Since saintfan is in Phoenix, now is the time to review the crazy, megalomaniacal, worship-us-like-you-mean-it, list of demands that the NFL makes on the host city.
And let’s not forget what they mean by “clean zone”. They want a large perimeter around the stadium (yes, that includes your apartment or business) and they want no signs of any kind (like the ones that put Roger Goodell on a WANTED poster) and all sorts of other things are prohibited (can’t remember, but probably includes skateboarding or dressing in drag) and they lost a lawsuit about this against the ACLU when they were in New Orleans 2 years ago (they also made a Mardi Gras parade walk a week late because of the “distraction”).
ETA - this is just for the NFL bigwigs, not the teams!
The stuff in that list is small potatoes compared to what the area will make in sales/meals/lodging/other taxes, not to mention income taxes as people earn money from 100,000 fairly wealthy people who come to town for a while. It’s likely 10’s of millions of dollars.
It’s cocktail hour here in the desert . . . would anyone care to join me? They’re virtual so you can have as many as you want and maybe we can convince Deb to roll out her virtual coffee cart tomorrow and set up a bloody Mary bar.
Deborah is going down to raid the real kitchen. I’m sticking to jasmine tea or cocoa, whichever strikes my fancy once the kettle boils, and it’s probably going to be leftover chicken of the grocery store roasted variety for dinner.
Wipe down the cart before you roll it back in and put the key under the planter.
Last years Seattle defense reminded me of the dominance of the Steelers defense in the 70s. The offenses couldn’t handle them. This year, with Belichick and Brady et al. on the other sideline, things could be different. It’s notable that the Giants defense figured importantly in preventing NE from having two more rings. Its possible that Belichick has polished his game plans based on those experiences. For instance, didn’t the Patriots win one of these playoff games with the fewest yards rushing ever? It was all quick outs against the Ravens, I think.
There were posts about the game but they were buried by the nation’s focus on stupid things. I think NE has an advantage for these reasons:
NE knows Seattle's offense and defense - because Seattle is an "we play this way every week" sort of team - while NE can be different things on both sides of the ball. It can be tough playing NE's offense when you aren't familiar with them. Remember, the Giants in 2007 had played NE a few weeks earlier. Seattle has played one game against NE in many years and that was 3 years ago. I almost wrote a key is 2nd half adjustments but of course that's always true. I can honestly say that on Wednesday before the game I have no idea what NE's offensive or defensive game plans will be.
Seattle's defense is not as dominant as last year and NE is not Denver. That said, of course the game rests with the performance of the lines. It always does. Peyton has never been great in big games. Tom has. Other than at center, NE is healthier than it has been in a playoff since 2005.
NE has played and beat the best passing rushing teams in football. Seattle had fewer sacks than NE and was bottom of the middle 3rd in the league. That said, Seattle's balance of pass rush plus pass defense is better than many other teams, notably the Ravens and Buffalo, both of which have much better rushes.
Seattle hasn't played many games against top QB's. I put up a list for the entire 2nd half of the season and the only guy on there was Aaron Rodgers, who is great but who was limping around on one leg and was clearly not himself moving around and setting himself to throw. Nearly all the others they played were crap (other than Eli Manning, though the Giants were then plumbing the depths of dysfunction), with the best probably being Cam Newton, unless you consider Kaepernick as a top QB (when the team was a mess and he can't pass in the pocket unless the other team sucks all the way up to stop him from running). In fact, as I look at the schedules, Seattle lucked out this year: SF in decline, really noticeable on defense, with the coach on his way out and with familiarity exposing the huge flaws in Kaepernick's game; Arizona without a QB; Giants when they were a hot mess, etc.
NE has played almost all the top QB's in the league and beat all but 1. That 1 was a close loss to Aaron Rodgers on two good legs in Green Bay. I posted a bit from some site that looked at Richard Sherman versus Darelle Revis which noted that Revis lined up in the slot about ¼ of the time and slot passes are caught at a higher rate. The analysis didn't look at QB quality. Not saying one is better but that the statistics for pass defense are very hard to judge when you're talking Sean Hill and some backup for Arizona versus Philip Rivers, a healthy Peyton Manning, etc. When NE was 2-2 and Belichick said, "We're on to Cincinnati", they were looking at 6 straight games against contending teams and people were predicting maybe break-even, maybe 2-4, and they won 5 before losing that close one to Green Bay in Green Bay. In other words, NE has been tested.
And as a nod to the idiocy, 538 posted about the statistical deficiencies of the nonsense about the Patriots’ low fumbling rate. I looked at underlying player data. That has been distorted - I mentioned one - but apparently people have even managed to confuse things like Brandon Tate fumbling many more times while not a Patriot without realizing he fumbled kicks and those balls are controlled by the NFL. Lazy, stupid analysis. But it turns out there’s an even simpler mistake: the idiots cut out dome teams, which I realized, but it turns out they cut out dome teams games outside. So for example, if Atlanta played in NE the game would count as plays for NE but not for the rest of the league. (Not sure if I can link to the blog but the analysis is by data scientist Drew Fustin and you can search for him.) Another big deal is the idiot analysis looked at plays per fumble and came up with an absurd probability of like 1 in 16000+. You can read why that was wrong. As a note, I didn’t pay attention to the number because labels like that are meaningless.
Wanted to add that if you’re interested in the topic of what actually matters versus silliness and superstition, try looking at 538’s post about kickers. I don’t need to link because we all should know that kicking keeps getting more accurate. Here’s the issue: how is that possible when teams can no longer cheat? Kicking balls are, as I described in another post, delivered directly to the officials’ hotel and are under their control all the time. This was to prevent teams from manipulating the ball to get an advantage … but kicking has improved. If teams were cheating before to improve results, shouldn’t there be a decrease in accuracy? Maybe especially from long distance? I intentionally wrote “cheating before to improve results” because teams were, it seems, breaking rules and thus “cheating”, but it seems the cheating may have had no effect on the games. There was no blip when they changed the ball rules, just random variations - which may be from weather or a few people being injured or retiring. So there is “cheating” in the form of breaking rules, but since I value substance over form, I have to ask if anyone knows whether x form of “cheating” is effective. For example, no one can say slightly lower pressure balls actually lead to better grip by running backs, QB’s and receivers - see the fumbling analysis above. In the 1st half versus the Colts, you can see more bad drops by the Patriots than the Colts - notably Brandon Lafell and Julian Edelman. One drop by the Colts was a very hard catch with the ball coming over the man’s head with arms extended. I saw only one bad drop by the Colts and their only fumble came when their punt returner had a ball bounce off his face. So is there an actual value in ball pressure besides QB preference? I don’t know. I heard Mike Pereira say no, that teams should be allowed to play with the ball the way they like.
Hair o’ the dog not seeming like a good idea this morning so no bloody Mary bar. Getting up for a glass of water and heading back to bed until it’s time for my massage . . .
Lergnom–I know that as a NE fan you are mandated to hate the Giants and Eli, and I know the Seahawks stomped all over my woeful team this year, but it wasn’t because of Eli, who had very good stats in that game (much better than Russell Wilson’s.) He had, however, no running game and no defense (true throughout the season.) But his numbers in that game, and in the season overall, were actually some of his best ever, even though you keep saying the opposite.
Well, you’ve tilted me towards the Seahawks, anyway. Don’t love either team, but they are just a lot more easy to not dislike.