{"id":720,"date":"2008-02-04T14:25:11","date_gmt":"2008-02-04T20:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/?p=720"},"modified":"2008-02-04T14:27:07","modified_gmt":"2008-02-04T20:27:07","slug":"fo-on-sb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/?p=720","title":{"rendered":"FO on SB"},"content":{"rendered":"

Forget ESPN. If you want to know how the biggest upset in Superbowl history came about, read Football Outsiders<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Vince Verhei: I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m trying to find a metaphor that describes my surprise.<\/p>\n

I feel like I have learned which religion is correct, and it is not my own.<\/p>\n

I feel like aliens have been walking among us, and they have chosen to reveal themselves en masse.<\/p>\n

I feel like my life has been one great science experiment, and I am not in the control group.<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got a mini-notebook filled with play-by-play notes and reactions, but \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 we all saw the game. The Patriots\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 pass protection was futile. If the Giants blitzed, the blitzer came through unblocked. If they rushed four, those four got pressure anyway. The Patriots were outschemed (Steve Spagnuolo is a genius) and outmanned.<\/p>\n

When Brady did have time, he was highly erratic. One example: He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got Randy Moss open on first-and-goal in the fourth quarter, and throws it way high and outside. Didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t matter much, because he found him on third down, but it was the most notable example of his un-Brady day.<\/p>\n

The Patriots got away from their identity for the first 55 minutes of this game. Where were the slants and quick outs? They didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t show up until that last touchdown drive. It seemed like Brady was looking for the home run every play, and some of those sacks came because he held the ball too long.<\/p>\n

I still can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe this, but the Patriots were completely outcoached today.<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure what exactly to say about the Giants offense vs. the Patriots defense \u00e2\u20ac\u201d that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the only part of this game that went largely as expected. Eli Manning was great again, really going without a turnover (that interception was clearly not his fault, and the Giants recovered both of his fumbles) and leading two go-ahead drives in the fourth quarter. Is that a Super Bowl first?<\/p>\n

So, here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what we say about the Giants: They were a very ordinary team for 17 weeks. They then caught absolute fire (Has any team ever beaten three better teams than Dallas\/Green Bay\/New England in the playoffs?) and won the Super Bowl. Why did that catch us off guard? Because there was no indication this was going to happen. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s unprecedented. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s inexplicable. It defies all rational thought.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Forget ESPN. If you want to know how the biggest upset in Superbowl history came about, read Football Outsiders. Vince Verhei: I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m trying to find a metaphor that describes my surprise. I feel like I have learned which religion is correct, and it is not my own. I feel like aliens have been walking among … Continue reading FO on SB<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BzKF-bC","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}