning now (next 2-3 years) versus what our salary cap is going to look like in 2035. 

And that's your usual glass half full logic.  If the Eagles didn't win the Super Bowl, you wouldn't make that argument.

[CWood21]

33 minutes ago, packfanfb said:

Who cares about a single 4th round pick? We need to get over this TT-esque malarkey that draft picks are worth their weight in gold. Getting Ajayi, a need to fill a hole, for a 4th round pick for a team with SB aspirations was an easy call. 

I'm not arguing that the Ajayi trade was a bad one.  I'd make the argument that those kind of players rarely become available, and for a "meager" price.

[packfanfb]

1 minute ago, CWood21 said:

And that's your usual glass half full logic.  If the Eagles didn't win the Super Bowl, you wouldn't make that argument.

But they did. It's a results-driven business. Have to take chances. Philly never makes it to the SB if they don't make those moves. Guys like Jeffrey, Blount, Darby, Bradham, Long and Ajayi changed that team. The only one that cost them anything was Jeffrey and he was cheap all things considered (about $10mil I believe). He played like a top 5 WR last night. 

[CWood21]

Just now, packfanfb said:

But they did. It's a results-driven business. Have to take chances. Philly never makes it to the SB if they don't make those moves. Guys like Jeffrey, Blount, Darby, Bradham, Long and Ajayi changed that team. The only one that cost them anything was Jeffrey and he was cheap all things considered (about $10mil I believe). He played like a top 5 WR last night. 

No.  You wouldn't be saying that at all if they hadn't won a Super Bowl.  By your same logic, a team could go 0-whatever over the same time period but they had that one Super Bowl win, they're just as successful as the Packers.  It's awful logic no matter which way you want to slice it.

[HokieHigh]

like chris collinsworth, idk what a catch is.

[strat1080]

5 hours ago, CWood21 said:

No.  You wouldn't be saying that at all if they hadn't won a Super Bowl.  By your same logic, a team could go 0-whatever over the same time period but they had that one Super Bowl win, they're just as successful as the Packers.  It's awful logic no matter which way you want to slice it.

Well I think it proves how good of a team built. They won the Super Bowl with their backup QB. They had a heck of a roster and a pretty complete team. Ted Thompson went into every season knowing that there's holes on the roster and didn't really care very much about filing them. When you have a chance to go to the Super Bowl every year with a once in a generation talent at QB it's pretty despicable to have a model of "I know our ILBs suck, but hey let's try this 6th rounder, or how about this UFA". "Hey, I know our secondary is unproven, let's try these young kids". You can tell that Aaron Rodgers is extremely frustrated with this organization. He's getting blasted for having only won or played in one Super Bowl when guys like Brady and P Manning played in multiple. Those guys have had pieces around them.

There's the classic argument of Peyton Manning being a one man team but those Indy teams for most of his career were pretty good. Bill Polian consistently drafted great offensive talent for Peyton Manning and with all that investment on offense the Colts delivered Peyton Manning five Top 10 scoring defenses. On the other hand, the Packers have kept investing early draft resources for defense and the defense sucks year after year and we've never drafted an offensive skills position player in the 1st round. We've had two Top 10 scoring defenses in 10 years with Rodgers as a starter with all those draft resources heavily weighted towards the defense. It's a myth that Peyton Manning didn't win more Super Bowls with Indy because he didn't have good teams around him. The guy just consistently choked in the playoffs. There was a clear and significant regression in his play.

It's pretty sad. In 16 playoff starts, Aaron Rodgers has 36 TDs, 10 INTs, 4400+ yards, and a 99 passer rating yet is 9-7 in the playoffs and in those 7 losses the defense has given up 36 PPG. Aaron Rodgers is not a playoff choker yet he has that reputation around the league because this organization has consistently fallen short in putting together a complete team and innovative systems that exploit other teams tendencies and weaknesses. Rookie QBs torch our defense and elite defenses smother our offense because McCarthy and his pathetic offensive staff think we have Randy Moss and Jerry Rice at WR and that we can just flat out get separation against secondary in the NFL.

I was watching those two teams play last night and I'm frankly not sure that our offense at any given time over the last 3 years or so could turn in a performance like either of those teams did. Our offensive schemes and philosophies have just been bland and predictable. This besides the fact that our defense would have been destroyed by either of those offenses last night. I know that Philly ended up giving up a ton of yards but they did make some stops and force NE to kick a few FGs and they really stepped up on that last drive to win the game. Our defense under Capers for the last 6 years literally gives up a drive every single time the game is on the line. I think some of the failures fall on TT but I think it's more on the coaching staff and Mike, justifiably cleaned house. I'm not really sure that our defense is really lacking talent. I see a lot of former Packers defensive players starting on some good teams. I'm frankly shocked that Mike has stuck with Capers so long and Edgar Bennett had no business being an offensive coordinator. I like the guy but he was in over his head.

