In Defense of Super Bowl LIII

So, you didn't like Super Bowl LIII.

Are you sure you're actually a football fan?

The day after the game, I wondered where all the "Defense wins championships!" people went. I've watched Michael Wilbon of "Pardon the Interruption" bemoan the death of defense in the NFL for months. I watched him totally lose his shit over the roughing the passer call against the Chiefs in the AFCCG. Then I tuned in Monday only to see him insist SB53 wasn't about defense; no, he said, it was about offensive ineptitude. That pretty much seemed to be the consensus amongst the pigskin-watching world, it seemed. Tom Brady was mediocre; the moment was too big for Jared Goff and Sean McVay. They made the defenses look good.

But perhaps one had something to do with the other?

The run up to the game focused primarily on the offensive side of the football and why not? The NFL had spent the 2018 season gorging on TD bon bons, RPO's, next gen offensive schemes, motion, stacks, unstoppable route combinations, the New Pigskin Kids on the Block: Patrick Mahomes, DeShaun Watson, Baker Mayfield, Jared Goff; and why not? The Top 4 scoring offenses in the NFL played in the conference championship games. We're pigskin junkies hooked on points, watching Red Zone, looking for that next TD fix.

The discussion of the defenses seemed more obligatory than insightful, despite the fact two of the greatest defensive coaches in the league - Bill Belichick and Wade Phillips - would have two weeks to game plan for a chance to bathe in Cool Blue Gatorade. And they gave us an absolute clinic in defensive football. A game the estimable Bill Barnwell called "the greatest defensive performance in Super Bowl history."

Did anyone see this coming? The over/under for SB53 was 56 points!

When is the unexpected boring?

You: When I wasn't expecting 14 punts.

Me: They still call it football, bub.

Here's the thing. Those punters were great and don't forget another pigskin verity that runs through the veins of Super Bowl LIII.

It's a game of field position.

If you don't dig Matthew Slater's game then I don't want to talk football with you. Punter Ryan Allen played punt and catch with Slater downing the ball inside the 7-yard line three times on Sunday. Over his career, I've watched Slater make one field-tipping play after another; it seems like it happens every game, though that seems impossible (it probably is). His ability to cover kicks is a criminally undervalued element of the game, because, you know, it's a game of field position. Allen and Slater were brilliant in Super Bowl LIII but...

Johnny Hekker punted 9 times with 5 inside the 20 and 0 touchbacks with a Super Bowl record long punt of 65 yards. Only 2 of Hekker's punts were returned. For a net of 2 yards. Jesus in Cleats! If the Rams had won, Hekker would've been the MVP!

And it had that cinematic moment, it had special skills, it had irony. In a game dominated by defense, it was one of the offensive coordinators who said, fuck it. We'll do it live! As you've no doubt heard, Josh McDaniels basically tore up the game plan almost halfway through the 3rd quarter, put heavy 22 personnel on the field and then spread them out. Wait, what? That's James Develin in the slot? Naturally, this created some deadly mismatches in the Patriots' favor (stop me if you've heard that one before) and two of the best Brady to Gronk completions I've ever seen. Brady, once again leading a 4th quarter drive for the lead, going 4 for 4 including the surgical strike to Gronk that took the Patriots to the 2-yard line. I noticed Sony Michel took that football with him to the sideline after scoring the only TD in SB53. Like his precocious postseason (#1 in scoring with 6 TD, he led all rushers with 336 yards), that was no rookie move by Michel.

The game was close and there were plenty of big plays. Great plays.

Great games have great plays.

Okay, I made that one up. But there were some great plays in the game.

Like Jason McCourty, racing from "not in the frame" to exactly where he needed to be to break up what had looked like a certain Rams TD. I've heard a number of pigskin pundits and bobbleheads who have blamed Jared Goff for not finding Brandin Cooks sooner on that play but come on! How many guys, 20 yards away from the play, just give up on it? Give it up for Jason McCourty!

And that pass from Brady to Gronkowski. Both of them, actually. The completion on the wheel route was an absolute teardrop from Brady. That was vintage Gronk with the catch and run. But the seemingly laser-guided strike from Tom Terrific into triple coverage that Gronkowski squeezed to his chest at the 2-yard line was special. A special moment created by two of the best ever to play the game. A moment that surely belonged in a movie more than it ever belonged in real life. With Ewan McGregor as the aging QB, one of the Hemsworth brothers as Gronk, and Jake Gyllenhaal as Julian Edelman (with Michael Shannon or Christian Bale as Belichick, I can't decide). Our aging heroes get their asses kicked for 3 and a half quarters only to dig down deep and come up big, championship drive for the ages and the Lombardi Trophy nobody gave them a chance to  win…

But it's defense that wins championships (it is) and the Patriots defense was as good as any to have played on the greatest stage their sport has to offer. They recorded 4 sacks and 12 QB hits, 7 tackles for loss, 8 passes defended and an interception, they confused Jared Goff and shut down the Rams vaunted rushing attack. They held this Rams team that scored 527 points in the regular season to just 3 in the Super Bowl.

This may be another game plan that's headed for Canton.

It was the lowest scoring Super Bowl ever and the biggest margin (of victory or defeat) in any Super Bowl the Patriots of Belichick and Brady have played in. That's bar trivia gold! It may not qualify SB53 as a great game but it does kind of make it unforgettable. Am I right?

Wait a minute! This isn't just another "I hate the Patriots" thing dressed up as pigskin indignation, gridiron elitism, I was promised a shootout, and okay, I shouldn't have bet the mortgage on the over and I'll kind of pretend that joke about gambling was all just a joke later kind of thing?

No?

Because that might be a better reason than thinking this was a bad game, a boring game.

This was a coffin corner, field position, sack the quarterback, run the ball/stop the run, touchdown-saving, make a big play just one play who's going to win it kind of game.

Maybe not the game you wanted; but it was the game you needed.

A great game.

Fight me.