To say it lightly, I did not see the outcome of these games
coming, although I guess I should have figured the Patriots were going to blow
out the Broncos. Every game besides the Patriots game was a close one and
probably could have gone either way had a few things gone differently. There is
plenty to talk about so let’s get to it.
The Good: The Giants
dominate the Packers in all aspects of the game and guide Aaron Rodgers to his
worst performance of the year.
The Packers came in with a 15-1 record lead by a guy who
will most likely be the league MVP. Despite their record and their regular
season performance, the team came in with some glaring deficiencies. Despite
how good Rodgers was all year long, the offense had struggled to get anything
going on the ground all year long, which allows teams like the Giants to
constantly blitz without fearing a running back breaking a long one. Also,
their defense, which was a strength in their Super Bowl run last season, touted
the worst pass defense in the league and allowed the most amount of total yards
of any defense in 2011. The defense’s only strength was that they lead the
league in interceptions. Basically this team lived and died by the play of
their quarterback and their ability to force turnovers.
The Giants exploited those decencies to perfection. They
made Rodgers uncomfortable all day with their plethora of pass rushers and it
forced him into making big mistakes. Rodgers had two turnovers and his running
backs who had been ineffective all season long had two more of their own. The
Giants offense torched the Packers all day long with huge plays, most notably a
37 yard touchdown to Hakeem Nicks as time expired in the first half to put the
Giants up ten instead of just three points. Eli Manning was inches away from
being perfect and again made all the plays that he needed to in order to keep
the Giants a step ahead of the Packers for 60 minutes. If I were the 49ers, I
would be very scared of this team right now.
The Bad: The Saints
turned the ball over five times and their defense couldn’t stop the Alex Smith
to Vernon Davis connection in the forth quarter in a shocking 36-32 upset.
Before the Giants-Packers game, the last game of the
weekend, I had Alex Smith penciled in my “Good” section. That all changed when
the Giants came out and dominated the top team in the league, but that does not
at all diminish Smith’s performance. However, his impressive performance was
still way less surprising than the Saints completely dropping the ball (often
literally) on offense, defense, and special teams. I knew the 49ers defense was
tough and that the Saints would have some sort of trouble with them, but I
assumed they would still manage to score a lot of points, which they did. I
knew that Smith would have an above average day passing because the Saints
defense has been the team’s weakness for a long time now. However, I did not
think the Saints would let an opportunity like this pass through their fingers
like it did last season.
However, that is exactly what happened. The Saints, much
like against the Seahawks last season, got down big early, managed to catch up,
and again lost the game in the forth quarter despite charging back. I did not
think that Alex Smith would be able to carry this offense when Frank Gore had
such a pedestrian day. It was Alex’s play, not his defense, that won them the
game. Smith was able to out-play Drew Brees all game long and that was the
difference in the game. I simply did not think that would happen and that says
a lot about the Saints’ defensive performance (I don’t care what you think of
Smith, he is not even close to as good as Brees). Had there been another 60
seconds on the game clock, maybe the Saints would have won it, but you cannot expect
to win a game when you are -3 in the turnover differential. The Saints have a
lot of work to do on the defensive side of the ball, but they might have even
more work to do in order to keep their offense together with Drew Brees,
Marques Colston, Robert Meachem, and Carl Nicks all set to become free agents,
along with eleven other players. This was a Tebow away from being an ugly
performance.
The Ugly: Tim Tebow
completed about one third of his passes and the Broncos defense gave up five
touchdown passes to Tom Brady in the first half.
I don’t care how well you run the ball or how good your
defense is, you will not win many games in the NFL completing less than 50% of
your passes, let alone less than 35% of your passes. It would also be helpful
if you could score points more than once a half. Tebow has to become a much
more efficient passer from the pocket in order to become even a decent option
at quarterback. Yes, he had an impressive season, but that had more to do with
his team rallying around him than his individual performance. Leadership is an
extremely important characteristic for a quarterback to possess, but when push
comes to shove, the guy has to be able to pass the ball (that’s kind of one of
the bigger job requirements for a quarterback). Tebow failed to get anything
going on offense against one of the worst defenses in the league and the
Broncos have to bring in a quarterback in the off season in order to push Tebow
to become better.
Tebow at his best probably would have still lost this game
because Brady was lights out all day long. The only reason the score wasn’t
70-10 was because Brady simply stopped trying to put up points after getting
his team up by five touchdowns. The Broncos defense, which has been the
strength of the team since their mid season surge, was unable to do anything to
even slow down the Patriots offense. I mean allowing a 43 yard run by a backup
tight end on the first drive of the game is unforgivable. The Patriots did not
get much out of their run game outside of Aaron Hernandez (the backup tight
end), who lead the team in rushing with 61 yards, despite the fact that he had
only eight rushes in his entire career leading into this game. This might have
been the ugliest playoff performance I have ever seen.
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