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http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2017/01/23/super-bowl-51-matt-ryan-falcons-tom-brady-patriots-nfl-peter-king
Super Bowl 51: Matt Ryan’s Falcons vs. Tom Brady’s Pats
The Big Game in Houston is set, after Atlanta throttled Green Bay and New England dismissed Pittsburgh. Here’s a look at the Atlanta quarterback’s breakthrough and his counterpart’s continued brilliance. Plus items on a retiring Raven, Johnny Manziel, Ryan Grigson, DeShaun Watson and more
by Peter King
Photo: Tom Pennington/Getty Images
ATLANTA — To appreciate the magnitude of what we saw Sunday in the last football game ever at the Georgia Dome, we must consider what was happening in this city the April day Matt Ryan was drafted in 2008.
I was in Atlanta that weekend. Michael Vick was not. He was in federal prison in Kansas, serving nearly two years for dogfighting and animal cruelty. But the city not only hadn’t forgotten him; many in the city were keeping his seat warm and wanted him as their quarterback when he finished doing his time.
I remember the day before the draft walking through a mall and thinking, All these people with Vick jerseys or T-shirts supporting him … amazing. So when Ryan got picked third overall by new GM Thomas Dimitroff, it was a new start. But some locals seemed unmoved.
An Atlanta TV sports anchor, Gil Tyree, told me on draft day 2008 that Vick “is a messiah here. … No matter what Matt Ryan will do, he’ll never be accepted.”
Yikes.
Now to Sunday, and the 44-21 beatdown of the Packers in the NFC Championship Game, leading to the second Super Bowl appearance for the Falcons in their history. As Ryan compiled a four-touchdown, 392-yard game in the biggest game of his nine-year career, three times the crowd in the Dome rained down chants of “M-V-P! M-V-P! M-V-P!”
Six straight games without an interception … Heavy favorite to win the NFL MVP on Feb. 4 … Crowd screaming for him as he left the field like New York screamed for the Beatles in 1964.
The screams and chants sounded a lot like acceptance to me. This seemed a cruel time to remind Ryan of that day and the words of the sports anchor in 2008, but in a quiet moment at his locker after the game, I did.
This is not a topic Ryan wants to revisit. In his nine years at the helm of this team, nobody’s ever seen Ryan sweat. He says the right things, does the right things, works the right way. But he understood the gravity of this day, and what he’d accomplished under such initial pressure. Vick thrilled this town like few athletes have, but Ryan has taken the franchise further than Vick ever did.
No matter what Matt Ryan will do, he’ll never be accepted.
Ryan said quietly: “Some things you don’t forget.”
That was it. But others took up Ryan’s cause. “Matt’s created great memories in this dome,” said Dimitroff, who made Ryan the first pick of his tenure. “Back then, when Matt was drafted, the doubts were there. But he’s evolved and stayed above it all.”
“That’s a long time ago,’’ said receiver and returned Eric Weems, who was a Falcon when Ryan was drafted and who knew the tenor in the city. “If people are still holding grudges, and I doubt there are, it’s on them. I can tell you Matt’s my quarterback. Matt’s our quarterback. I love him.”
The best teams are often forged through difficult times. Ryan was drafted the year after Bobby Petrino pulled one of the all-time classless coaching moves, quitting with two games left in the 2007 season to take a college job. Ryan had some shaky playoff games, but Dimitroff and Blank were unwavering in their support.
Blank, wisely, held onto Dimitroff—a strong scout—when he fired Mike Smith two years ago and hired Dan Quinn as coach. Ryan has gotten excellent coaching from offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan over the past two years, and Quinn’s definitive demands for every position on the field allowed Dimitroff and key personnel men Scott Pioli and Steve Sabo to know exactly what to scout.
Two excellent drafts and good free-agent finds (Alex Mack, Mohamed Sanu), and here we are—an Atlanta-New England Super Bowl.
Photo: Rob Carr/Getty Images
Two things I notice about Ryan’s game under Shanahan: He’s more comfortable as an athlete—that 14-yard touchdown run against Green Bay, his first TD carry since 2012, showed he’s not a lumberjng runner, but a competent one. “There was nobody to account for the quarterback,” Ryan said. “And everybody's backs are turned playing coverage, playing man‐to‐man coverage. Just saw a lane open up.” In the past, Ryan likely would have stuck in the pocket, looking at his third and fourth targets.
“Matt’s been a grinder, getting his mental right,” is how Weems put it.
Ryan is better at play-action and run fakes, a more complete player who doesn’t think being a pocket quarterback means you actually have to be in the pocket all the time, surveying the field seven steps behind center. I loved his first touchdown pass Sunday, which was a combination of Steve Young and Brett Favre.
On Atlanta’s first drive of the game, from the Green Bay two-yard line, Ryan took off to his left near the goal line, and it looked like he’d run it in. But then he threw a flip pass to Sanu for a touchdown. I just don’t think that’s the kind of thing he’d have been comfortable doing pre-Shanahan.
Against New England, the more multiple a quarterback can be, the better. You saw how Bill Belichick and defensive boss Matt Patricia began to neutralize Le’Veon Bell even before he got hurt in the AFC game by taking away those creases in the defensive front that Bell uses so wisely.
The Patriots take what you do well and find a couple of ways to combat it. No doubt that Shanahan today and tomorrow will be all over New England tape trying to play Spy Vs. Spy, figuring what the Patriots will do if the Falcons do such-and-such.
