By RILEY RADOBENKO
Columnist
Brady and Goff. Belicheck and McVay. Hekker and Allen.
That last pairing should not be in the same sentence as the other four guys. In fact, those two guys should be nowhere near that sentence. But those two punters had their work cut out for them during Super Bowl LIII.
It was the lowest-scoring Super Bowl of all-time after the New England Patriots defeated the Los Angeles Rams in a 13-3 snooze fest.
I think defensive enthusiasts may have even been bored after watching this one.
I’ve said the Patriots secondary is not the strongest, and with the Rams elite offence, I for sure thought they would be able to move the ball around and score a few touchdowns. They didn’t even score one, becoming the second team that has failed to do so in the Super Bowl.
The Patriots defense held the Rams offence to 260 yards. At halftime, Julian Edelman had more yards than that. They also held them to 14 first downs, which isn’t great, and Hekker had more punts than Goff had completions, which again, isn’t great. 45 per cent of the plays ran tonight went zero yards. Not a good night for them.
The Rams defense kept them in the game, and how about Johnny Hekker. Nine punts for 417 yards, while recording the longest punt in Super Bowl history at 58 yards, which happened to arguably be the most exciting play of the game.
Ryan Allen, the Patriots Punter, wasn’t too shabby either as he punted five times for 215 yards, and eventually getting the last laugh as he’s now a Super Bowl champion.
Outside of Julian Edelman, these two guys were the most exciting players of the entire game. All the hype was Brady against Goff, and both of those guys were garbage during this game.
He’s not the only one to blame, but was Goff afraid to throw the ball? Sacked four times in the Super Bowl? At times, he tried to get to fancy. Other times, he tried to become a hero. He went 19-of-38 for only 229 yards, while throwing an interception in the fourth quarter. Not an ideal performance in the Super Bowl.
Now, in all fairness, Brady was no better. In fact, he threw an interception on the Patriots first drive. Of course in Tom Brady fashion, he turned it on when he needed to, and he made the needed adjustments that led into the game-winning drive, where he completed four straight passes. But overall he threw for just 262 yards, which isn’t that impressive all things considering.
The only time Brady was relatively sharp is when he was throwing to Edelman, who finished with 10 catches for 141 yards, which was good enough to win Super Bowl LIII MVP honors.
In all reality, if Bill Belichick could win MVP, he should. He came up with a game plan to shut down the Rams offence, and made adjustments when he needed to.
Hell, all of us should have won the MVP for having to sit through that game. Nobody wants to watch a defensive game. Like I mentioned earlier, I’m pretty sure defensive enthusiasts got bored after a while.
I thought the highlight of the game was seeing the Internet rally around Barstool Sports President Dave Portnoy, who was actually banned from the stadium, sneak in with a disguise before being dragged out at halftime by security (#MyPresident, #FreePortnoy).
Or it was the awkward two minutes where the female reporter who fought her way through a media scrum of a solid 60 people just to be ignored by Tom Brady as he kissed Patriots owner Robert Kraft and congratulated the Rams players, along with his teammates.
Despite the game being boring, it doesn’t take away from the Pats greatness. Hands down one of, if not the best dynasty ever. Six Super Bowl titles in 17 years is outrageous. But this one was probably the worst based on gameplay.
We didn’t have that 28-3 moment. We didn’t have the Malcolm Butler title-saving interception moment. We didn’t have that 48-yard field goal moment.
All we had in this game were punts after punts after punts.