Super Bowl LIII Recap and Reaction!

Super Bowl LIII is in the books and the New England Patriots defeated the LA Rams 13-3 to win their 6th Lombardi Trophy. It is also the 6th title for Bill Belichick and Tom Brady together, and the Pats continue to add to their already distinguished history as the greatest dynasty in the history of the NFL and all of sports. The game wasn't the type of game I thought it would be. It was a defensive struggle, but it lacked excitement, intrigue, and it was at times downright boring. Defense is fun to watch, but punting is not. For the biggest stage of the NFL season, this game fell short. Here are my thoughts and observations as we wrap up Super Bowl LIII....

1) Both defenses established themselves. The Rams picked off Tom Brady on the first drive of the game, and the Pats missed a field goal in the 1st quarter. The Rams could do absolutely nothing against this Patriots defense. The Pats and Belichick completely befuddled and stifled the Rams and their offense for most of the game.

2) It was 3-0 at halftime, and I was waiting for the game to pick up and the points to explode. It reminded me of the Panthers-Patriots Super Bowl in the first half. That game got wild and had a lot of scoring in the second half. This just never happened in this game. This game just didn't have enough of those great moments that you would like to have in a Super Bowl. It had the fewest points in a Super Bowl, the fewest points by a winning team, and it was 3-3 going into the 4th quarter. That is unimaginable in the era we are in with the NFL.

3) Outside of the Brady pick and missed field goal in the first half, what else is there to get into in the first part of the game? The game picked up when the Rams finally put together a sustainable drive but Goff waited too long and threw late to a wide open Brandin Cooks in the back of the endzone and the Pats knocked it away. The next play Gronk got sacked and they had to settle for a FG to tie the game at 3 instead of taking a 7-3 lead.

4) The Pats moved the ball effectively down the field and Julian Edelman killed the Rams all day long, and the play of the game was when Brady hit Gronk on a 29 yard completion down to the 2 yard line with 7:36 left to play. Sony Michel capped it off with a 2 yard TD run and the Pats had a 10-3 lead with 7:00 to go. That was the play of the game.

5) The Rams moved it down the field but Belichick dialed up the right blitz at the right time and Goff got intercepted by Stephon Gilmore at the NE 4 with 4:17 to play in the game. That was the game right there, and it capped off a dreadful performance by Goff. Give Belichick credit for using the right blitz and saving it for the right time. Brandin Cooks dropped a pass a play earlier that would have been the tying touchdown. It hit him right in the hands over his shoulder as the defensive back was closing in on him. Goff was pretty bad all game, but this was his best throw of the night and Cooks couldn't hold on. That play will haunt the Rams all offseason.

6) The Pats ran the ball right down the throat of the Rams on a 9 play 72 yard drive and Gostkowski hit a 41 yard FG to give the Pats a 13-3 lead with only 1:12 to play in the game. The Rams did move the ball into NE territory and Greg Zuerlein missed a 48 yard field goal with 5 seconds left and all that was left for NE to secure the win was one kneeldown.

7) Sean McVay has done a great job with the Rams the last two years, and he got them to a Super Bowl in year two, so they are headed in the right direction. but he got badly out-coached and had a bad night all around. Hopefully, he will learn from this experience and spend all offseason working on adjustments to his team and his offense in preparation for 2019. He has to come up with something else when the Rams offense gets thrown off their game like they did in this Super Bowl. The Rams also have to figure out how to get Jared Goff to play better against the top defenses and teams in the NFL. We saw how he struggled this year against the Bears, Eagles, and the Pats in the Super Bowl. Goff has to take that next step. Give Wade Phillips credit for his gameplan and the job the defense did on Brady and the Pats offense, but unfortunately it just wasn't enough.

8) The Patriots and Bill Belichick proved once again how special they are. They looked like they were in trouble in December, and a lot of people, including myself, thought they would have trouble getting out of the Divisional Round, but they played their best football at the right time and won another Super Bowl. Belichick deserves all the credit for getting this team to the Super Bowl and winning another one, and the gameplan he put in for the Rams was terrific and executed perfectly. It was another dominating coaching performance by Belichick. Brady got his 6th Lombardi Trophy in a game that he did not play well, but it doesn't matter. Six Super Bowl titles is amazing for him and he will go down as the greatest QB to ever play the game.

9) I actually rewatched the game on Monday night on NFL Network to see if there was anything that I missed or if I would appreciate it more on a second viewing, but the game did nothing for me. It was a boring game, and it reminded me of some of those 1970s Super Bowls that ended in scores like 16-13, 16-6, and 14-7. If you took the Bears-Eagles 16-15 Wild Card game and replaced it with this game, then it would have been way more entertaining. Super Bowl XLII between the Giants and the Patriots was 7-3 going into the 4th quarter and finished 17-14, and it was way more exciting than this game ever was.