LII :::: the super bowl of hate :::: philadelphia eagles vs new england patritos

we have the pro bowl here this weekend.

nobody in town cares.

my too-early super bowl thots:

with philly’s very strong d front and mediocre secondary, the obvious route to victory for the patriots is to throw the ball 60 times and gas the rush so brady can pick the coverage apart in the 4th quarter, a very belichick gameplan. however, one complicating factor is depth, with the eagles having a strong rotation of 7 guys on their line. i can easily imagine schwartz featuring his best guys in the first quarter and the fourth and denying new england the chance to get an early lead or rely on late heroics again. another complicating factor is that the pats won’t have the ball enough if the eagles offense stays on the field. their o line has also been winning its match ups, and ajani/blount plus rpos plus foles making plays when called on is a recipe for long drives. usually the patriots would just absorb those long drives and keep them out of the endzone (regular season: 32nd in yards per drive – 35.27, 6th in pts per drive – 1.65) but letting philadelphia keep their d guys fresh could be game breaking.

if the eagles play their best game and all of the pieces work, it will look pretty bleak for the patriots. in fact, it will probably look just like that first giants super bowl, with brady getting beaten up and new england held in the teens and losing. BUT the elements are so interdependent that if one part breaks up the whole machine might not work. if the running game doesn’t fire then new england gets the ball too much. if foles reverts to regular season form then the eagles will struggle to score. if the pass rush doesn’t make brady uncomfortable the pats will score too much. and there are other factors that make the margin so small for the eagles. new england has a special teams edge that means their drives will likely be shorter overall and the eagles’ longer, and philly’s rookie kicker could become a wildcard. philly’s defense stops big plays on the outside but they are bottom half of the league vs both TEs and wr3s which is p significant vs gronk and dola.

overall, while i do believe if both teams play their best game philadelphia is favoured in the match up, i think there are more scenarios where the patriots win.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C37Z2wkVcAALnrS.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C37Z2wjUEAEHXPk.jpg

KEY SNAX

https://abs.twimg.com/hashflags/SuperBowl2018/SuperBowl2018.png

So what are Eagles fans concerned about most? pic.twitter.com/lbh3LB0XnE

— Laces Out (@LacesOutShow) January 29, 2018

cheat me out of a superbowl once shame on you

i gotta say. those are some fucked up looking hoagies

this Eagles team kinda takes me back to the NY Giants Super Bowl win in 1991, when Simms was injured and Hostetler competently took over and they beat the Bills.

http://rs1341.pbsrc.com/albums/o758/foodandfemininity/IMG_8966_zpsaa7c12f2.jpg?w=480&h=480&fit=clip

https://i.imgur.com/R06T7A9.jpg

Awful Announcing has put up their drinking game rules for SB LII
http://awfulannouncing.com/nfl/awful-announcings-super-bowl-lii-drinking-game.html

Sip every time you hear:
“12 stitches”
“28-3”
“Underdog”
“Deflategate”
“5 Super Bowl rings”

Drink 1 every time you hear these words associated with the following players:
Tom Brady: “40”
Nick Foles: “Journeyman”
Rob Gronkowski: “Concussion protocol”
LeGarrette Blount: “Longtime Patriot”
Danny Amendola: “Clutch”

Drink 2 every time NBC shows:
The temperature outside
Footage from Super Bowl 39 between the Patriots & Eagles
Carson Wentz or Julian Edelman watching from the sidelines
Gisele Bündchen looking distressed
Robert Kraft getting hammered

Drink 3 every time Al Michaels:
Says “YUGE” like Donald Trump
Ponders a big decision with “Hmmmmmm…”
Says “3rd and a deuce”
Describes a trick play as “Razzle dazzle”
Butchers pronouncing Jay Ajayi’s name

Chug every time Cris Collinsworth says:
“RPO”
“National Football League”
Anything about Peyton or Eli Manning
“We talked about…” or “You talk about…”
“NOW, HERE’S A GUY…”

that sounds like a recipe for alcohol poisoning

yeah you would need your stomach pumped by half time

love to die during our nations favorite game

preferable to having to watch Kraft hoist another trophy

wow, washington trades for alex smith, pushing kirk cousins out the door when a lot of ppl figured they would pay to keep him. cousins says he wants to win now - denver? jax?

i doubt the return is much but lol @ paying any price to downgrade yourself from cousins to smith

hahahaha they're giving back a second-round pick!

v comparable qbs imo
im more certain that smith will never win a big game than i am cousins, tho he probably wont either

i think that's the difference! kirk cousins could in theory win you a game. alex smith is never winning you a game.

