Looksee at Super Bowl Matchup
Here's an abbreviated looksee at this Super Bowl matchup
between the Pats and the Panths.�
Bottom line up front:�
This game will be a royal asswhipping, but first, a look at how these
teams got to where they are:
Carolina was the league doormat just a couple seasons
ago.� But they rebuilt and
restocked.� Unlike, say, the Stillers,
the Panthers didn't sit fallow during this past offseason.� In March, they signed UFA Jake Delhomme, and
then a week later signed RB Stephen Davis.��
Boom, boom -- just like that, the Panthers were putting key pieces
together for a quality team.� Right
about the same time as the Davis signing, the Pats signed UFA safety Rodney
Harrison.� Just so you get the complete
picture here, bear in mind that both Davis and Harrison were readily available
for the pickin's, but the Stiller braintrust of Colbert/Cowhard was too enamored
with Doughboy Bettis and Burnt Alexander to even consider a stab at signing
either of these quality free agents.�
Then there's the draft and, equally important, the actual
usage of young players. CB Ricky Manning was a 3rd round draftee this
past April.� He's the guy who had 3 INTs
in the NFC Title game a couple weeks ago.�
On a Billy Cowher coached team, Manning would have been rotting the
bench, with Billy sobbing to the media, "Well, he's still trying to get a
feel for our scheme and get a handle on our system."� Under the superb tutelage of Panther coach John
Fox, all Manning does is just play, and make plays, and acquit himself quite
well.� Over in New England, DE Jarvis
Green had a huge game against the Dolts, sacking Peyton Manning 3 times.� Green was a 4th rounder in the '02 draft.� Again, under the coaching (sic) of a Billy
Cowher, Green would have had so many splinters that his pants could have served
as kindling for a pregame bonfire.� ��
Then there's the Pats acquisition of former Stiller Mike
Vrabel.� The former Buckeye spent 4
seasons with the Stillers, but never, ever started even one game during that
tenure.� Vrabel was mired behind "Mr.
Pro Bowler", Jason GilDong, and as such, was shifted all over the defense,
forced to move from LB to DE to nose tackle to DE to LB and on and on.� �"I
told Bill Belichick about him, 'You're going to get a kid who's smart and can
play almost any position,' " said New Orleans coach Jim Haslett, then the
Steelers' defensive coordinator. "He's a good pass rusher. He's kind of
'tweener' in some areas, probably not a great pass defender, but a great pass
rusher. He's so smart he can do a lot of different things for you and he's a
good special teams player. He has a lot of skills. The thing I like about him
is he's very, very intelligent."�
Yep, Vrabel was so intelligent, so smart, so talented, and had so many
skills that he rotted for 4 years behind a total stiff like Jason
GilDong, never once getting anything remotely close to a simple opportunity to compete
for a starting job.� "It (signing
with NE) was an opportunity to play more, an opportunity to earn a starting
job, which really wasn't going to be available in Pittsburgh," Vrabel said.� The Pats came out of this Vrabel signing
smelling like a rose, while the Stillers smell like horseshit after pissing
away $24M on a over-rated, over-hyped stiff named Jason GilDong.� Even putting aside the salaries, there's not
a single GM -- perhaps with the exception of Colbert himself -- that would
trade Vrabel even-up for a total stiff like Jason GilDong.� By the way, the
next time you hear or see some Cowher-loving simpleton recite the banal mantra
of, "Bill Cowher is in practice every day, and he sees these players every
day and he sees the game films, and I trust his judgment on player evaluation
matters," simply respond with these two words:� Mike Vrabel.�
Lastly, the Pats cut popular team leader Lawyer Milloy
shortly before the '03 season began. �After all the cries of, "The Pats were wither without his
leadership and locker room presence" died down, the Pats won 15 consecutive
games and are in the big show.� �Contrast this with the baloney about "Jerome
Bettis is indispensable because he's a popular team leader", and you see
why the Pats are so good and the Stillers so sub-par.� ��
The moral of these personnel moves?� The good teams become good by making aggressive
changes in the offseason, and by refusing to spend extravagant money on
over-paid, over-rated stiffs.� The mediocre
