It seems downright unfair just how long the Patriots have been able to remain dominant. Whether they win or lose Super Bowl 52, Tom Brady and Bill Belichick will have made more Super Bowl appearances and won more Lombardi trophies than all but a handful of franchises. What might seem even more frustrating to fans of other teams is the fact that the Brady-Belichick duo appears to have at least one more season left in the tank following Sunday's rematch of the 2004 Super Bowl.
The Eagles are an entirely different team than the one that last took the field on a Super Bowl Sunday. Donovan McNabb has long since retired, and Andy Reid has found his way to Kansas City to turn the Chiefs into a playoff team. Nearly all the players currently in the league were teenagers or children when the Patriots and Eagles last squared off for a title, and yet here's Tom Brady dominating against an entirely new generation of athletes.
As historically dominant as the Patriots have been, they're not invincible--it just often seems that way. Like any other team in the league, the Patriots have won games this season by razor thin margins and have even been beaten on occasion. The Patriots even tend to struggle at the beginning of the regular season as they rotate through players (except Tom Brady) with a fairly high degree of frequency, and it takes them time to get new pieces to fit into a tried and true system.
Not only do the Eagles have a different quarterback than they had in 2004, but they have a different quarterback than they had through the first 14 weeks of this season. It's highly likely that the Eagles wouldn't have had nearly the same record with Nick Foles as their starting quarterback for the entirety of the 2017 regular season, but Foles has, nevertheless, proven himself worth of the playoffs by doing just enough to beat the Falcons, and putting on a clinic against a Vikings defense that spent nearly all of this season suffocating opposing offenses. Foles may not be Carson Wentz, but maybe he doesn't have to be Wentz to get the job done. After all, Tom Brady was a backup once too...
I haven't run into many people who have expressed the belief that either one of these teams will win in a blowout. Both the Patriots and Eagles produced defenses that allowed some of the fewest points in the league this season, and the last two Super Bowls the Patriots won were impossibly close. Who could forget last season when the Patriots won despite literally never leading during regulation, and equally unforgettable was New England's goal line stand against the Seahawks two years earlier to shock everyone who assumed Marshawn Lynch would simply rumble for one triumphant yard to secure Seattle's second Super Bowl win in a row. As dominant as the Patriots have been, they don't tend to dominate their opponents in the big game, and that's what will hopefully make 52 nearly, if not equally, exciting!
STATISTICAL ANALYSIS
Both the Eagles and Patriots faced elite defenses in their respective conference championship games two weeks ago. The Patriots found a way to score on the vaunted Jaguars defense after going down 14-0 early on, Tom Brady hit Danny Amendola for the go-ahead score with only a few minutes left in the forth quarter. The Eagles, meanwhile, absolutely embarrassed a Vikings defense that wasn't used to being embarrassed. One might conclude that the Eagles have a greater degree of momentum coming into this game given the way they trounced their last opponent. After all, the Steelers put up a whopping 42 points on that same Jaguars defense only one week earlier. One thing to remember, however, is that the Patriots found a way to move the football on that Jaguars defense without significant use of Rob Gronkowski as he was taken out of the game with a brutal helmet to helmet hit early on.
Rob Gronkowski accounted for 23.6 percent of Tom Brady's passing yards this season and 25% of Brady's passing touchdowns. Gronk is also an excellent blocker, and even when he's not receiving the football, he's consistently commands double teams, thus, helping to open things up for New England's other offensive weapons. The last time the Patriots played without Gronk before the playoffs, they lost to the Miami Dolphins 27-20. Suffice it to say that the fact that the Patriots were able to find a way to move the football through the air against the team with the league's most dominant corner tandem means they'll be that much better when Brady's biggest target returns.
The Philadelphia Eagles were able to stifle and stonewall some pretty elite weapons when they beat the Falcons three weeks ago. With only the 17th ranked pass defense over the course of the regular season, I didn't believe the Eagles would be able to cover the likes of Mohammed Sanu and the great Julio Jones. Lo and behold, the Eagles defensive line was able to consistently pressure Matt Ryan enough to throw him off his game, and Philly even stopped the Falcons from scoring from inside the 2 yard line to seal the win. What shouldn't have been ignored was the Eagles' 13.375 points allowed per game at home during the regular season. The Eagles, however, won't be playing at home this weekend.
