Back to the Beginning, 17 Years Later

​Chuckleheads, the Super Bowl is here and once again Tom Brady and the Patriots will go for another Championship. Much like last year against the Eagles, this year’s Super Bowl will be another rematch. 17 years later the Los Angeles Rams –formerly in St. Louis – with its strong defense and young offense – lead by Goff and Gurley – and the New EnglandPatriots – led by Tom Brady and Bill Belichick – will face off, as the Patriots are not quite ready to give up their dominance of the league just yet. The Patriots are favored to win and thehistory between the two teams leans opinions in that way. I’m not here to tell you what your opinion should be. I am simply going to give you some information and you can decide for yourself who will come away with the win this year.

​Nine times in 17 years, Super Bowl week has been headlined by Brady and Belichick, and it all started with a showdown with, at the time, the greatest show on turf. The St. Louis Rams were led by QB Kurt Warner, RB Marshall Faulk and WR Isaac Bruce – just to name a few Rams players at the time. That game ended in what was labeled an upset win for the Patriots. Now, however, we look back on it and ask ourselves if it was really an upset. Tom Brady got the ball back with 1:21 left on the clock at his own 17-yard-line and proceeded to drive his team close enough for Adam Vinatieri to kick a 48-yard game winning field goal. At the time, it may have very well been an upset. However, 17 years later, we ask: is it just what Tom Brady does? When the team needs him to, he always manages to drive them down the field and either allow the kicker to solidify the victory, or he makes it happen with his arm.  These two teams have almost flipped places from what they were 17 years ago. The patriots are coming into the game as the reigning power in the AFC, and the Rams with the collective young talent who seem to be a team on the rise in the NFC.

​For the Rams, there is quite a large bit of controversy surrounding their road to the Super Bowl after a no-call on pass interference/helmet to helmet that helped propel the game to overtime where the Rams’ kicker, Greg Zuerlein, booted a 57-yard field goal to send them to the Super Bowl. The fact that the Super Bowl – like the NFC Championship – is in a dome, it has to make you wonder that if the game is close, will Zuerlein play a factor in how the game could end? Tom Brady will have to be on high alert this Sunday against the defensive line for the Rams, led by Aaron Donald and his league-leading 20.5 sacks this season. It has been said in the past that the best way to rattle a QB like Brady is to get pressure on him and get him off of his spots in the pocket. The Rams do this better than most teams. On the offensive side of the ball, the Rams will rely on third-year-QB Jared Goff and his weapons. His primary receiving target will be former Patriots’ WR Brandin Cooks, who caught seven passes in the NFC championship for 107 yards. The running game for the Rams will need to be clicking on all cylinders with fourth year stud Todd Gurley, who had his worst game of his career against the Saints: ten yards on four carries. They will also need RB CJ Anderson, who has emerged as a solid second in the backfield. 

​Bill Belichick will have his team ready to do what they do, with a fundamental offense running between the tackles and throwing short-timing routes. What Belichick and his Patriots do so well is they lull you into complacency and then hit a big play to the likes of Chris Hogan or Rob Gronkowski. When that does work the Patriots do not change or alter, they stay to the game plan and, nine times out of ten, they win with it. Gronk is a matchup nightmare: when you choose to double him, Brady seems to have the knack to find the open man. The AFC Championship was a clear sign of this: any time there was a double near the mammoth tight end, Gronkowski, Julian Edelman was Tom Brady’s go-to, as he is Tom’s safety blanket.Hate them or love them, the Patriots win games because of attention to detail and waiting for the other team to make a mistake to capitalize upon. In order to win against New England, you have to play a perfect game or force them to make uncharacteristic mistakes.

​Throughout the playoffs, Brady has been playing in to the narrative going around the sports media outlets that has beensaying that he is “too old” or that “the dynasty is dead.” If that was even remotely the case, then the Patriots would not be going back to the Super Bowl for the third straight year. Has father time started to creep up and catch Tom? Can Tom Brady still get the job done? Until someone proves otherwise, I would say that he can still get the job done. The last thought I will leave you with chuckleheads is: wouldn’t it be an interesting “end” to the dynasty if the Patriots lose to the team that the dynasty started with? 

Prediction: Patriots 27 Rams 24, Patriots win on a last second field goal……… history repeats itself.

Is “Player Safety” Really the Focus?

       Chuckleheads, it has been too long and I have a lot to talk about in the sports world: so let’s get back on this journey together!
        For years now, the NFL has painted a picture that their main goal is to make the game safer. In print, the idea sounds great, but is it really helping with safety? The league seems to only make calls for helmet to helmet when it is suits them. The push for seasons expanding to 18 weeks has been floated around. Football is a contact sport, and if athletes continue to grow bigger, stronger, and faster, there is going to be an added element of danger. Changing rules and staples of the game has not and is not helping the game or the product the NFL is producing.
The NFL leads the way with teaching proper tackling to prevent injury. This has included implementing programs such as the “Heads Up” training. This program offers – and, in many states, requires – youth and high school programs the opportunity to learn the proper way to tackle to avoid head, neck, and spinal injuries. The NFL also started using an independent athletic trainer know as ACT spotters. The purpose of these trainers is to spot potential head, neck, and spinal injuries. This all sounds great, right? Ask yourself why week in and week out you see plays where players get up and are visibly disoriented, and yet are back in a play or two, or even worse: left on the field. Concussions and injuries are a part of the game and players fully understand that when they start playing – now more than ever. The question is: why put all these people in place to identify these injuries if they are just there for show?
With players getting bigger, faster, and stronger every day with new training supplements and private training sessions, the league is taking the stance that the lower the hit, the better. This is a good and a bad thing all rolled into one jumble. With head safety, eliminating or trying to eliminate helmet to helmet hits makes total sense – no one can argue that fact. Targeting is the penalty that is used as a deterrent for these types of hits. It’s simple: the officials deem your hit to be targeting and you are gone for the rest of the game, plus what the league gives you as a punishment. Targeting is where the argument goes off the rails. Countless times we have seen textbook-form tackles called as targeting, and that’s where the League is forcing players to change tactics to make a tackle. Players are now forced to make a split-second decision to hit a player in the chest or go lower. The lower the hits go, the greater the increase is for lower body injuries such as knee injuries, ankle injuries, and other lower body problems. In reality, they have attempted to solve one risk injury by opening the players up to other types of injuries. Doesn’t make much sense, does it?
The league only claims safety when they are getting bashed for being unsafe, and then the solution to the problem is to make the games unwatchable because, as an average fan, you have no idea what a good tackle and bad tackle is and players are still getting hurt. Improving the form of tackling will help the head, neck, and spinal injuries to decrease. Quit teaching people to launch themselves into others and teach them to wrap up and keep the legs moving. The League has started to do this with things they have implemented, but there is still enormous room for growth and improvement. The biggest lie is that the NFL doesn’t love the big knockout shots, and do you know why that is? Because the fans of the football love to see big hits – because that is what the game is.
Written by: Carlo Guadagnino