Second Half GIFvalanche: So That Happened
I honestly don’t remember much of the halftime show. I think that’s when I got up to go to the bathroom, refill my water, and pace nervously, awaiting my fate. I know Justin Timberlake played, and there was a Prince element involved as a nod to Minneapolis. If only the Vikings would have been in the game, I’m sure this would have been the Culmination of Being for many of their fans. Sorry, Minneapolis, I had no time for your (our) cultural moment in the national spotlight that night.
The Patriots started the following drive and it sure looked like during halftime they clicked everything into place and solved the Eagles’ defense. And the solution was to Gronk them to death. Hell, the first attempt was a rare miss on a pop route but it was horrifyingly open.
No matter, the next one was a leisurely 15 yard out to him in a very comfortable hole in the Eagles’ zones.
Then another pop for 20 yards, same route as the one they’d missed two plays ago, except the defender was in much better position - but fell over. Then another portent - Brady gets pretty decent protection, but with no one open quickly, he wisely chucks it out of bounds, making all the Eagles fans wish he’d hung onto for literally a quarter-second longer.
Just for funsies, the Patriots then sent Gronkowski wide left from where he easily, almost casually pick up the 3rd and 6, and a couple plays later had him basically box out Ronald Darby (who slipped) for a 5 yard TD.
Slipping and losing your footing is a tough break, so I’m not gonna yell at him. But Jesus H. Christ. But most of the drive just looked so, so easy, like why hadn’t they just been forcing it at Gronk the whole time? Looking at the scoreboard now, all the Eagles’ unlikely heroics in the first half and they were still only up three. My sphincter clenched.
The next sequence is emblematic of Nelson Agholor’s career. I always defend receivers against the slings and arrows of fans who spit angrily at drops, because man...this shit is just way harder than it looks. But he’s still gotta make this catch. And so Agholor, much maligned as a bust last year…
...manages one of the greatest career turnarounds I’ve ever seen a skill position player make, improving his catching ability, but as an added bonus and unexpected twist, he somehow also turned into an outstanding yards-after-catch threat.
It’s easy, particularly in football, to get nauseating with fawning cliches about how much of a team game it is, and how credit is due everywhere, but every position group really did have their moment here. The Eagles kept their drive going with blocking that was merely serviceable, but just outstanding rush talent from Blount…
Then I gotta highlight great TE action, because this is a textbook block-to-pop by Ertz, starting from the right wing.
Having expected the Eagles to deflate and lay down softly as soon as the Patriots reasserted themselves in the game, this drive was blowing my mind in all the best ways.
Now I want to contrast a couple plays’ worth of QB action. This first one shows Foles doing something that has always made me squirm and scream in my brain. He’ll look super indecisive with where he wants to go and double clutch on throws. Football is so fast, that if you double clutch even for a half second, your window is probably shut. He hadn’t done this all game and it’s not a good look here…
...although good on him for just chucking it away. Now look at this one, where he’s back to Nick Foles: Unstoppable Football Howitzer.
This wound up being the first of two reviews that made me want to snap my own neck. Much has been made about the review system in sports - particularly football - with many calling for it to be abolished for how it kills the action, and sends everyone down a labyrinth of byzantine rule-parsing. I say technology has made it impossible for sports viewers to tolerate human error that goes against their interests. In earlier days of sports on TV, there weren’t a bajillion camera angles with high-def picture in ultra slow motion that could instantly analyze the action. That genie is out of the bottle now - you think anyone would just let it go when an obviously blown call, revealed by the most advanced video technology in the world, goes against them? Sports would devolve into nothing but judgement about officials’ human imperfections and conspiracy theories, even moreso than it is now.
Still, the emotional limbo that a video review puts you in is excruciating. Do I lose my shit?! Do I lose my shit in a bad way?! Is third RB Corey Clement a god damn hero? Is he an unforgivable putz/traitor?!?!
It was a hell of a run, throw, and catch, another case of the entire roster showing up for their moment. And I was surprised they let it stand. I don’t know that I have ever heard the argument that a ball carrier can be considered to have “control” of the ball if it’s moving around in his grasp, even though it makes intuitive sense. Ball movement is just the visual fulcrum point on which judgement of control sits, for lack of a better one. But the refs, in a rare instance of this, went with the intuitive judgement rather than the driest rule interpretation. And if this had been the Patriots scoring a TD like this, I’m sure I would still be hulked out, speaking in tongues of rage, and fighting gladiator matches on planet Sakaar.