The last player you’d compare Ryan to is Vick. But in the next two weeks he’d better get ready for it. During the run-ups to Super Bowls, long perspective stories are the order of the day. Vick, 2001: thrills and chills, a roller coaster, but didn’t work overall. Ryan, 2008: by the book, outworking everyone, in the Super Bowl. The Falcons, and Ryan, have been rewarded, and a date with Tom Brady is the result.
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COACH OF THE WEEK
Dan Quinn, head coach, Atlanta. All coaches coming from great programs get pegged as so-and-so’s “guy.” Quinn was Pete Carroll’s “guy.” High energy from day one, like Carroll. And, like Carroll, he was teamed with a personnel guy (Thomas Dimitroff) he really didn’t know. But from the start, Quinn was clear he wanted this team not to be “Seattle East” but rather “Atlanta Now.”
And there are some striking differences. But the important thing is Quinn has the Falcons in the Super Bowl in his second season—a great achievement considering he took over a 6-10 team that was comatose on defense and needed an injection of life. Quinn did that, and he built a very good defense in two years.
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We Could Use a Great Game in No. 267
The Pats and Falcons haven’t played since a Sept. 29, 2013, meeting at the Georgia Dome.
Photo: Scott Cunningham/Getty Images
After 256 regular-season games and 10 in the playoffs, the NFL season comes down to game number 267 in Houston, Super Bowl LI between Atlanta and New England. I love the game, because there’s so much new and interesting about Atlanta (particularly on defense, where seven of the 12 “starters,” including third corner Brian Poole, are first or second-year players), and because there’s so much history on the line for New England.
Tom Brady and Bill Belichick could become the first QB-coach duo in history to win five Super Bowls. Brady could be the first quarterback in history to win five Super Bowls. It could be a momentous night in Houston 13 days from now.
And it’s new for the teams too. Of Atlanta’s 53-man roster, 37 players weren’t Falcons the last time these two teams met, a 30-23 win for New England at the Georgia Dome in 2013. It’s fresh for them, fresh for the players and coaches.
I loved Kyle Shanahan’s reaction when, just before I recorded a podcast conversation with him Sunday night in the Falcons’ equipment office at the Georgia Dome, I told the Falcons’ offensive coordinator it looked like the Super Bowl foe would be New England.
“Good,” he said. Not because he’s a cocky glutton for punishment, but because he wants to play the best. That sounds nuts, but what coach who considers himself really good at his job wouldn’t want to match wits with Bill Belichick and his staff in the game of the year?
By the way: I sure hope it’s the game of the year. We could use one. Average margin of victory in the 10 playoff games: 15.7. Games decided by 13 points or more in the 10 playoff games: eight.
New England (16-2, AFC top seed) versus Atlanta (13-5, NFC second seed), Feb. 5, 6:30 p.m. ET, NRG Stadium, Houston (retractable roof). New England will play in its ninth Super Bowl (a record), Atlanta its second. Tom Brady plays in his seventh, Matt Ryan his first. So clearly, the Patriots have cornered the market on experience. But Atlanta hasn’t shown many signs of being intimidated by the bright lights this postseason, putting up 80 points on Seattle and Green Bay, teams far more playoff-experienced than the Falcons; defensively Atlanta held the Aaron Rodgers-led Packer offense scoreless for the first 35 minutes Sunday.
It’ll be fascinating to see the game plan Josh McDaniels weaves after studying players he’s never faced—rangy and instinctive Falcons rookie middle ’backer Deion Jones, for instance—this week. The bigger New England secondary could be a matchup problem for Atlanta, even thought Julio Jones laughs at matchup problems. One Falcon told me Sunday night, “Julio’s playing with half a toe, and it doesn’t matter,” referring to a nagging turf toe injury that won’t get better until he gets four or five months of rest and rehab.
But if you saw his 73-yard catch-and-run and breaking of two tackles against Green Bay, you’ve got to figure the Patriots are going to try to eliminate him and let someone else beat them. That someone else might be Mohamed Sanu. I was disappointed in Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman (25 carries, 71 yards, long of 14) against Green Bay, and New England’s run defense is better. So that means it’s up to Matt Ryan to justify his MVP-ness and have a big day if Atlanta hopes to keep New England from its fifth Super Bowl win.
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Marveling at Brady
Photo: Jim Rogash/Getty Images
You are living through a remarkable time if you’re a football fan. You’re seeing one of the great athletic careers in history play out, apparently with no sign of diminution.
Tom Brady won his 24th NFL playoff game Sunday. To put that in some perspective—though, obviously, there are more playoff games today than there were for much of the NFL’s history—the Chicago Bears as a franchise have won 17, according to Pro Football Reference.
Considering that the Bears played their first playoff game in 1932 and are a flagship franchise of the league, and considering Brady was born in 1977, that’s quite a feat for the Patriots QB.
One more gem: New England’s total of 24 playoff wins with Brady under center surpasses the all-time postseason win totals of 25 of the remaining 31 NFL franchises.
Rightfully, having Bill Belichick coaching (with Josh McDaniels constructing the offense and Matt Patricia taking on increasing importance as a defensive brain and presence) and Tom Brady playing is just about the perfect formula for success. Brady, as our Jenny Vrentas wrote so smartly last week, is a perfect leader of the franchise because he likes to be coached, and he can take being coached hard, and Belichick has always believed in coaching hard.
I found it interesting last week that the Patriots put pads on before the 18th game of the season, at a time when most teams have put the practice pads away for the year. New England practiced in pads Wednesday. Nobody bitched. If Brady’s not bothered by it, no other player would dare be bothered by it.