third round pick and a player. for a qb kc were desperate to get off their payroll. and a 5y extension already, $70m guarantees. amazing.

i would much rather be paying that money over that period for cousins

i mean, cousins will undoubtedly get paid a lot more somewhere, but even so

that is just fucking crazy

qb pay scale was already going to go thru the roof this off season, starting like this won't help

oh man they sent a good player too, kendall fuller at cb, slotting nicely into a position of need for the chiefs. in one move they picked up a starter, shed $17m cap hit and a qb controversy, and picked up a 3rd round pick.

lol someone is gonna get suckered into giving Case Keenum a huge contact

someone close to home

i learned today looking at the twitter replies to kevin clark's article about the patriots and penalties that many people are absolutely and genuinely convinced that the nfl is influencing its officials to give new england favourable calls

Belichick shuts off the hot water in the locker room every time a player false starts, so this is no shock really

xp

I can confirm this. I get it all the time from people down here in TX.

I had someone tell me last week that they only win because of cheating and refs.

The Jags were definitely hinting at this after the last game because of the big PI call.

i thought this kind of thing was always just banter/shit talk but...

remarkable

have noticed this theory really gaining steam recently

also ppl r generally really bad at understanding penalty calls

also pats are big cheaters in general

in order to know the patriots you must understand that they are small cheaters

but anyway theres no way to cheat the refs, that wld be the refs cheating

I think we can just agree that if the pats win this sunday it will be because they have cheated

no it will be because the eagles didnt cheat enough

it may also be because Tom Brady is a sociopath who has assimilated and subsumed so many playbooks that he's incapable of remembering anything but the most base forms of human interaction and emotion, casting them and his wide eyed proteges aside in his quest for GOAT status.

that seems p likely

i don't think the nfl/refs favor the pats (other than perhaps subconsciously, as they tend to play their playoff games at home)

otoh i totally believe that the league *would* tilt basically any scales if it thought it could get away with it/would somehow make more money, because it is run by dumb greedy people

I mean, I kind of get it. The Pats definitely like to draw big PI calls, which sometime appear questionable. They pick up far fewer penalties than their opponents, which is mostly down to better discipline. But many people think they don't get called enough. Gronk, in particular is a target of these complaints.

OTOH, I don't know how anyone with eyes can't see that the Pats constantly make all kinda of sick plays on both sides of the ball. To me, they are willfully ignoring the fact that the Pats are obviously extremely good.

i think that if you're caught cheating multiple times ppl will think that you're a cheater

i learned today looking at the twitter replies to kevin clark's article about the patriots and penalties that many people are absolutely and genuinely convinced that the nfl is influencing its officials to give new england favourable calls

― Roberto Spiralli, Thursday, February 1, 2018 11:53 AM (thirty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

heres that article, pretty interesting

“He comes in [to team meetings] and says, ‘OK, we have this set of officials this week,’” said Harrison, now an analyst at NBC Sports. “‘They’ve called 18 pass interference penalties, they call a lot of holding, illegal procedures.’ He briefed us. Belichick, when he coaches, everyone is prepared. Probably too much.”

https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/2/1/16958718/super-bowl-new-england-patriots-bill-belichick-rules-penalties-study

The Pats are like the Spurs, basically a model franchise w/a preternaturally gifted coach who is able to adapt to virtually any situation and put them in a position to win it all every year. of course one of those teams is in the NFL and its coach is not a cuddly woke dude but instead is Trump's secret penpal so....

I think people have a hard time wrapping tbeir head around the fact that purposefully drawing penalties is a part of the game, even when they've seen a million hard counts, hurry-up snaps, icing the kicker, etc, etc.

imagine how horrible its gonna be if brady retires and the patriots keep appearing in the afc champ game every year

mordy trolling with the hypotheticals i guess but it is worth bringing up how the patriots were punished after being ineptly framed by another team and the league in the context of a discussion about how the league is biased in their favour

lol

The Patriots’ knowledge of the rule book is not just to keep players disciplined and help them avoid penalties, Pereira said. It’s also proved to be a game-planning edge. That showed itself most notably when the Patriots disguised their eligible receivers in a playoff game against the Baltimore Ravens three years ago, a move John Harbaugh labeled “clearly deception.” In response, Tom Brady said the Ravens should “study the rule book.”

“Belichick knows the rules. The Ravens and other teams go crazy because they don’t know the rules, and then people think it’s a conspiracy,” Daopoulos said. “He just does a better job on this. He’s better prepared than anyone.”