Eagles fans immediately burned effigies of Chris Collinsworth and Al Michaels for being so confident this play would be overturned - I’m a little more forgiving. I would later read about their awful PRO-PATRIOTS BIAS as they continued to harp on how it was called...I was too stressed out to notice much of what they were saying at the time, but I suppose it was a little more airtime than commentators usually give to matters of dubious officiating.
The Eagles defense now had a 10 point lead to protect again, and while their D line depth seemed to be paying dividends by limiting the Patriots to short runs, their pass defense once again struggled. A defensive holding call coughed up a first down (it looked like it was reeeeeaaaaaaally upsold by Gronkowski), and then Brady again just barely beats the rush to get it to Hogan, working against pillow soft coverage once again. You could make a plush bathrobe out of this coverage.
Hogan might have pushed off, at least Darby thinks so. But he might not have even needed to.
Check out this tackle by Malcolm Jenkins, it’s hard to see where the hell he even comes from here. Somewhere, Brian Dawkins sheds a proud tear.
I dunno, I probably shouldn’t be getting super pissed about the soft coverage, because even when they press it, it’s burned.
Tom Brady has a very comfortable pocket there. That one is on the rush as much as the secondary. Jesus, what a collapse of one of the strengths of the team, but you also have to tip your hat to the Patriots O-line, they were a wall.
It would have been nice if the Eagles Defense didn’t just lay down softly in this game, you know? But here’s where I was hating myself for ever thinking that maybe the Eagles could pull this shit off. I should be more detachedly cynical than that by now. For all the eye-popping limit-breaks that the offense had made happen, there the Patriots were, and their highlights just looked easier.
There was no telling when the universe would catch wise to Nick Foles and the Eagles offense’s historic success and move to correct the error, but those guys looked like they gave zero fucks:
Then it was the fourth quarter, where hopes go to get snuffed out.
The drive would ultimately stall in the red zone thanks to a nice open field play made by the Patriots’ defense, but I wanted to call attention to the play design here. The Eagles had already hit on an Agholor end-around, and they used that motion again…
...but had him stop and go back the other way. It’s interesting, but I would have preferred if they were going to use the end-around as a decoy to decoy all the way - fake to Agholor and have the RB pop out to Foles’s right. As it happened, the Patriots’ OLB didn’t even rush the pass, and Lane Johnson didn’t have anyone to block. His defender just went with Agholor and was on him right away.
Nice job by Jake Elliott to boot the FG through, but I couldn’t help but notice in a game wherein a touchdown almost always gets 7 points, the Eagles were now only up 6.
And the defense wasn’t inspiring much confidence.
I mean, that’s right into the teeth of what the Eagles defense is supposed to be great at. Mighty Fletcher Cox gets into the backfield, but on the wrong side of the play. Vinny Curry might have been doing a stunt here, but he gets turned aside, and then the Patriots’ O-line does a good job of getting second level.
I actually didn’t mind the blitz here. Usually blitzing against Tom Brady is suicide, but it’s not like anything else was working, and the D-line just wasn’t getting it done. The results were pretty predictable, but Defensive Coordinator Jim Schwartz had to have been tearing his hair out like “FUCK IT! SEND ‘EM ALL!”
When two guys in pass coverage end up in the same space, someone has screwed the pooch. I mean, this looks just beautifully textbook, like it’s during practice for the Patriots. I know exactly how this game ends, and this drive still fills me with dread.
I can’t actually blame the defense too much on that play. Darby’s position wasn’t bad, it was just a difficult throw and a very difficult catch in a perfect spot. But everything leading up to that play made me regret the part of my brain that allowed me to believe the Eagles could win the Super Bowl. I felt so stupid to having opened that emotional door. Grass grows, birds fly, sun shines, the Scout hurts people, and brother, the Eagles lose in the postseason. Like a force of nature. Of course the Eagles defense would shit the bed this game. It was so obvious. Of course the offense would spend all game lighting it up, and would now come crashing back down to earthbound reality. Of course this would be a record setting game in NFL history for total yards of offense that the Eagles would lose in the 4th quarter.