The game against Pittsburgh was a good illustration of the Patriots’ intelligence and patience. Against a zone team like Pittsburgh, an offense has to be patient. It’s not likely to yield many over-the-top big plays; the Steelers challenge you to take yards and eventually make a turnover or get greedy and throw risky or incomplete passes downfield.
Now, I didn’t watch a lot of this game, but I did think the mid-second-quarter flea-flicker touchdown from Brady to Chris Hogan was very interesting. On a play like that, with Brady handing it to Dion Lewis, and Lewis shoveling it back to Brady, and Brady looking deep, a young secondary like Pittsburgh’s might be tempted to bite on the run. Well, Brady did catch the Steelers looking run, and slipping past the secondary was Hogan, who caught an easy touchdown from Brady.
One other thing, not to go all hagiography on the Patriots: After the game, the little-used Lewis was near tears in the locker room. Why? Because he finished with 11 yards rushing and was angry at the game plan? No. It’s because he’s going to his first Super Bowl. He never thought his meandering and previously unproductive career would take him this far.
But when you’re with the Patriots, you get the team concept. It’s the way they do business. If you don’t like it, you won’t be around long. If you’re okay with it, the Super Bowl is often at the end of the rainbow. Such as this season.
“Bill [Belichick] showed this pass that was probably the worst pass I’ve ever seen Brady throw. The ball just completely missed the wide receiver and ended up skipping to the ground and falling out of bounds. Bill was saying, ‘What kind of throw is this? I can get Johnny Foxborough from down the street to make a better throw than this.’ … If Brady is getting it, no one is safe. I just immediately fell in line.”
—Former Patriots receiver Donte’ Stallworth, recalling his first New England team meeting to Jenny Vrentas of The MMQB in her excellent story about the hard coaching that Tom Brady takes.
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The Times They Have a-Changed Dept.:
I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a playoff weekend as run-pass unbalanced as this one.
• No running back had a 20-yard run in either championship game.
• Sunday’s four rushing leaders by team gained 46, 42, 34 and 47 yards.
• Sunday’s four passing leaders by team threw for 392, 287, 384 and 314 yards.
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Tweets of the Week
View: https://twitter.com/daringantt/status/823282372330291203?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
View: https://twitter.com/JCaldwell92/status/823198977831174145?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
View: https://twitter.com/LATimesfarmer/status/821736679094374401?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
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• Joseph on lessons learned from Wade Phillips when they worked together on the Texans staff: “Wade Phillips is a Hall of Fame coach, but Wade taught me this: Players first, scheme second. Everything Wade did was based on the players. And I never had a bad day with Wade. If it was a win by 50 or a loss by 50, I never had a bad day with Wade.”
• Hawk on Aaron Rodgers: “I sat next to him in our team meetings for nine straight years. He was always the same guy … Now that I am thinking about it, I wish I would have taken some notes, and taken some more time to watch how he did conduct himself. Luckily I still get to talk to him a lot and see him a decent amount. It might be weird if I'm just hanging out with him having dinner and I'm taking notes. Do you think that's weird?
In team meetings you just sit wherever you want, there is no assigned seat. When I got drafted, Aaron reached out to me because he was the first-round pick the year before me, and he just kind of let me know what the process was like and what to expect. I didn't know anything, I was 21, 22 years old. We just started hanging out early on. My wife and I got married shortly after I got there, so my wife was always like a team mom to people, so she would have him over and cook dinner for him.”
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Things I Think I Think
1. I think these are my quick notes of analysis from championship Sunday:
a. For Tom Brady to feel old, here’s a factoid to hit him with: Matt Ryan capped his senior season at Boston College with a 24-21 bowl victory over Michigan State on Dec. 28, 2007 … and on the next night Brady and the Patriots capped their 16-0 regular season with that crazy 38-35 win over the Giants at the Meadowlands.
b. Imagine Ryan in his Chestnut Hill dorm or apartment, watching Brady dissect every defense in football in that perfect season; there’s no way he ever wondered, “Man, I’d love to face him in the Super Bowl sometime.”
c. I loved Atlanta offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan’s reaction when, just before we taped a podcast conversation Sunday night in the Falcons’ equipment office at the Georgia Dome, I told him it looked like the Super Bowl foe would be New England, and he said: “Good.”
d. Not that Shanahan thinks he can shred Belichick’s defense—far from it—but it’s the kind of bring-it-on attitude Kyle Shanahan has had his entire coaching career.
e. On fourth-and-two with 36 minutes left in the NFC title game, at the Green Bay 37, with the Pack down 17-0, Mike McCarthy punted—and I absolutely would not have.
f. At the conclusion of the final football game that will ever be played at the Georgia Dome, I had this reaction: Meh.
g. Seven Super Bowls for one quarterback (Brady) is just … just … well, it’s like what Elaine said that one time in Seinfeld: “I am speechless—I am without speech.”
h. The Falcons got a gem in Mohamed Sanu, who started to put the game out of reach and then Julio Jones finished it.
i. Classy, apt and loyal move by ESPN, naming their Sunday pregame studio after Chris Berman and Tom Jackson at the close of Berman’s last Sunday studio show in Bristol this weekend.
j. The way to stop childish but significant behavior like that of the person who, at 3 a.m. Sunday, pulled the fire alarm at the Steelers’ Boston hotel and forced its evacuation, is pretty simple: Put the idiot’s name on TV and in the papers, and make the perp serve two months in jail.
k. This Pittsburgh offense, which is supposed to be great with all these unstoppable weapons, managed two touchdowns in eight quarters at Kansas City and New England.