teams do absolutely nothing in the offseason, and are content to lumber along
with a plethora of highly paid, overly content slouches.�
Looking at the teams' lineups:
O-line:� Most Steeler fans spent the 2003 season crying
and moaning about the O-line.� These 2
teams clearly showed that you don't need an All-Pro at all 5 line spots to have
a solid offense.� Carolina starts Jeff
Mitchell at C and Jeno James, a former 6th rounder, at LG.� Mitchell was continually tooled and punished
by the Stillers when he played for Balt, and Jeno would probably be better off
opening his own pizza shop, yet the Panthers are in the Sup Bowl.� Due to a rash of injuries, the Pats have an
interior line made of Russ Hochstein, Dan Koppen, and Joe Andruzzi.� Hochstein isn't any better than another ex-Husker,
Brendan PigStai; rookie Koppen is ok at center but hardly a Dermontti Dawson;
and Andruzzi is an average, run-of-the-mill guard.� Even the Pats' RT, Tom Ashworth, isn't worth much, no pun intended.� Yet, the Pats are on the brink of another SB
win.� Unlike a Billy Cowher -- who cries
and complains the entire pre-season and regular season about
"shuffling" and "injuries" and "inexperience" on
his O-line -- Belichick marches along and works with what he's got, without any
whining or excuse-making.�
Defense:� The
Panthers have the edge on the D-line, and really, they have the edge against
almost any other NFL club.� You get what
you invest in and what you sew, and Carolina has done a superb job in this
regard.� On the other hand, the Pats led
the league in fewest points allowed.�
Unlike yardage allowed, which is a bogus stat, you can take fewest
points allowed to the bank and actually get some credit for it.� Along with the in-your-face play of the NE
D-backs, the primary reason for the Patriots' defensive success is that they
actually USE the 3-4 defense the way it was designed to be used.� Yep, that's right -- no Vanilla Defense
there in New England, unlike Billy Cowher's stale, vanilla version of the
3-4.� The Pats use versatility to get
the max out of their LBs, placing them all over the field; putting them in a
down-stance at times; and most importantly, wreaking havoc and confusion on
opposing offenses because rarely does a LB perform the same task 2 plays in a
row.� For example, you won't see a NE LB
blandly loop-rush -- a la Jason GilDong -- play after play after play after
play.�� Disruption & confusion has
always been the mandate of the 3-4 defense, and the Pats have perfected it to
art form.� �
Spec Teams:� Both
teams have very, very strong spec teams, unlike a Billly Cowher-coached
team.� The teams feature two of the
league's premier special teams coaches, Scott O'Brien of Carolina and Brad
Seely for New England, both of whom have worked on Bill Belichick staffs.� Unlike a Billy Cowher, both are fanatical
about attention to detail. One of the game's true special teams devotees,
O'Brien keeps videotapes of several years worth of kicking-game plays, and has
lugged cartons of cassettes to Houston for the big week. Earlier in the week,
Belichick even recalled that, when he first interviewed him for a job, O'Brien
all but gave himself a hernia dragging in a box filled with tapes.� This is entirely unlike a Billy Cowher, who
treats film study with all the disdain of a 16-year old doing routine homework,
and Cowher's only close occurrence with a hernia comes from lugging around his
Jumbotron-sized ego.� ��
Synopsis:�
This matchup isn't much different from the Jan. '95 matchup between SD
and SF.� Like SD, the upstart Panthers
were handed a gift by an underachieving, bumbling home team in the conference
title game.� Like the Niners, the Pats
have an unbelievable amount of playoff experience, poise, and know-how under
pressure.� Like this year's matchup,
there were actually millions of idiots who thought that the Chargers could beat
the Niners.� This game is asswhip city,
and it will be the Pats who put the beating on the Panthers.� Much like Stan Humphries 9 years ago, Delhomme
will be roughed up, confused, and mostly ineffective.� The final score won't be a mega-blowout, but NE will control the
tempo and will be in control, en route to a thorough 26-13 beating of the Panthers.�
(Still Mill
and Stillers.com -- the only nationally read coverage on the Pittsburgh
Stillers that has accurately predicted the how's and the why's of the past 3
Stiller playoff losses�.)