I flashed forward to the L I’d be chewing on for the rest of my life over this. The immediate sympathy from some friends and coworkers over how close the Eagles were, and the schadenfreude from others. How it would sting when I had to next see people. How years down the line, the pain would be reduced down to a duller ache as I recalled the time the Eagles almost...almost...
It would be internalized and just part of my existence. I would wonder at times what ripple effects it ultimately had on my psyche.
Tom Brady makes fourth quarter comebacks in the Super Bowl like people make eggs for breakfast. The Eagles don’t. Haves and have nots, a tale as old as life.
Ah, yes. This was what I expected. Foles and the offense had been on fire, and now it would cost them as they tried to force increasingly ludicrous miracles.
Hm, a 3rd and 6 converted, down 1 with under 9 minutes to go in the Super Bowl. That’s actually...pretty...clutch?
...and that is a great job on defense. It was actually a pretty good play call, the Patriots blitzed the middle and Foles barely gets it away to the outside. The Patriots blitzed right into a screen, which often burn blitzes, but S Devin McCourty gets around Vaitai, who was after him, and flows out to chase down the play.
It would make for a better story if I said I was surprised they didn’t punt here. But I’d watched the Eagles all season, and going for it on 4th and 1 from their own 45, down 1 with 5:45 left fit their personality. It just seemed like everything was setting up for them to fall on their faces and the Patriots to get the ball back, and burn a few minutes of the clock on their way to another game-sealing “Tom Terrific” touchdown.
The fact that they clutched it out, in the biggest moment of the franchise’s history, demonstrated there was something different going on here. I was in uncharted waters. Looking at that play, it’s a pretty classic pick (a quasi-legal technique executed to perfection by Celek) that is overlooked only because it’s so close to the line of scrimmage. Hell of a backfield dodge under pressure by Foles and a great throw made off his back foot - a posture he has long taken heat for throwing out of too much.
What is this?! What is going on here?! You got Foles making Aaron Rodgers throws out here, and Eagles receivers catching them. For all the marbles. EVERY MARBLE. The Eagles do not rise to the occasion! THE EAGLES SHIT THEIR BEDS.
You can argue this was the play of the game, because it got them into reasonable FG range. Vaitai gets beat, but pushes the edge rusher just enough to give Foles the time to get it away. And Foles isn’t taking Ertz in the flat, who is wide open. No, Nick Foles is now Big Dick Nick: Gunslinger and he fires it in a tight window to the slant.
Foles and Agholor have the hot read going on the corner blitz. This is probably just a bad idea by Patriots’ D-coordinator, Matt Patricia. Agholor, a first round pick in 2015, had, after two underwhelming seasons marred by drops, a breakout season and had shown himself to be excellent running with the ball. You don’t want to be putting him in a situation to get the ball quickly with lots of space by drawing away his defender. But maybe the Patriots felt like they had to get weird.
They did a trap block with the LT Vaitai here, and it’s nice to see that in this game, given the context, and despite his previous struggles, they weren’t treating him like a liability with the playcalling. They were featuring him with this call. It’s also very nice to get able to get a few yards and the cloud of dust.
First of all, I want to snark at McCourty, the S who’s on Ertz 1-on-1 at the top of the screen, but I can’t. It’s a very tough spot he’s put in. This is TE territory, and TEs very much like getting matched up against smaller DBs in tight quarters. McCourty then slips on the break just like Darby had, which made the throw and catch pretty easy.
Then in the biggest moment for this team, which has been around since dirt, from a city that breathes football and in which it has been played since it was a thing, that hadn’t ever won the primary professional football association’s championship - on this play where they take the lead, Al Michaels, of “do you believe in miracles?” fame, says “Zach Ertz for the touchdown! And again, all you can think back to now is the Jesse James play with Pittsburgh. Does he complete the process?”
I’d like to think he’d want to take a mulligan on that one, given the context for Eagles fans. We know the review is coming, god damnit. Just let us have this moment, give us a memory, Michaels. But no.
I don’t know how long the review took, so I’m going to conservatively guess it was 8 months.