2. I think I’ll wish Johnny Manziel well on his road back to the real world, and I mean that. Anyone who is trying to turn around his life is to be commended. But this one’s going to take some time to believe.
I remember back almost three years, when he was an Eagle Scout at the 2014 combine, and during the pre-draft process, when he played the earnest prospect and very nearly had Mike Zimmer and the Vikings convinced he’d left his partying days back on his college campus in Texas. If I’m a GM, I’m saying to Manziel, even if he’s sober the next six months, “We’ll talk in 2018.”
3. I think I understand why the NFL moved commissioner Roger Goodell’s press conference up two days, from the Friday morning before the Super Bowl to Wednesday afternoon in Houston. (Something that’s gotten surprisingly little attention.) Especially with the Patriots in the game, there was no way the league wanted to have the buildup to the biggest game of the year marred by the wet blanket (apologies to Greg Bedard for stealing his patented phrase, but it applies here) of countless recitations of Deflategate in papers and websites and sportscasts two days before the Super Bowl.
In general, I believe the league did this to try to keep interest building in the game itself as it approaches. One other Goodell note, about him attending the game in Atlanta on Sunday instead of Foxboro: Goodell should have taken his Patriots medicine sometime in the regular season. He should have gone to a game some random Sunday in Foxboro, suffered the venom that would have come, so that this “Roger’s afraid of showing his face in Foxboro” thing (which I do not doubt he is) wouldn’t continue to be such a big story.
A few other notes about Super Bowl week:
a. The Patriots will practice Wednesday through Friday at the University of Houston’s football facility.
b. The Falcons will work out at Rice University.
c. The first media availability will be Monday night at Minute Maid Park. NFC interviews, on the field, will be from 8:10 to 9:10 p.m. ET, with AFC team interviews from 10 to 11 p.m.
d. Goodell and a few select players (not in the game) will have a fan forum event at the House of Blues in downtown Houston on Friday. Fans, mostly of the Texans, will be invited to ask questions.
e. And a most interesting Monday Super Bowl MVP celebration could be at 8:30 a.m. Houston time, if Tom Brady wins it. Goodell would have to be there to say nice things about Brady, and Brady will have to pose for photos with the man who banned him from the NFL for a quarter of this season.
4. I think this qualifies as a terrific waste of opportunity: Quarterback Deshaun Watson is skipping the Senior Bowl this week. Clemson’s Watson would logically have played for the South team, which will be coached by Hue Jackson and his Cleveland Browns’ assistants. If you’ve got faith in your ability, and you want to convince the coach of the team with the first pick in the draft—the team that desperately needs a quarterback and will almost certainly choose one high in the draft if it can’t trade for one or sign one before that—why would you not take the golden opportunity to work with Jackson for a week?
The other two prime quarterbacks in the draft, Mitch Trubisky and DeShone Kizer, were not eligible, either because they weren’t seniors or because they hadn’t graduated. But a couple notes about the Watson miss: The Browns talked to him and asked him to play this week; he declined. Some of the other players who in the past declined a Senior Bowl invitation went much lower in the draft, fairly or unfairly, than they’d hoped—Geno Smith, Brett Hundley, Connor Cook, A.J. McCarron.
I’m not saying the same fate will befall Watson. And I will be clear: If the Browns fall in love with Watson, the fact that he didn’t participate in the Senior Bowl won’t matter. But what if it’s close? What if Jackson’s on the fence about one or more quarterbacks? Just feels like a big miss to me.
5. I think there’s a lesson for all in handling crises, watching the way Steelers cheerleading coach Mike Tomlin handled the Antonio Brown one. Forcefully, with mild and controlled anger, facing it straight on. Textbook crisis management. The most disturbing thing to me, other than Brown putting his me-firstness on display for the world to see, were the players who ignored Tomlin’s post-game message. That has to stop.
6. I think Carl Cheffers, who will ref the Super Bowl, is one of the least-known NFL referees—and the NFL likes it that way. Football Zebrashas been on the Cheffers-as-Super Bowl-ref story for a few weeks now, and Mike Pereira had it last weekend for FOX. I asked Football Zebraseditor-in-chief Ben Austro (yes, there is a site covering NFL officiating, and Austro is really good at it) to give us a scouting report on Cheffers, in his ninth year as NFL referee. Writes Austro:
Carl Cheffers is not the kind of referee who is going to leave his mark on the average fan. He may not have the swagger of some of his contemporaries, but do not confuse his unassuming demeanor with weakness. Cheffers has been a steady hand at the wheel of his crew for some time. Cheffers is also known for an infamous face mask flag in 2015, which gave the opportunity for the Packers to beat the Lions on the resulting untimed down.
It was a call that 100 officials out of 100 would have made, even though slow-motion replay showed otherwise. When asked by a reporter at the Lions training camp about that call, Cheffers responded, “Dude, it's 2016.” Fans will always remember; Cheffers will, too, but his focus always must be on the next snap.
The most controversial call of this year’s playoffs was a flag thrown by Cheffers, a holding penalty on Chiefs tackle Eric Fisher that nullified Kansas City’s two-point conversion that would have tied the playoff game with the Steelers. While Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce leveled heavy criticism at Cheffers’ feet, it was a call he had to make.
No official wants to have the call that ends a team's season. It's not easy, but good officials step up, take control, and make the call in that situation, rather than letting the situation take control of the official. An entire season is made up of a few thousand “microcalls” that are all considered, but it turns out that, essentially, the last call he made exemplifies the fact that Cheffers belongs at the head of the crew on football's biggest stage.
