No, I said, "all day," specifically to be clear I meant the whole game, not any one drive. And we HADN'T moved it well all day; the two TD drives were (very) nice and the kind of thing I've been wanting to see more of all year. BOTH surpassed a drive last week for our longest of the year. Yet if you'd told me before the season we'd make the playoffs without ANY drives >7:00, and make the SB with only 3 JUST >7:00, I wouldn't have given us much chance.
Take away the big plays and we WOULD have done nothing; we had big plays on the TD drive, too: We just had MORE than big plays, and multiple big plays. Not
1st and 10 at DEN 25 |
(Shotgun) P.Manning pass incomplete short right to D.Thomas. |
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2nd and 10 at DEN 25 |
(Shotgun) P.Manning pass deep left to J.Thomas to NE 38 for 37 yards (J.Collins). |
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1st and 10 at NE 38 |
(No Huddle, Shotgun) K.Moreno left tackle to NE 37 for 1 yard (Chr. Jones). |
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2nd and 9 at NE 37 |
(No Huddle, Shotgun) K.Moreno left tackle to NE 36 for 1 yard (J.Collins). |
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3rd and 8 at NE 36 |
(No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass incomplete deep left to D.Thomas. |
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4th and 8 at NE 36 |
M.Prater 54 yard field goal is GOOD, Center-A.Brewer, Holder-B.Colquitt. |
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26 |
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M.Prater kicks 65 yards from DEN 35 to end zone, Touchback. |
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DRIVE TOTALS: NE 10, DEN 26, 6 plays, 39 yards, 2:26 elapsed |
Well, hooray for us; we got a FG. Now, we only ran FIVE plays, and all but ONE managed just TWO yards COMBINED (0.5 yds/play) but ONE picked up 37 and got us in range for a score. Which is a darned good thing since we didn't gain ANYTHING on the 2 plays before that and only gained 2 yds more on the 2 plays after that. And to top it all off, we burned just 2:26 off the clock, then kicked off with 7:00 left and the same 3 score lead as when we started.
I PROMISE I didn't deliberately grab this drive because it supports points (textbook example, really.) It probably stuck in my mind because I'd been thinking about the issue for a few months, and throughout that game where we leapt into FG range on one or two plays no less than FOUR times, and had a few drives peter out just short of FG range when we couldn't muster a second big play to get there. The problem is, I didn't NEED to look hard for supporting evidence.
There were exceptions; there've been more in each of our playoff games, and that's encouraging. The two TD drives were each an example, and our two longest drives all year: We MUST do that a LOT in the SB, or are patchwork, soft and fast-but-small D will either wear down, get hurt or both. I'm not saying we need a TD everytime either; the drive before the one above, we also settled for a FG—from the NE 1, no less—but took 5:33 and 11 plays doing it, even though we STARTED on our 39.
That was the drive after Knighton sacked Brady on 4th down, which is to say, only our SECOND drive of the half, but combined with our first 7:00 drive, and NE helpfully burning off 5:27 when they were down 3 scores and STILL getting NOTHING (plus giving us good field position,) well, those three drives got us to a 20 pt lead with 12:00 left in the fourth quarter; the rest was just mopping up with Prevent, and as badly as we played Prevent, it was still enough.
That 5 play, 2:26 drive that got 35 of its 37 yds in just a single play, then sputtered out into a FG? Didn't do a darned thing to help us. Maybe NE needs 3 TDs instead of 2 TD and a FG, but our win probability already hit 100% after the LONG FG drive. If it HADN'T, NE did more to ice our win when they spent 4:00 SCORING A TD ON US than we did spending 2:26 scoring a FG on them.
The underappreciated downside of fast quick-strike offenses and fast small Ds vs. power running and smashmouth is that if the power running team protects the ball (which the run does well) and that fast small D never stops it, you end up trading 2:00 drives for 8:00 drives. Guess which D wears out first? The team missing HALF its starting front seven; you think Mitch Unrein will keep Marshawn Lynch from running up the gut for a TD any better than he did against Brady? Oh, and when trading 2:00 drives for 8:00 drives, guess who probably has the ball last?
We MUST sustain our drives. A pair of 10 play drives that eat 6-7 minutes but end in FGs would be a LOT better than a 3 play 1:30 TD drive. Of course, a pair of 10 play 7 minute drives that end in TDs would be best; if we do that a couple times Seattle's not built to come back, our D stays fresh (and safe from injury) and our hurry up wears their hulks down till they collapse.
If our D was better, or at least deeper, I'd say light those big-talkers up—it's not. Even in the '70s—the Golden Age of the deep ball—the Mad Bomber never won a Super Bowl, and neither did Fouts with Air Coryell. Stabler needed the thugs in his secondary to put him over the top, and the Chargers never had that, so: Too bad.