Your 2012 Superbowl LXVI Thread

I just can't give too much credit to a team that only really had a single (real) td drive the whole game

yeah geez guys let's not go nuts here

xp you noticed that they won, though, right? turns out there's more to do in a football game than score points.

My takeaway was that neither of these teams were really that great (

I mean really, if they replayed the playoffs, id think that every team sans denver would have a roughly similar chance at it

:-/

right, I think they played well enough to win! looking at the stats, the only thing they really dominated w/ was time of possession, otherwise the game was v. even. but they didn't do much w/ the ball considering how much they had it, and that margin is mostly due to the 1st quarter safety. xp

parity

scoring is only one of the desirable things you can do when you have the ball, and sometimes not even the most desirable (eg the bradshaw td). NY made the game shorter and improved their field position on every single drive. those were critical factors in why they won.

yet scoring was an even more critical factor and they mostly failed on that front!

tho they ultimately failed at scoring less than ne failed at scoring

your glass is half empty

scoring was not necessarily more critical - if they had scored often fast instead of scoring less often but slowly, they probably would have lost that more expansive game. you are oversimplifying a complex business

the slow consistent possessions were the obvious strategy versus the patriots, the key weakness exploited and the key strength to nullified, and the giants did just that. i really think they were excellent in that game.

if u rly think about it pats won the game in a way

discus

I mean really, if they replayed the playoffs, id think that every team sans denver would have a roughly similar chance at it

― Xerox of Fate, Tuesday, February 7, 2012 12:33 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^ this

i mean, in order to really judge who was "better" or over/underplayed we'd have to run the same game a bunch of times.

sports are about ~the unknowability of events as they emerge through time~ man

the slow consistent possessions were the obvious strategy versus the patriots, the key weakness exploited and the key strength to nullified, and the giants did just that. i really think they were excellent in that game.

they ran at a slightly higher rate than the pats but this was still a game w/ 40 manning attempts. they had the ball more due to the safety + brady int more than any real strategy imo. I never buy the 'we're going to keep the ball but *not score a td* as a strategy'. they wanted to score tds and they failed at scoring tds.

the slow consistent possessions were the obvious strategy versus the patriots, the key weakness exploited and the key strength to nullified, and the giants did just that. i really think they were excellent in that game.

― Roberto Spiralli, Tuesday, February 7, 2012 1:44 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

pats dfensive game plan also fostered this, playing like zero 1-on-1 man coverage so there'd be no big plays downfield...

idk, i give the pats secondary some real credit. they played above their reputation, at least. eli fit the ball into some v tight spaces & there were a lot of v hard hits delivered by pats dbs

the fact that the giants needed a last minute td drive was a culmination of their previous failures, not some grand strategy

for some reason thinking about this game is much more interesting than actually watching it was

yet scoring was an even more critical factor and they mostly failed on that front!

― iatee, Tuesday, February 7, 2012 1:41 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

tho they ultimately failed at scoring less than ne failed at scoring

― iatee, Tuesday, February 7, 2012 1:42 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

these two posts are cracking me the fuck up

new england is pretty lucky that brady managed to complete a couple of passes over JPP's paws at crucial times, tbh the game wasn't as close as it looked, giants dominated them, probably should have been 57-3

you guys are nuts

rex grossman beat the giants twice and *almost* beat the patriots, so he really should have been super bowl mvp

hahaha

guys, guys. at the end of the day, didn't we all win?

you guys are nuts
--horseshoe

soup to nuts

new england is pretty lucky that brady managed to complete a couple of passes over JPP's paws at crucial times, tbh the game wasn't as close as it looked, giants dominated them, probably should have been 57-3

I just don't see where this comes from

http://i.imgur.com/AOnW4.jpg

halfway through the 4th q and the giants are in a pretty shitty spot and the game is effectively out of eli's hands. pats offensive deserves credit for fucking this up, but if we're looking at the game at that point the story def isn't 'everything's going by plan for the giants'. and as much as the next two drives defined the end result, if you've only got half a q left and the game is essentially out of your hands that's not a game you 'played well' imo.

oh shit a chart

I'm right...scientifically

the giants didn't completely dominate the game so how can they have played well? i have seen teams score over 50 points loads of times and they didn't get half that many!

context is nothing, chart is everything

the chart is the context! I'm not saying the giants 'didn't play well' or even that they played worse than the pats. they played fairly competently, their offense didn't do a v. good job at getting points on the board, which does matter and put them in a pretty shitty spot in the 4th q. pats also played competently, which is why one or two catches would have turned the game.

(takes out calculator and nerd glasses, goes and plays madden)

iatee OTM

I'm not saying the giants 'didn't play well'
that's not a game you 'played well' imo.

lol

probably should have been 57-3

this was a joke

SANCHEZ

serious "pythagorean expectation" answer: giants should have won 37-0.

safety would have been a brady pick returned for a TD, 7-0. cruz td catch, 14-0. gotkowski FG blocked, returned for TD. 21-0. back and forth for awhile, brady marches downfield and passes towards woodhead, blocked by JPP. halftime: 21-0. hernandez drops easy td pass in 3rd quarter, 21-0 still. 2 FGs from tynes, 27-0. bradshaw TD run, 34-0. brady fumbles on opening play of subsequent drive, recovered by giants, tynes FG as time expires, 37-0.

Adding fuel to the fire:
http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/features/2011/nfl_2011/super_bowl/giants_patriots_super_bowl_math_says_if_wes_welker_catches_that_ball_the_patriots_win_.html

http://www.hardballtimes.com/images/uploads/draft_lens5758742module44658582photo_1246966406blackholes.gif

according to my math, if the Patriots had scored more points than the Giants, then the Patriots would have won

^^^crazytalk

that seems to be in line with the controversial 'scoring is important' narrative that I've been attempting to sell

i thought the whole point of super bowls was to have really good teams play against each other? meaning the statistical certainties get whittled down to hazy 50/50s? which is what happened?

i'm kind of losing track of what this argument even is

the argument = "ILXers wish Superbowl had lasted forever, attempt to simulate it via opinions; also, lol @ Patritos"

two really good teams playing each other doesn't always lead to 50/50 games, but this one did. I guess my only argument is that if the giants played better they did by a v. tiny margin really but, yeah, that was enough. this was a margin of error game and not at all a victory that demonstrated that the giants were 'better'.

well sure, cue angry swigging