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http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2017/01/23/super-bowl-51-matt-ryan-falcons-tom-brady-patriots-nfl-peter-king
Super Bowl 51: Matt Ryan’s Falcons vs. Tom Brady’s Pats
The Big Game in Houston is set, after Atlanta throttled Green Bay and New England dismissed Pittsburgh. Here’s a look at the Atlanta quarterback’s breakthrough and his counterpart’s continued brilliance. Plus items on a retiring Raven, Johnny Manziel, Ryan Grigson, DeShaun Watson and more
by Peter King
Photo: Tom Pennington/Getty Images
ATLANTA — To appreciate the magnitude of what we saw Sunday in the last football game ever at the Georgia Dome, we must consider what was happening in this city the April day Matt Ryan was drafted in 2008.
I was in Atlanta that weekend. Michael Vick was not. He was in federal prison in Kansas, serving nearly two years for dogfighting and animal cruelty. But the city not only hadn’t forgotten him; many in the city were keeping his seat warm and wanted him as their quarterback when he finished doing his time.
I remember the day before the draft walking through a mall and thinking, All these people with Vick jerseys or T-shirts supporting him … amazing. So when Ryan got picked third overall by new GM Thomas Dimitroff, it was a new start. But some locals seemed unmoved.
An Atlanta TV sports anchor, Gil Tyree, told me on draft day 2008 that Vick “is a messiah here. … No matter what Matt Ryan will do, he’ll never be accepted.”
Yikes.
Now to Sunday, and the 44-21 beatdown of the Packers in the NFC Championship Game, leading to the second Super Bowl appearance for the Falcons in their history. As Ryan compiled a four-touchdown, 392-yard game in the biggest game of his nine-year career, three times the crowd in the Dome rained down chants of “M-V-P! M-V-P! M-V-P!”
Six straight games without an interception … Heavy favorite to win the NFL MVP on Feb. 4 … Crowd screaming for him as he left the field like New York screamed for the Beatles in 1964.
The screams and chants sounded a lot like acceptance to me. This seemed a cruel time to remind Ryan of that day and the words of the sports anchor in 2008, but in a quiet moment at his locker after the game, I did.
This is not a topic Ryan wants to revisit. In his nine years at the helm of this team, nobody’s ever seen Ryan sweat. He says the right things, does the right things, works the right way. But he understood the gravity of this day, and what he’d accomplished under such initial pressure. Vick thrilled this town like few athletes have, but Ryan has taken the franchise further than Vick ever did.
No matter what Matt Ryan will do, he’ll never be accepted.
Ryan said quietly: “Some things you don’t forget.”
That was it. But others took up Ryan’s cause. “Matt’s created great memories in this dome,” said Dimitroff, who made Ryan the first pick of his tenure. “Back then, when Matt was drafted, the doubts were there. But he’s evolved and stayed above it all.”
“That’s a long time ago,’’ said receiver and returned Eric Weems, who was a Falcon when Ryan was drafted and who knew the tenor in the city. “If people are still holding grudges, and I doubt there are, it’s on them. I can tell you Matt’s my quarterback. Matt’s our quarterback. I love him.”
The best teams are often forged through difficult times. Ryan was drafted the year after Bobby Petrino pulled one of the all-time classless coaching moves, quitting with two games left in the 2007 season to take a college job. Ryan had some shaky playoff games, but Dimitroff and Blank were unwavering in their support.
Blank, wisely, held onto Dimitroff—a strong scout—when he fired Mike Smith two years ago and hired Dan Quinn as coach. Ryan has gotten excellent coaching from offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan over the past two years, and Quinn’s definitive demands for every position on the field allowed Dimitroff and key personnel men Scott Pioli and Steve Sabo to know exactly what to scout.
Two excellent drafts and good free-agent finds (Alex Mack, Mohamed Sanu), and here we are—an Atlanta-New England Super Bowl.
Photo: Rob Carr/Getty Images
Two things I notice about Ryan’s game under Shanahan: He’s more comfortable as an athlete—that 14-yard touchdown run against Green Bay, his first TD carry since 2012, showed he’s not a lumberjng runner, but a competent one. “There was nobody to account for the quarterback,” Ryan said. “And everybody's backs are turned playing coverage, playing man‐to‐man coverage. Just saw a lane open up.” In the past, Ryan likely would have stuck in the pocket, looking at his third and fourth targets.
“Matt’s been a grinder, getting his mental right,” is how Weems put it.
Ryan is better at play-action and run fakes, a more complete player who doesn’t think being a pocket quarterback means you actually have to be in the pocket all the time, surveying the field seven steps behind center. I loved his first touchdown pass Sunday, which was a combination of Steve Young and Brett Favre.
On Atlanta’s first drive of the game, from the Green Bay two-yard line, Ryan took off to his left near the goal line, and it looked like he’d run it in. But then he threw a flip pass to Sanu for a touchdown. I just don’t think that’s the kind of thing he’d have been comfortable doing pre-Shanahan.
Against New England, the more multiple a quarterback can be, the better. You saw how Bill Belichick and defensive boss Matt Patricia began to neutralize Le’Veon Bell even before he got hurt in the AFC game by taking away those creases in the defensive front that Bell uses so wisely.
The Patriots take what you do well and find a couple of ways to combat it. No doubt that Shanahan today and tomorrow will be all over New England tape trying to play Spy Vs. Spy, figuring what the Patriots will do if the Falcons do such-and-such.
