Pinch yourself Philly! Then again, I think the people of Philadelphia did enough of that last night as they literally tore apart their city limb for limb following the Eagles shocking Super Bowl victory over New England.
Yes, the Eagles are World Champions. They are champions because they beat the Patriots at their own game -- outscoring the Patriots in a shootout, while getting a few breaks to go their way as well. It all added up to one of the more exciting Super Bowl's we have seen in years, if not it was the highest scoring.
The game itself broke records all night. Gone is the total yards record in a Super Bowl. This game crushed that by a mile. The Eagles and Patriots combined for 1,151 yards of offense, a Super Bowl record. Tom Brady's 505 yards passing shredded his own record he set last season against Atlanta. Nick Foles' 373 yards passing was just four yards short of Kurt Warner's mark from Super Bowl XLIII, and was the fifth most yards in a game all time for a Super Bowl.
But really, outside the stats this game was about the guts of the Eagles. They openly embraced the idea of having to pull out every stop in order to beat the Patriots at their own game, and if that meant getting into a shootout so be it. That is where Doug Pederson deserves a tremendous amount of credit for the guts he showed Sunday night. Most coaches have steered clear of the aggressive play, instead settling for the safe conservative call against the Patriots, and almost all the time it comes back to bite them.
Not Pederson.
He remained aggressive even if the risk was too great. After the Eagles scored on a 21-yards scamper by LeGarrette Blount to make it 15-3 Eagles in the second quarter, Pederson decided to go for two points. The attempt failed, but he never let it bother him.
After Brady marched New England the length of the field in less than three minutes for a touchdown to cut the Eagles lead to 15-12, Philadelphia was quick to respond with a seven play, 70-yard drive engineered by Foles to quiet the New England comeback. The big play was Foles 55-yard completion to Corey Clement that stunned the crowd and set up the Eagles at the Patriots eight-yard line.
The Patriots would stiffen defensively, forcing a fourth down for the Eagles. Instead of being conservative and settling for three, Pederson dipped down into his bag of tricks and pulled out a play that will be remembered as the most important play of Super Bowl 52.
The Eagles sent a direct snap to Clement who handed the ball off to Trey Burton on the end around. Burton then flipped the ball to a wide open Nick Foles for the touchdown. 22-12, Eagles. While the game was not over, the play stood as a sign that this night belonged to Philadelphia.
And most ironic with that trick play was the fact that earlier in that second quarter, when the Patriots tried to pull their own tricks on the Eagles, it backfired when Brady dropped a wide open pass down the sideline.
In fact by the end of the night, Super Bowl LII had become a cruel joke to the Patriots. Every moment that would normally go the Patriots way did not.
First it was Stephan Goskowski missing a field goal, then the Brady drop. By the second half the football gods got their revenge on New England on two controversial touchdown calls. The first one with 7:18 to go in the third quarter when Corey Clement hauled in a 22-yard pass from Foles in the back of the end zone. On replay it appeared that the ball moved around in Clement's hands, but he never dropped the ball, and kept possession all the way through. The touchdown stood.The catch was eerily similar to the Jets-Patriots game in October when Austin-Seferian Jenkins caught a bass and fell into the end zone, but had the call reversed because the officials thought he bobbled the ball. This time, in the Super Bowl, the officials got the call right.
Later in the fourth quarter, Foles engineered another incredible Eagles drive that culminated in an 11-yard score to Zach Ertz who dove over a Patriots player and fell into the end zone. The ball bounced out of his hands when it touched the ground, then ended up back in Ertz's possession as he rolled over on his back.
Talk about Deja-Vu. Seven weeks ago the Patriots got a lucky break when Pittsburgh's Jesse James dove for the end zone and scored, but the officials said it was not a touchdown because the ball may have come out at the end of the catch. The call was wrong in that game, and James should have been awarded a touchdown. In a cruel twist of fate for the Patriots, the call came back to bite them in the Super Bowl. This time, the officials got the call right.
Then if this game could not go full circle enough. With the Patriots down to their final breaths, Brady was stripped of the football as he was trying to throw. It was ruled a fumble and the Eagles got the ball back. The last time such a play happened to Brady, he was in a driving snowstorm in Foxboro, on a play infamously called the Tuck Rule -- a play that began the Patriots Dynasty all those years ago. The football gods got their revenge.
And with it, the Eagles came out victorious. They withstood the Patriots machine and beat back the best team the League has to offer. Congrats Philly, enjoy it.
No comments:
Post a Comment