The nice thing? Nobody needs a football PhD to understand why the Patriots got cuffed around in Super Bowl 60.
Drake Maye got bopped around too much. That made him jumpy. And Josh McDaniels didn’t pivot to any viable answer to stop the bopping around.
It’s harder to figure out why those things happened.
Why, after a season of competency, did rookie left tackle Will Campbell allow 14 pressures? Bad matchup? Nerves? Not strong enough above the waist? Is his MCL, which caused him to miss four games, still an issue? Are his arms too short? Is he unsuited to play left tackle in the NFL?
The same general questions can be applied to left guard Jared Wilson. Sunday was the first time two rookie linemen started together in a Super Bowl. And after a season of watching those two and saying, “Hey … not bad…!” the worst-case scenario played out in front of the football-watching world.
Meanwhile, Maye got bopped around in other games. He still reined it back in after mistakes or made sensational throws despite the pressure (the playoff win over Houston being a prime example). That he wasn’t able to regain poise this time (or escape with his feet, which he so often has) leads me to believe it was nerves and jumpiness. Was it the moment? Was it the heat he was under? It wasn’t his shoulder.
The Seahawks performed a poise-ectomy on him. So, what’s that mean? Was this a one-shot deal and Maye shakes it off? Or … BLUEPRINT?!?!?!?
And do you see what he has on his back? A tiny little monkey.
Finally, with Campbell getting pushed around like a shopping cart, why didn’t McDaniels pivot faster? My suspicion — based on Mike Vrabel’s rallying sideline actions and halftime comments saying the team just needed to settle down — is that they believed the problem was more nerves-related than a lack of talent or strength on Campbell’s part.
They were stuck between, “Hey, we know how to do this … just settle in and do it.” And, “S—, we can’t do this. We have to change.”
And I ONE MILLION PERCENT understand that quandary. If you’ve seen a particular level of competency for 23 games from your guys, you expect it will resurface. Just because you’re having negative plays early, you don’t want to throw out the baby with the bathwater after two weeks of preparing.
Change too soon and it doesn’t work? THAT would be panic.
The fact Seattle wasn’t running away with the game may have given the Patriots a false sense that they had time to work it out. There was no figuring it out. The Seahawks had a better game plan and better players. Better. Stronger. Faster. They had a real Steve Austin problem.
Seahawks corner Devon Witherspoon was a major part of the destructiveness.
“I knew what was going on,” Witherspoon told SiriusXM NFL Radio. “We had a good tell on what they like to do and how they like to play and how they were going to attack us. Coach put us in the best position to win. …
“We had a tell on their guards and their tackles, how they like to set, they’re going to overset on certain rushes, they’re going to fall for certain moves any time a group of guys get after them, and today I think we did that,” Witherspoon said.
I should say SO!!
I would have REALLY liked to see a moving pocket for Maye (as many mentioned), but the one time he did that, he got tracked down. He also didn’t show the same pocket escapability he normally does. If the Patriots were going to pound the middle of the line, maybe more Rhamondre Stevenson and less TreVeyon Henderson?
Regardless, they were cartoonishly ineffective. ACME anvils falling on every drive. A quick recap:
First drive
Two first downs. First-and-10 at the Seattle 45-yard line. SACK! Second-and-20.
Second drive
Maye to Kayshon Boutte for 21 yards.
Two negative run plays with Henderson.
SACK! On third-and-15 from the Seattle 48.
Fourth drive
Second play of the drive SACKED! on second-and-7.
Fifth drive
Started at their own 2. One first down. Then a third-and-7 FALSE START! on Poor Will Campbell.
Sixth drive
(First of the second half)
Henderson for 9. Henderson for 0. Incompletion. Punt.
Seventh drive
First-and-10 at the 18. SACKED for a loss of 2.
Eighth drive
Strip-sack fumble on third-and-6 at the Patriots 44.
Need I go on? I need not.
Both teams came in with similar game plans: Harass the ever-loving crap out of the quarterback and see if he cracks. The Patriots buzzed Sam Darnold’s tower all night, but never made the play that unnerved him. I think he was lucky and OK (rather than lucky and good).
On the other side, the Seahawks got home because they exposed the heretofore never-seen combo of left tackle/left guard rookie starters in a Super Bowl.
Naively, I came to believe the Patriots would overcome all their youth because they kind of had done it all year. But they all played young.
The Patriots will rue this game — not because they lost it, but more because they never even gave themselves a chance to find out if they could have won it.