The last player you’d compare Ryan to is Vick. But in the next two weeks he’d better get ready for it. During the run-ups to Super Bowls, long perspective stories are the order of the day. Vick, 2001: thrills and chills, a roller coaster, but didn’t work overall. Ryan, 2008: by the book, outworking everyone, in the Super Bowl. The Falcons, and Ryan, have been rewarded, and a date with Tom Brady is the result.
* * *
COACH OF THE WEEK
Dan Quinn, head coach, Atlanta. All coaches coming from great programs get pegged as so-and-so’s “guy.” Quinn was Pete Carroll’s “guy.” High energy from day one, like Carroll. And, like Carroll, he was teamed with a personnel guy (Thomas Dimitroff) he really didn’t know. But from the start, Quinn was clear he wanted this team not to be “Seattle East” but rather “Atlanta Now.”
And there are some striking differences. But the important thing is Quinn has the Falcons in the Super Bowl in his second season—a great achievement considering he took over a 6-10 team that was comatose on defense and needed an injection of life. Quinn did that, and he built a very good defense in two years.
* * *
We Could Use a Great Game in No. 267
The Pats and Falcons haven’t played since a Sept. 29, 2013, meeting at the Georgia Dome.
Photo: Scott Cunningham/Getty Images
After 256 regular-season games and 10 in the playoffs, the NFL season comes down to game number 267 in Houston, Super Bowl LI between Atlanta and New England. I love the game, because there’s so much new and interesting about Atlanta (particularly on defense, where seven of the 12 “starters,” including third corner Brian Poole, are first or second-year players), and because there’s so much history on the line for New England.
Tom Brady and Bill Belichick could become the first QB-coach duo in history to win five Super Bowls. Brady could be the first quarterback in history to win five Super Bowls. It could be a momentous night in Houston 13 days from now.
And it’s new for the teams too. Of Atlanta’s 53-man roster, 37 players weren’t Falcons the last time these two teams met, a 30-23 win for New England at the Georgia Dome in 2013. It’s fresh for them, fresh for the players and coaches.
I loved Kyle Shanahan’s reaction when, just before I recorded a podcast conversation with him Sunday night in the Falcons’ equipment office at the Georgia Dome, I told the Falcons’ offensive coordinator it looked like the Super Bowl foe would be New England.
“Good,” he said. Not because he’s a cocky glutton for punishment, but because he wants to play the best. That sounds nuts, but what coach who considers himself really good at his job wouldn’t want to match wits with Bill Belichick and his staff in the game of the year?
By the way: I sure hope it’s the game of the year. We could use one. Average margin of victory in the 10 playoff games: 15.7. Games decided by 13 points or more in the 10 playoff games: eight.
New England (16-2, AFC top seed) versus Atlanta (13-5, NFC second seed), Feb. 5, 6:30 p.m. ET, NRG Stadium, Houston (retractable roof). New England will play in its ninth Super Bowl (a record), Atlanta its second. Tom Brady plays in his seventh, Matt Ryan his first. So clearly, the Patriots have cornered the market on experience. But Atlanta hasn’t shown many signs of being intimidated by the bright lights this postseason, putting up 80 points on Seattle and Green Bay, teams far more playoff-experienced than the Falcons; defensively Atlanta held the Aaron Rodgers-led Packer offense scoreless for the first 35 minutes Sunday.
It’ll be fascinating to see the game plan Josh McDaniels weaves after studying players he’s never faced—rangy and instinctive Falcons rookie middle ’backer Deion Jones, for instance—this week. The bigger New England secondary could be a matchup problem for Atlanta, even thought Julio Jones laughs at matchup problems. One Falcon told me Sunday night, “Julio’s playing with half a toe, and it doesn’t matter,” referring to a nagging turf toe injury that won’t get better until he gets four or five months of rest and rehab.
But if you saw his 73-yard catch-and-run and breaking of two tackles against Green Bay, you’ve got to figure the Patriots are going to try to eliminate him and let someone else beat them. That someone else might be Mohamed Sanu. I was disappointed in Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman (25 carries, 71 yards, long of 14) against Green Bay, and New England’s run defense is better. So that means it’s up to Matt Ryan to justify his MVP-ness and have a big day if Atlanta hopes to keep New England from its fifth Super Bowl win.
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Marveling at Brady
Photo: Jim Rogash/Getty Images
You are living through a remarkable time if you’re a football fan. You’re seeing one of the great athletic careers in history play out, apparently with no sign of diminution.
Tom Brady won his 24th NFL playoff game Sunday. To put that in some perspective—though, obviously, there are more playoff games today than there were for much of the NFL’s history—the Chicago Bears as a franchise have won 17, according to Pro Football Reference.
Considering that the Bears played their first playoff game in 1932 and are a flagship franchise of the league, and considering Brady was born in 1977, that’s quite a feat for the Patriots QB.
One more gem: New England’s total of 24 playoff wins with Brady under center surpasses the all-time postseason win totals of 25 of the remaining 31 NFL franchises.
Rightfully, having Bill Belichick coaching (with Josh McDaniels constructing the offense and Matt Patricia taking on increasing importance as a defensive brain and presence) and Tom Brady playing is just about the perfect formula for success. Brady, as our Jenny Vrentas wrote so smartly last week, is a perfect leader of the franchise because he likes to be coached, and he can take being coached hard, and Belichick has always believed in coaching hard.
I found it interesting last week that the Patriots put pads on before the 18th game of the season, at a time when most teams have put the practice pads away for the year. New England practiced in pads Wednesday. Nobody bitched. If Brady’s not bothered by it, no other player would dare be bothered by it.