Philadelphia's defense performed quite differently on the road in 2017. They allowed an average of 23.5 points per away game, and allowed some extremely weak teams to play them closely as a result. The Patriots allowed a surprisingly high 21.875 points per game in Foxborough during the 2017 regular season, but they allowed a far more impressive 16.125 points per game on the road. Seldom do we see defenses perform better on the road than at home, but somehow that's exactly what happened for New England this season. That isn't to say New England's defense performs badly at home as it just held the Titans to 14 points in a divisional round rout and held the Jaguars to 20 points only a week after the Jags rumbled through Pittsburgh for 45 points largely on the legs of Leonard Fournette. What's equally astonishing is the fact that the Patriots road offense was nearly as good as their offense was at home. On the road, the Patriots scored and average 27.875 points per game, and at home they averaged 29.375 points per game. That means that the Patriots' average margin of victory on the road was 11.75 points, and that's over 4 points higher than their 7.5 point average margin of victory at home.
New England's only road defeat this season was the aforementioned loss to the Dolphins without Gronk who was, at the time, serving a suspension for a dirty hit on a Bills player the week before. A team that can go 7-1 on the road, more specifically 7-0 with their current available personnel, should be incredibly dangerous in a game held on a neutral field. As highly touted as the Vikings defense was this season, it allowed a significantly greater number of points per game on the road than that of the Patriots, and it was for that reason that I predicted an Eagles win in the NFC Championship. A defense that travels well is a defense built for the post-season.
To correctly assess the Eagles' chances of slowing down Brady and company, we'll have to examine how the Eagles fared outside of Philly against pass-heavy teams. The Patriots did finish 10th in rushing yards this season, but it's safe to say that they'll respect the run-stuffing ability of the Eagles' league-leading run defense, and choose to instead attack Philly's secondary. Philadelphia ranked a modest 17th in the league in pass defense this season, and because of this, they allowed teams such top 10 passing teams as the Chargers and Rams to put up significant offensive yards in road games. The Chargers were 0-4 when Philip Rivers threw for 347 yards and two touchdowns in a narrow 26-24 loss in San Diego to a Carson Wentz-led Eagles team. Eli Manning had easily the worst season of his career in 2017, but he threw for 434 yards and 3 touchdowns when the Eagles visited the Meadowlands in Week 15. The Eagles generally held their own defensively at home, but even awful teams were capable of racking up monster passing yards against them away from South Philly.
That isn't to say that the Patriots won't run the football, but they will likely look to establish a passing rhythm to help open up running lanes for the likes of Dion Lewis and Rex Burkhead. The Patriots, meanwhile, typically eviscerated teams with pass defenses in the bottom half of the league--even in road games. The Pats beat the Bills 23-3 in Buffalo, and the Bills pass defense is was ranked 20th in the league. Brady threw for 447 passing yards and 3 touchdowns as the Patriots soundly defeated the Saints in New Orleans 36-20. The scary thing is that the Patriots even put up serious passing yards on teams with highly ranked pass defenses to such as the Broncos and Steelers.
PREDICTION
So what does this all mean? Well the Eagles ranked 3rd in points scored and 4th in points allowed this season, while the Patriots ranked 2nd in points score and 5th in points allowed this season. The difference is that only the Patriots defense traveled well. The fact that the Eagles allowed an average of nearly 11 more points on the road than at home is just too great a statistic to ignore, and their pass defense on the road was exposed by bottom-feeding teams even if the Eagles ended up finding a way to win. The fact that the Patriots defense allowed less points per game on the road than at home this year and the team experienced a greater margin of victory away from Foxborough means their success doesn't depend on a home crowd, a lack of travel, or environmental familiarity. Rob Gronkowski's presence will do wonders to take pressure off of the Patriots' other weapons, give Brady more time to throw, and help to open up holes for running backs. Gronk is a nearly uncoverable red-zone target, and only an injury tends to reduce his effectiveness. It would certainly be nice to see a franchise win its first ring, but nothing about the Eagles' road record this season suggests that Nick Foles can out-duel history's most successful playoff quarterback.
PATRIOTS 31-23
I CAN'T SAY I HAVE A DOG IN THIS FIGHT, BUT LET'S HOPE FOR AN EXCITING GAME! STAY TUNED FOR A POST-COMBINE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF THE RAVENS DRAFT WISHLIST, AND HATS OFF TO RAY LEWIS FOR REACHING FOOTBALL IMMORTALITY IN CANTON!!
NOW AND FOREVER
GO RAVENS! (GO TRADE UP IN THE SECOND ROUND TO DRAFT D.J. MOORE!!)
