Super Bowl LIII seemed destined to be a changing of the guard. The New England Patriots' have been surrounded by drama ever since they traded Jimmy Garoppollo to the 49ers in the middle of last season. Reports swirled that Patriots' coach Bill Belichik had lost a power struggle with future Hall of Fame Quarterback Tom Brady and team owner Robert Kraft. Another saga revolved around Tom Brady's personal trainer Alex Guerrero. Guerrero, largely credited with helping Brady form his a personal training regiment that involves dangerous levels of pseudoscience. While, the relationship between the Pats' organization and Guerrero were already strained, Brady managed to recruit teammate and star tight end Rob Gronkowski to become Guerrero's client. Gronkowski has dealt with injury issues throughout his career and even considered retirement before this past season, but Patriots' brass thinks TB12 caused Gronkowski's health issues this year. Yet, with all the drama continuing to swirl the Patriots hoisted the Lombardi trophy for the 6th time in the past 18 seasons. It wasn't fun, exciting, or even great football. The game was as much a story of lackluster offensive execution (for both teams) as it was a strong defensive performance. In the other locker-room, the young darling of NFL front-offices Sean McVay was taking responsibility for the loss, "definitely, I got out-coached." McVay, the 33 year old wiz kid that transformed the Los Angeles Rams franchise, has been the hottest commodity in the league. He changed Jared Goff from bust to budding star (we'll get back to this) and had NFL teams hiring anyone with any connection to him-the Arizona Cardinals even mentioned that McVay was "friends" with their hire, Kliff Kingsbury, in their press-release announcing the hiring.
The game itself lacked drama. Even for a defensive battle there weren't many impressive plays. It was a boring Super Bowl, the most boring since the Seahawks absolutely crushed the Broncos (at least then we had some scoring). Still, as I watched I couldn't help but wonder if this will be remembered as Belichick's greatest work. It felt like I had been sent back to The Rumble In the Jungle. When the young champion (George Foreman) was pitted against the aging legend (Muhammad Ali). Ali, aware he couldn't keep up with the high-powered offense of Foreman used the rope-a-dope tactic to draw the fight out and come out on top. It wasn't an exciting fight to watch. The rope-a-dope is designed to limit the action and that's exactly what it did as Ali executed it to regain the heavyweight title. Ali managed to maintain the title for some time, but his fight to maintain the title gave fans a front-row seat into his decline. Foreman retired just three years after the fight, stepped away from boxing for a decade before a historic return where he regained a piece of the heavyweight title at 45 years old. Their stories parallel the Patriots and Rams surprisingly well. Before the Divisional Round of the playoffs I told a friend that after next season 49ers' HC Kyle Shanahan will be the more desirable candidate than McVay. It's not McVay's fault many around the league drank some extremely strong Kool-Aid surrounding him. It's also not his fault that many around the league don't understand the nature of salary cap management and how that impacts the roster on the field. The Rams have a number of problems facing them next year. For one, they are set to be in a very tough division. The Cardinals have a number of intriguing pieces (and will add some more in this year's draft), but I don't have much faith in Kliff Kingsbury (the same guy who was fired by Texas Tech less than 6 months ago) to put it all together. However, the Seahawks have done an incredible job of revamping their roster and already have a strong young core around Russell Wilson and they have enough cap space to keep their best free agents from leaving (with exception to Earl Thomas). Even though they only have a 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 5th round picks, their front office has consistently found talent. The 49ers, under Shanahan, will be returning their starting QB (Garoppolo), RB (Jerick McKinnon), will be adding whomever they select 2nd overall (or whatever assets they acquire trading the pick), and have over $60m in cap space even though they already have 63 players under contract and their most valuable free-agent is only K Robbie Gould. Still, the two largest hurdles for a Rams return to the Super Bowl have everything to do with them. They only have $35m in available cap space and have a number of starters set for free-agency, including (Ndamokung Suh, Dante Fowler Jr., and Rodger Saffold). Furthermore, they have already traded their 2nd, 3rd, and 7th round picks so they are limited in their ability to replace their free-agent losses through the draft. That's all before we get to the potential retirement of star LT Andrew Whitworth who they do not have the resources to replace. The largest reason though, remains the same reason the Rams were not hoisting the Lombardi Trophy: Jared Goff. Goff missed a number of opportunities and at times failed to complete even a simple out route. The Rams will soon face a choice on Goff as he approaches the expiration of his rookie contract. He is not ever going to be a top-5 (and maybe even top-10) QB in the league. But, can they find an upgrade? They have a young backup in Sean Mannion who has shown some promise, if they had more draft picks they could afford to pick another one, but for all intensive purposes they are stuck with Goff, and he will never be able to carry them beyond the quality of McVay's ability to scheme. McVay's was outcoached, his offensive scheme failed. But, the Rams defense shutdown the Patriots offense nearly as well. The difference was in the quarterbacks and at least for the final drive of the game, Tom Brady was one of the greatest QBs of all-time, and Jared Goff was just another guy.
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About MeI have been a die-hard fan of the San Francisco Giants, San Francisco 49ers, and Golden State Warriors my entire life. Following them (and the surrounding leagues) have given me a lot of strong opinions on sports. Links to some of Marc's Articles around the Web:
Articles for GSC Articles for ATF Ramos & Allen Selloff Series: Giants Giants Trade Deadline Kenyon Baseball Preview Archives
August 2019
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