The game against Pittsburgh was a good illustration of the Patriots’ intelligence and patience. Against a zone team like Pittsburgh, an offense has to be patient. It’s not likely to yield many over-the-top big plays; the Steelers challenge you to take yards and eventually make a turnover or get greedy and throw risky or incomplete passes downfield.
Now, I didn’t watch a lot of this game, but I did think the mid-second-quarter flea-flicker touchdown from Brady to Chris Hogan was very interesting. On a play like that, with Brady handing it to Dion Lewis, and Lewis shoveling it back to Brady, and Brady looking deep, a young secondary like Pittsburgh’s might be tempted to bite on the run. Well, Brady did catch the Steelers looking run, and slipping past the secondary was Hogan, who caught an easy touchdown from Brady.
One other thing, not to go all hagiography on the Patriots: After the game, the little-used Lewis was near tears in the locker room. Why? Because he finished with 11 yards rushing and was angry at the game plan? No. It’s because he’s going to his first Super Bowl. He never thought his meandering and previously unproductive career would take him this far.
But when you’re with the Patriots, you get the team concept. It’s the way they do business. If you don’t like it, you won’t be around long. If you’re okay with it, the Super Bowl is often at the end of the rainbow. Such as this season.
“Bill [Belichick] showed this pass that was probably the worst pass I’ve ever seen Brady throw. The ball just completely missed the wide receiver and ended up skipping to the ground and falling out of bounds. Bill was saying, ‘What kind of throw is this? I can get Johnny Foxborough from down the street to make a better throw than this.’ … If Brady is getting it, no one is safe. I just immediately fell in line.”
—Former Patriots receiver Donte’ Stallworth, recalling his first New England team meeting to Jenny Vrentas of The MMQB in her excellent story about the hard coaching that Tom Brady takes.
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The Times They Have a-Changed Dept.:
I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a playoff weekend as run-pass unbalanced as this one.
• No running back had a 20-yard run in either championship game.
• Sunday’s four rushing leaders by team gained 46, 42, 34 and 47 yards.
• Sunday’s four passing leaders by team threw for 392, 287, 384 and 314 yards.
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Tweets of the Week
View: https://twitter.com/daringantt/status/823282372330291203?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
View: https://twitter.com/JCaldwell92/status/823198977831174145?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
View: https://twitter.com/LATimesfarmer/status/821736679094374401?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
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• Joseph on lessons learned from Wade Phillips when they worked together on the Texans staff: “Wade Phillips is a Hall of Fame coach, but Wade taught me this: Players first, scheme second. Everything Wade did was based on the players. And I never had a bad day with Wade. If it was a win by 50 or a loss by 50, I never had a bad day with Wade.”
• Hawk on Aaron Rodgers: “I sat next to him in our team meetings for nine straight years. He was always the same guy … Now that I am thinking about it, I wish I would have taken some notes, and taken some more time to watch how he did conduct himself. Luckily I still get to talk to him a lot and see him a decent amount. It might be weird if I'm just hanging out with him having dinner and I'm taking notes. Do you think that's weird?
In team meetings you just sit wherever you want, there is no assigned seat. When I got drafted, Aaron reached out to me because he was the first-round pick the year before me, and he just kind of let me know what the process was like and what to expect. I didn't know anything, I was 21, 22 years old. We just started hanging out early on. My wife and I got married shortly after I got there, so my wife was always like a team mom to people, so she would have him over and cook dinner for him.”
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Things I Think I Think
1. I think these are my quick notes of analysis from championship Sunday:
a. For Tom Brady to feel old, here’s a factoid to hit him with: Matt Ryan capped his senior season at Boston College with a 24-21 bowl victory over Michigan State on Dec. 28, 2007 … and on the next night Brady and the Patriots capped their 16-0 regular season with that crazy 38-35 win over the Giants at the Meadowlands.
b. Imagine Ryan in his Chestnut Hill dorm or apartment, watching Brady dissect every defense in football in that perfect season; there’s no way he ever wondered, “Man, I’d love to face him in the Super Bowl sometime.”
c. I loved Atlanta offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan’s reaction when, just before we taped a podcast conversation Sunday night in the Falcons’ equipment office at the Georgia Dome, I told him it looked like the Super Bowl foe would be New England, and he said: “Good.”
d. Not that Shanahan thinks he can shred Belichick’s defense—far from it—but it’s the kind of bring-it-on attitude Kyle Shanahan has had his entire coaching career.
e. On fourth-and-two with 36 minutes left in the NFC title game, at the Green Bay 37, with the Pack down 17-0, Mike McCarthy punted—and I absolutely would not have.
f. At the conclusion of the final football game that will ever be played at the Georgia Dome, I had this reaction: Meh.
g. Seven Super Bowls for one quarterback (Brady) is just … just … well, it’s like what Elaine said that one time in Seinfeld: “I am speechless—I am without speech.”
h. The Falcons got a gem in Mohamed Sanu, who started to put the game out of reach and then Julio Jones finished it.
i. Classy, apt and loyal move by ESPN, naming their Sunday pregame studio after Chris Berman and Tom Jackson at the close of Berman’s last Sunday studio show in Bristol this weekend.
j. The way to stop childish but significant behavior like that of the person who, at 3 a.m. Sunday, pulled the fire alarm at the Steelers’ Boston hotel and forced its evacuation, is pretty simple: Put the idiot’s name on TV and in the papers, and make the perp serve two months in jail.
k. This Pittsburgh offense, which is supposed to be great with all these unstoppable weapons, managed two touchdowns in eight quarters at Kansas City and New England.