[Pugger]

7 hours ago, Packerraymond said:

2017 was the first year we took that approach and other than Bennett it worked nice. House was way better than Goodson, Hawkins or Pipkins who would've been the fill in guys of future teams, Evans was a really nice fit and Brooks was mediocre but still better than Biegel and Fackrell. We need to continue on this path.

I really wonder if Brooks could have had a bigger impact if he wasn't injured/hurt a lot this past season.

[Pugger]

7 hours ago, Phire said:

Not sure how I ended up here but that's a pretty good discussion above. Offensively speaking, yeah, the Packers might be more talented at a lot of positions. But I think the strength of the Eagles wasn't necessarily the top end talent. I mean Torrey Smith is starting for us.

If the Eagles are a "model" of anything, it's depth. Depth depth depth. People talk about Corey Clement but he would be our 4th RB if Darren Sproles got hurt. And Corey Clement can ball. It's not that Ajayi, Blount, or Clement are supremely talented individually. But you give Ajayi 9 carries in the Super Bowl and he's operating at 100% stamina on pretty much all of them. A lot of teams are top heavy. Their starters are amazing but the guys behind them are useless.

The Eagles had a TON of terrible injuries that really tested the depth. Jason Peters, Darren Sproles, Jordan Hicks, Carson Wentz... a team that loses so many good players should skip a beat. The Eagles didn't.

But really the debate is inherently flawed because I don't think it's the pieces or how the roster is built that put the Eagles on the path to the Super Bowl. It was all the intangible stuff. Amazing coaches that players in a position to succeed every week. Developing the depth so they were ready to perform when called upon.

Nick Foles looked horrible at the end of the regular season. Doug Pederson went back and looked at all of his film to see what made him successful in the past. He adjusted and Nick Foles looked like a god. That's coaching. That's not a measure of how good Nick Foles is. It's simply doing your homework and putting him in a position to succeed. Nick Foles didn't change. The plays did. This is an incredibly strong locker room and that can take you places too.

Back in 2010 when we won it all we had a boat load of injuries but we had enough depth to compensate for that like you guys did this year.

[Chinaski_86]

5 hours ago, strat1080 said:

I was watching those two teams play last night and I'm frankly not sure that our offense at any given time over the last 3 years or so could turn in a performance like either of those teams did. Our offensive schemes and philosophies have just been bland and predictable. This besides the fact that our defense would have been destroyed by either of those offenses last night. I know that Philly ended up giving up a ton of yards but they did make some stops and force NE to kick a few FGs and they really stepped up on that last drive to win the game. Our defense under Capers for the last 6 years literally gives up a drive every single time the game is on the line. I think some of the failures fall on TT but I think it's more on the coaching staff and Mike, justifiably cleaned house. I'm not really sure that our defense is really lacking talent. I see a lot of former Packers defensive players starting on some good teams. I'm frankly shocked that Mike has stuck with Capers so long and Edgar Bennett had no business being an offensive coordinator. I like the guy but he was in over his head.

Yet the Packers have scored 38, 34 and 35 points in three of their last four playoff games. 

You want to give the Eagles D credit for forcing a couple of FGs? They didn't force one single punt. Not one. They made one good play all game long which was the strip sack. Their only sack of the game which is still bad for such a great DL. The Eagles played a horrible game on defense. They had nothing to do with the Patriots missing a PAT and a chip shot FG. They had nothing to do with Brady dropping an easy catch. They had nothing to do with BB deciding to go for it on 4th and 5 but not going for it on 4th and 1. The Pats failed to score even more points because of their own mistakes, not great defensive plays by the Eagles. 

Brady threw for 505 yards with Amendola and Hogan as his top two WRs for 3(!) quarters of the game. The RBs only caught 3 balls so they weren't dinking and dunking their way into Eagles territory. The Eagles secondary got absolutely abused by Amendola/Hogan/Gronk. You score 41 points and still need to sweat it out to win the game? Come on.

Both defenses were playing like Dom Capers was the DC.

[Shanedorf]

Cool article on how Pederson used BB's strength ( preparation) against him

https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/02/06/doug-pederson-coach-year-super-bowl-52-bill-belichick?utm_campaign=sinow&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&xid=socialflow_twitter_si

"So the fourth-and-1 conversion on the drive that gave Philadelphia its final lead was a tendency breaker two times over, with Pederson and Foles running counter to New England’s scouting on two occasions to make it happen.

“I think we’ve run that play with that personnel five times this year and every time it went to Trey,” Ertz says. “It's a great call against man coverage and that’s what the Patriots do on third and fourth down, and against that coverage, I’m ‘High Alert.’ Great Call by Doug in that situation to go for it and trusting us to get it done.”

 

[KFP7]

23 hours ago, CWood21 said:

No.  You wouldn't be saying that at all if they hadn't won a Super Bowl.  By your same logic, a team could go 0-whatever over the same time period but they had that one Super Bowl win, they're just as successful as the Packers.  It's awful logic no matter which way you want to slice it.

It seems playoff appearances don't matter at all sometimes.  The Eagles the last 7 years have 1 super bowl, and 2 other playoff appearances where they lost the wild card matchup.  That's not nearly as successful as the Packers have been.