This was truly awful, and I get the “down with replay!” crowd here. You lose your shit in those few moments of sports fan glee, before the blood drains from your face because the thing you just saw happen might not have happened. They launch a forensic investigation over whether a knee brushed a blade of grass. Then you wait in trepidation, and if it goes your way, you feel awash in relief more than you feel the ragejoy you were just robbed of. If it doesn’t go your way, you want to crawl under your couch. All if this amplified 10,000x by the Super Bowl.
The fact that this is the first place Michaels goes is, I suppose, not really his fault and mostly just an example of where we’re at with football now. Everyone has to suspend their emotional reaction for however long it takes to reach a conclusion, and when that conclusion is reached, the losers feel shittier and the winners feel about 25% less ecstatic with the loss of immediacy.
Lots of Eagles fans and people rooting against the Patriots had out their torches and pitchforks for what they perceived as favoritism by Michaels and Collinsworth toward the reigning champs that had been going on all night. I didn’t really see what the complaints were about, but I was baffled that these two found this TD controversial. Michaels hit on it right away, the crux of the matter was whether Ertz was ruled a runner with possession of the ball before he broke the plane with it. And look at it. Yeah, he was a runner. He literally runs with possession of the ball. How much is he possessing the ball? Enough to shove it out over the goal line as he makes a desperate dive. The Clement TD was more up in the air than this one, by far.
When the refs finally confirmed the TD after their forensic analysis, this should have been the biggest moment of my sports fan life, but instead...nah. It was more exhaling and unclenching my butt for the first time in 5 minutes than it was “FUCK YEAAAAAAHHHH.” Suggesting we put scrap video review is stupid, but I understand I was emotionally robbed by it.
Going back to that clip for a moment, my favorite reaction is Jeffrey’s (#17). He looks like he wants to jump on Ertz but then doesn’t and instead does this kind of childlike hop with his arms up. It’s a heartwarming moment of pure human joy.
Anyway, if you’re up 5, there’s little reason not to go for 2, but of course it didn’t work out. Good defense.
Now here’s Tom Brady with the ball, a timeout, and 2:21 remaining. Like, it’s supposed to be unlikely they score, right? That’s what makes the legends for those who pull it off. Here was THE BIGGEST LEGEND in the history of the sport. The Eagles Defense was hot garbage that night. “2:21, the two-minute warning, and a time out, he’s got all day,” Michaels remarked with confidence. It just felt so inevitable.
Yes, here was the beginning of the end for all of us Eagles fans. Soft coverage, a quick out to Gronkowski for 7 yards. Soft coverage isn’t actually a bad idea here, but still, if it means you’re going to give up at least 7 yards each play, then the Patriots have plenty of time. The pass rush is actually getting into the backfield alright here, but Brady is able to make the decision quickly to a wide open receiver, so they’re not super close to him.
Again, I wish I had a better story of my reaction to this play, but I was as frozen as I would have been if something horrible had happened, if the Eagles defense had all just fallen over and allowed Brady himself to slow-jog the 70 yards for the TD. But truth is stranger than fiction, and the Eagles pass rush had finally - FINALLY, after a game of being at best a step too slow as everyone danced to Brady’s tune - got to the target.
Although they had plenty of time, the Patriots still had to move the ball, and probably felt they had to crisscross the entire field with route patterns, and so couldn’t afford to trade receivers for extra blockers. Once again, the Eagles coverage is soft, they’re sinking back into zones starting at 10 yards. However, the soft coverage came through here - Brady is looking for a deeper throw and climbs the pocket, burning time not finding any targets. He goes to checkdown, but as he turns to dump it, Brandon Graham is in his face, hacking at his throwing arm. The D-line, the rock of this team, which had spent the game unexpectedly and embarrassingly vanishing, had burst back into the story.
Tom Brady doesn’t get strip sacked and force fed a fat L, like a lowly Brandon Weedon or Trevor Semian. Brady dishes out the Ls to other hapless chumps. But there he was, ass on grass. As an Australian football radio guy would shoutcast, “Tom Brady...bereft on the turf!”
By the way, Michaels goes “Derek Barnett comes away with it! Brandon Graham was one of the guys who got in there!”
