Published Feb 1, 2004
Well, at least I picked the winner.
I honestly didn’t expect as many touchdowns; 26-20 only works with lots of field goals. I also didn’t expect New England to successfully run the ball, or the Panthers to be able to throw long passes. This is probably why I’m not an NFL coach.
While it was nice that Tom Brady got another MVP award, the true MVPs were the Pats offensive linemen. For the QB to get out unsacked and Faulk and Smith to be able to run the ball at all, well, that was quite a feat. Sadly, linemen will never get recognition like that; I couldn’t even vote for the o-line on http://superbowl.com.
It was a pretty good game, all in all, and I enjoyed watching it. Especially — unlike everybody else — the first 20 minutes and the defensive clinic put on by both teams. I could have watched another 40 minutes of that.
I was surprised by the simplicity of the Patriots’ defense; they didn’t run any of their exotic blitzes (and the blitzes they ran didn’t work). I was also surprised by the simplicity of the Patriots’ offense, which was missing lots of the slants and screens. After beating the Rams in the Super Bowl two years ago, Belichick made his entire system more complicated, mimicking the difficult-to-beat methods of Martz; after winning this year using simpler methods, like the Panthers’, will Belichick make things simpler next year?