SuperBowl Sunday [SPOILERS]

Ditto on the loving defense, and ditto on the one of the best ever.

I really wanted to see an undefeated team again, but this was a great game.

Then again I love soccer and watching no hitters. 

If not for the hype surrounding the Patriots, would this SB have been one of the more boring ones? Except for the sacks on Brady, I didn't see THAT many great defensive plays for a game that could be called a defensive struggle. During the low-scoring 2nd and 3rd quarters, the only reason I stayed interested in the game is because of the Patriots' potential of scoring on any given play. This made defensive stops by the Giants look more impressive than they really were.

But that's exactly what I mean. The defensive performance was impressive only because of what the Patriot's offense did in other games and not necessarily because of what the Giants did in this game. For an observer that's unfamiliar with the hype, I think this SB probably seemed to be just a so-so game in terms of offensive and defensive performances. The one thing that this game had going for it was the number of lead changes, but I guess having ANY lead change at all in a SB makes it more exciting.

I don't know the final stats but throughout the game Brady was on his back on 50% of his drop backs.  There were outstanding plays by both secondaries (that's what kept the Pats in the game in my view).  The running game wasn't worthy of highlight reels but there were plenty of hard tackles and extra efforts to pick up five yards.  Throw in some wicked special teams coverage and I think this was an extremely well played game.

I'd put it right up.  Thoroughly enjoyed it.

the defensive performance was dominating because a pass rush of about 70% straight 4 man line schemes with a mix in of about 25% 1 man blitz and 5% 2 man blitz  got consistent quick pressure on brady  vs  an O-line that has 3 (at least 2 legit) pro bowlers.  this forced a lot of te/rb  sets for added protection that normally release an added receiver into the underneath/sideline flats causing the usual wider zone holes for deep balls  to be removed.  combine that with the dbacks playing significantly better than their season average  in not allowing lots of blown coverage big plays... and there you go.

I think the biggest difference (scoring-wise) between this game and any other game is that the Gints offense was able to sustain long drives to keep the Patriots offense off the field. The Patriots didn't even touch the ball until almost 10 minutes into the game.

If you compare the drive charts between the AFCCG and the SB, you'll see a similar level of success by the Pats offense.

Through the first 9 drives (which is all they got in the SB):
AFCCG: 2 TDs, 4 punts, 2 turnovers, half
SB: 2 TDs, 4 punts, 1 turnover, 2 downs

So, to me, the Gints defense didn't play any better than the Chargers defense. The reason that the Chargers lost is because the Pats defense came up huge on 3 goal line stands. If not for those big defensive stops, the Pats would have ended the season 17-1 rather than 18-1.

In the SB, other than the INT off the hands of Smith, which was really due to luck rather than good defense, the Pats defense made no big plays in this game as far as I can remember. So I'm inclined to give the Gints offense a lot of credit for this win. Simply not turning over the ball (more than they did) was huge.