2. I think I’ll wish Johnny Manziel well on his road back to the real world, and I mean that. Anyone who is trying to turn around his life is to be commended. But this one’s going to take some time to believe.
I remember back almost three years, when he was an Eagle Scout at the 2014 combine, and during the pre-draft process, when he played the earnest prospect and very nearly had Mike Zimmer and the Vikings convinced he’d left his partying days back on his college campus in Texas. If I’m a GM, I’m saying to Manziel, even if he’s sober the next six months, “We’ll talk in 2018.”
3. I think I understand why the NFL moved commissioner Roger Goodell’s press conference up two days, from the Friday morning before the Super Bowl to Wednesday afternoon in Houston. (Something that’s gotten surprisingly little attention.) Especially with the Patriots in the game, there was no way the league wanted to have the buildup to the biggest game of the year marred by the wet blanket (apologies to Greg Bedard for stealing his patented phrase, but it applies here) of countless recitations of Deflategate in papers and websites and sportscasts two days before the Super Bowl.
In general, I believe the league did this to try to keep interest building in the game itself as it approaches. One other Goodell note, about him attending the game in Atlanta on Sunday instead of Foxboro: Goodell should have taken his Patriots medicine sometime in the regular season. He should have gone to a game some random Sunday in Foxboro, suffered the venom that would have come, so that this “Roger’s afraid of showing his face in Foxboro” thing (which I do not doubt he is) wouldn’t continue to be such a big story.
A few other notes about Super Bowl week:
a. The Patriots will practice Wednesday through Friday at the University of Houston’s football facility.
b. The Falcons will work out at Rice University.
c. The first media availability will be Monday night at Minute Maid Park. NFC interviews, on the field, will be from 8:10 to 9:10 p.m. ET, with AFC team interviews from 10 to 11 p.m.
d. Goodell and a few select players (not in the game) will have a fan forum event at the House of Blues in downtown Houston on Friday. Fans, mostly of the Texans, will be invited to ask questions.
e. And a most interesting Monday Super Bowl MVP celebration could be at 8:30 a.m. Houston time, if Tom Brady wins it. Goodell would have to be there to say nice things about Brady, and Brady will have to pose for photos with the man who banned him from the NFL for a quarter of this season.
4. I think this qualifies as a terrific waste of opportunity: Quarterback Deshaun Watson is skipping the Senior Bowl this week. Clemson’s Watson would logically have played for the South team, which will be coached by Hue Jackson and his Cleveland Browns’ assistants. If you’ve got faith in your ability, and you want to convince the coach of the team with the first pick in the draft—the team that desperately needs a quarterback and will almost certainly choose one high in the draft if it can’t trade for one or sign one before that—why would you not take the golden opportunity to work with Jackson for a week?
The other two prime quarterbacks in the draft, Mitch Trubisky and DeShone Kizer, were not eligible, either because they weren’t seniors or because they hadn’t graduated. But a couple notes about the Watson miss: The Browns talked to him and asked him to play this week; he declined. Some of the other players who in the past declined a Senior Bowl invitation went much lower in the draft, fairly or unfairly, than they’d hoped—Geno Smith, Brett Hundley, Connor Cook, A.J. McCarron.
I’m not saying the same fate will befall Watson. And I will be clear: If the Browns fall in love with Watson, the fact that he didn’t participate in the Senior Bowl won’t matter. But what if it’s close? What if Jackson’s on the fence about one or more quarterbacks? Just feels like a big miss to me.
5. I think there’s a lesson for all in handling crises, watching the way Steelers cheerleading coach Mike Tomlin handled the Antonio Brown one. Forcefully, with mild and controlled anger, facing it straight on. Textbook crisis management. The most disturbing thing to me, other than Brown putting his me-firstness on display for the world to see, were the players who ignored Tomlin’s post-game message. That has to stop.
6. I think Carl Cheffers, who will ref the Super Bowl, is one of the least-known NFL referees—and the NFL likes it that way. Football Zebrashas been on the Cheffers-as-Super Bowl-ref story for a few weeks now, and Mike Pereira had it last weekend for FOX. I asked Football Zebraseditor-in-chief Ben Austro (yes, there is a site covering NFL officiating, and Austro is really good at it) to give us a scouting report on Cheffers, in his ninth year as NFL referee. Writes Austro:
Carl Cheffers is not the kind of referee who is going to leave his mark on the average fan. He may not have the swagger of some of his contemporaries, but do not confuse his unassuming demeanor with weakness. Cheffers has been a steady hand at the wheel of his crew for some time. Cheffers is also known for an infamous face mask flag in 2015, which gave the opportunity for the Packers to beat the Lions on the resulting untimed down.
It was a call that 100 officials out of 100 would have made, even though slow-motion replay showed otherwise. When asked by a reporter at the Lions training camp about that call, Cheffers responded, “Dude, it's 2016.” Fans will always remember; Cheffers will, too, but his focus always must be on the next snap.
The most controversial call of this year’s playoffs was a flag thrown by Cheffers, a holding penalty on Chiefs tackle Eric Fisher that nullified Kansas City’s two-point conversion that would have tied the playoff game with the Steelers. While Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce leveled heavy criticism at Cheffers’ feet, it was a call he had to make.
No official wants to have the call that ends a team's season. It's not easy, but good officials step up, take control, and make the call in that situation, rather than letting the situation take control of the official. An entire season is made up of a few thousand “microcalls” that are all considered, but it turns out that, essentially, the last call he made exemplifies the fact that Cheffers belongs at the head of the crew on football's biggest stage.