I mean...holy shit, Michaels. That’s some real godawful play by play there. Boom goes the dynamite.
I suppose I should have been leaping for joy, but with the Eagles in the driver’s seat and 2:09 remaining, I was silent, “leaned-in” as though my focus on the ensuing events would ward off the many ways the Eagles could still manage to find to fuck it all up. First sack of the game, for the Patriots’ only turnover, and it bounced straight to Barnett. That was catching a break.
My friends, if you believe in the healing, soul-nourishing power of schadenfreude, please feast your eyes.
Even Big Balls Doug wasn’t about to go styling in this situation. The Eagles came out and went with the prescribed heavy package runs, bringing on Seumalo and 2 TEs to try to zone block through all the guys the Patriots would certainly be crowding the line of scrimmage with. Kelce gets blown the hell up here but scrambles and sticks with it. Blount does a nice job extending the play for as long as he could.
The exact same playcall next play was Pederson showing confidence in his kicker for what would be - and I know I’ve beaten this phrase to death - the biggest kick of his life. Jake Elliott, the rookie replacement after starter Caleb Sturgis was injured. Elliott, who got signed off the Bengals practice squad, who had an alarmingly high miss rate for close range kicks, but was somehow money from deep, who had a record-setting walk off 61-yard FG for a win against the Giants at the Linc...go win the game, kid.
Kickers are strange animals. They spend most of their time at practice and during games off to the side, just repeating their one craft over and over again. They get together with teammates to practice special teams execution and how to deal with given scenarios, maybe some trick plays. But by the nature of their job, they don’t get to be all that social with their teammates very much. Then they come in the moments that everyone remembers, sometimes to perform the game winning act after their team has spent the last several hours scrambling with sprained joints and peeing blood to set that kicker up for his shot. All the superstar QBs, WRs, LBs take a backseat, hold their breath, and stand to the side watching the skinniest guy on the team do his thing. Nothing else matters in that moment - not the touchdowns, sacks, clock management. All the egos fade away. Everyone has invested 100% of their emotional selves into this one dude.
If he comes through, he’s the hero. Multimillion dollar superstars storm the field with big goofy, unselfconscious smiles to dogpile him…
...and carry him into legend on their shoulders.
I’m always touched by this scene. Sports does this in a way we don’t get to see much in other walks of life. Everyone loses their god damn minds in hilarious joy and swarms this guy, and each other. It’s a human moment. All the other shitty contexts in life, all the conflict and racism and Steve Bannons vanish because it’s time to scream bliss gibberish at the kicker as they jump on his shoulderpads, for he is their guy.
And if he blows it, you have the Minnesota Vikings.
It’s an exercise in clutch. So on comes Elliott for a midrange FG to put the Eagles up 8 with just over a minute to go in the Super Bowl. No big deal.
It should be noted that rather than the ecstasy of a walk-off W here, Elliott’s teammates give him the usual workmanlike acknowledgements. It was still a one score game.
Failed trick plays always make the attempting team look like goober losers, but I don’t blame the Patriots for getting weird here. They sacrifice the maybe 10 - 15 yards that they’d have likely gotten with a standard return to shoot for the moon with this thing. It went nowhere, mercifully, but it was a solid idea. “That is a really interesting call,” observes Collinsworth. Was it? Seems pretty reasonable and justifiable.
Yesss, yesss, this is where the soft coverage becomes a smothering pillow. At least it should. That is a very tough throw and catch they attempt, but it was possible, god damnit. The zones were swiss cheese.
The pass rush was making its presence known. They were starting to give Brady tickles, which was a better late than never sort of thing. In fact, it was a “if you’re going to do it at all, late is the time to do it” sort of thing.
I mean...come the fuck on. The pass rush certainly was breathing down Brady’s neck here, and I get the secondary is playing waaaaayyy deep, but it’s 4th and 10. Still better safe than sorry by LB Nigel Bradham there, who was in the middle on those sink zones. He just wanted to make sure he was well behind Amendola.
Now let’s take a moment here for football probabilities. In all likelihood, I should have been already celebrating, right? Like there’s no way, right? The Patriots had 26 seconds to get another 78 yards plus a 2 point conversion just to tie it. Even for Tom Brady that’s a steep ask, right? Right?
No, it wasn’t. No, it fucking wasn’t. There was zero chance I was going to cease sweating and unclench my sphincter for even a nanosecond.
See? SEE?! The Eagles were giving the Patriots this kind of quick out for 10 yards, but the Patriots were happy to take it. They hit one of those every 6 - 7 seconds of gameclock, then they only need one (one!) bomb miracle and the Eagles will have LOST, THE SKY WILL OPEN, THE SEVEN TRUMPETS WILL SOUND, AND A MOUNTAIN OF FIRE WILL FALL, AND LAND IN THE OCEAN. THE ANIMALS WILL CRY AND FLEE, AND THERE WILL BE MUCH WAILING AND GNASHING OF TEETH AMONGST HUMANKIND. GREAT C’THULU WILL ADJOIN WITH BEELZEBUB, THEY WILL OPEN ONE OF THEIR 17 SCREECHING MAWS AND SING THE SONG THAT ENDS THIS EARTH.
I’m glad no one was around to make even a single god damn sound as I was watching this. If anyone were to have piped up with “Man, this is getting surprisingly suspenseful, given how 2 minutes ago it looked as if the Eagles were clearly going to win,” I’d have uppercut them to the sun.
Darby makes the right move hugging the sideline after Gronkowski makes the catch, trying to tangle him up inbounds, but the Patriots look like they’ve set up sort of a pick play just for the this purpose. Listen to Collinsworth rooting so hard for Gronkowski to get out of bounds. “There he is!” he exhales in relief as the real life centaur stumbles across the line. OH, THERE HE IS, COLLINSWORTH? THAT SURE IS A LOAD OFF, RIGHT?! HEAVEN FORFEND HE GETS TACKLED IN BOUNDS AND SOMEONE OTHER THAN TAWM FACKIN’ BRADY WINS THE SUPER BOWL.
Good defensive positioning here, but why couldn’t he just reel it in? Can’t we please have an anticlimactic crunch-time INT to put the game away, followed by what would be my favorite victory formation? I love victory formation, partially because I had very few opportunities to run it. All the routine trappings of football execution that you’re having to perform - huddle, line up, get your alignments right, listen for snap count, execute your prescribed action - are 1000% more fun in victory formation because 1. It’s an easy thing to do 2. There’s no pressure 3. Everyone is smiling and someone is probably making a joke and 4. There’s always that tiiiiiny chance someone on the other team is salty and is gonna pull some dickish shit. One of the dark sides of sports for me is that being pissed off is often thrilling. And in victory formation, you hold all the cards. “Scoreboard,” is the unbeatable comeback to any insult. Imagine how fun it would be in the Super Bowl!
But no. No, now we gotta have actual excitement. I didn’t want excitement. I wanted anything but excitement. I wanted a hilarious blowout like the NFCCG. I wanted the game to be over after the first quarter, and the rest of the game to be a joyous victory lap. I wanted to start happy drinking beer, rather than slowly sipping room temperature water. This game had already had miracles. Jeffrey, Blount, Clement, Ertz, the Patriots O-line, Gronkowski’s 2-TD performance, Tom Brady again, the Philly Special, Brandon Graham, Derek Barnett, the world holding Nick Foles’s beer and watching what he did next. 1,152 total yards of offense, the most in any NFL game ever.
You think there was any chance anyone thought a 51 yard heave into the endzone was impossible? Or some crazy never-before-seen hook-and-ladder or whatever Emperor Palpatine on the Patriots sideline cooked up to make use of the best QB, the best TE, and whatever role-player-come-unstoppable-superstar the Patriots have elevated this week?
I didn’t blink as the ball was snapped. Dug my fingers into the couch arm as Brady spun out of the arms of Graham, who was suddenly in pass rush hypermode. Brady found a moment, a platform, and reminded everyone of his weird agelessness as he cannoned the ball downfield. I remember being aware of the crowd roar and wondered how anyone had any juice left to make sound as the ball flew. It sailed upward into the middle air of the stadium, tracked by hundreds of cameras and millions of eyeballs, and then down to a tight bunch of desperately grappling men. It bounced once off the players, and those watching who had the diaphragm strength left to gasp did so. Then it fell to the turf and into history.