We are on to Super Bowl LIV. How many quarterbacks have played in the championship game thus far and who has fared best?
The Super Bowl is upon us once again. America’s biggest single sporting day will feature the Kansas City Chiefs against the San Francisco 49ers as Patrick Mahomes and Jimmy Garoppolo join the quarterbacks to play on the biggest stage.
I: Packers 35, Chiefs 10
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Bart Starr led the Packers to victory and was replaced late in the game by Zeke Bratkowski. Starr went 16-of-23 for 250 yards with a pair of TDs. Bratkowski’s only pass was an incompletion. On the Chiefs’ side, Len Dawson was 16-of-27 for 211 yards with a TD and a pick. Pete Beathard threw five passes with one completion for 17 yards.
Tom Brady, Steve Young, Joe Montana, Larry Csonka. Where do the superstars’ MVP performances in the Super Bowl rank?
The Super Bowl MVP is a pinnacle for a player. Each year someone earns the award. There have been great efforts and some that were merely right spot, right time. A look at how they all stack up.
53. Dexter Jackson (XXXVII)
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Dexter Jackson had a pair of picks for 34 return yards in earning honors. The DB didn’t have the most return yards of interceptions on his team as Dwight Smith had 94 and a pair of Pick-Sixes. Meanwhile, Derrick Brooks also had a Pick-Six but Jackson was given the award.
Mike and Kyle Shanahan are one of a number of father-son tandems to have coached or managed.
Mike and Kyle Shanahan are a father-son combo that has done well in coaching, for sure. There are many sons that have followed their dad’s careers.
Eddie, Scott and Sean Sutton
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The Suttons have held many jobs in college basketball. Eddie was the head coach of Creighton, Arkansas, Kentucky, Oklahoma State, and University of San Francisco. He has taken two schools (Arkansas and Oklahoma State) to the Final Four, and was the first coach to lead four schools to the NCAA tournament. Sean Sutton was a head coach of Oklahoma State University and Scott Sutton coached Oral Roberts University,
Derrick Henry won the Heisman Trophy at Alabama. That did not convince NFL teams, which saw him go 45th in the 2016 draft.
Derrick Henry has led the Tennessee Titans to the AFC Championship Game Sunday against the Kansas City Chiefs. He has become one of the top running backs in the league with speed and power. Somehow, despite winning the Heisman at Alabama he slipped to 45th in the 2016 NFL Draft. Here’s a look at those drafted before him.
44. Oakland: Jihad Ward
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Jihad Ward has already been with three teams since being drafted by Oakland in 2016.
Aaron Rodgers lasted until the 24th pick in the first round of the 2005 NFL Draft. Who were the players chosen before the QB?
Sometimes great players slip in the NFL Draft. Aaron Rodgers did not fall anywhere near as far as Tom Brady, but the QB wasn’t thrilled the San Francisco 49ers passed on him and he lasted until the 24th pick in 2005. So, how did the players chosen before Rodgers do in their careers?
Bills quarterback Josh Allen has amazing athletic potential. But his inexperience showed too often in the wild-card round.
Remember when we discussed the potential fatal flaw for every wild-card team? Quarterback Josh Allen’s ceiling was Buffalo’s fatal flaw, and boy, did that show up in the last few minutes of Buffalo’s 22-19 overtime loss to the Texans on Saturday evening.
Here’s the situation: Buffalo had the ball on the Houston 28-yard line with two minutes left in the game, down 19-16 after blowing a 16-0 lead. Texans edge-rusher Whitney Mercilus broke through to pressure Allen, who promptly hurled the ball in the general direction of offensive guard Jon Feliciano. That caused an illegal touching call on Feliciano (which the Texans declined) and an intentional grounding call on Allen, which was accepted. That pushed the ball back to the Houston 42-yard line, which would make the game-tying field goal for kicker Stephen Hauschka far more difficult.
Allen wasn’t done, though — on fourth-and-27, he took a sack on the next play from linebacker Jacob Martin, which is the one thing you can’t do in that situation. Now, the Bills had to give the ball back to the Texans, with time slipping away.
with their season on the line, the Bills stepped up on third down in field goal range and …
The Texans gave the ball back to the Bills on a four-and-out, but not before making head coach Sean McDermott waste all three of his timeouts. On the first play with the ball back in his hand, Allen scrambled to the right, got caught at the 50-yard line, and tried to hurl the ball to tight end Dawson Knox. As was the case with so many of Allen’s attempts on the day, this was waaaaay off.
The Bills did get down to the Houston 29-yard line on that drive despite Allen’s six incompletions, and Hauschka kicked a 47-yard field goal with 10 seconds left in regulation to send the game to overtime.
Both teams got a shot at scoring before Deshaun Watson’s amazing scramble to complete a 34-yard pass to running back Taiwan Jones, which set up Ka’imi Fairbairn’s 28-yard game-winning field goal with 3:23 left in the first overtime period.
Despite the fact that he was sacked seven times, pressured mercilessly, and set up to fail at times by the playcalling from his coaches (on their first two possessions, the Texans punted from the Buffalo 42-yard line and the Buffalo 46-yard line), Watson had the wherewithal to take the game on his shoulders and make the incredible play when it was most needed.
At the end of his second NFL season, Allen just isn’t there yet. The book on Allen when he came out of Wyoming was that he was a big guy with a big arm who would make things happen — for both teams. That’s still his modus operandi. As inconsistent as he was, completing 24 of 46 passes for 246 yards, no touchdowns and no interceptions, Allen also scored Buffalo’s only touchdown of the day on a 16-yard trick play reception from receiver John Brown, and he led his team with 92 rushing yards on nine carries.
Allen has learned a lot in two seasons. When he runs a short-to-intermediate passing game and saves the deep shots for the right times, he can be very effective. And he clearly knows how to save his best for key situations, at least most of the time. Coming into this game, he had completed 58 of 100 passes for 782 yards, eight touchdowns, no interceptions, and a quarterback rating of 109.7 in the fourth quarter. He had engineered four fourth-quarter comebacks this season, and five game-winning drives. The problem is that at this point in his career, there’s far too much randomness in his game, and too many stretches where the efficiency doesn’t show up.
This long throw to fullback Patrick DiMarco into double coverage with 12:45 left in overtime was perhaps the most glaring example, and it makes you wonder if Allen will ever drop the “hero gene” that makes some quarterbacks try stupefyingly weird throws against all manner of common sense.
This isn’t to throw dirt on Allen’s potential after such a short time. Watson suffered a horrible loss in the wild-card round at the end of his second season last year, when the Colts beat the Texans, 21-7, and Watson completed 29 of 49 passes for 235 yards, one touchdown, and one interception. Perhaps it was the crucible of that game that allowed Watson to bring his team back from the brink this time around. And perhaps it will be Allen’s turn next year.
If he’s able to harness his obvious athletic gifts and add a level of sense to his play-to-play mentality, he could be the key cog on a Bills team that is clearly ready to compete at every opportunity. But now, all Allen and the Bills can do is wait until next time, and wonder what might have been.
Through the first 15 weeks of the 2019 season, the Patriots’ pass defense was historically great. Not so now. What’s gone wrong?
The most shocking game result in Week 17 of the 2019 NFL season was unquestionably Miami’s 27-24 win over the Patriots. New England was playing for the AFC’s two-seed, which they ceded to the Chiefs with the loss, so it wasn’t like Bill Belichick was resting guys out there. And while it was no surprise that the Patriots’ offense was unspectacular — Tom Brady completed 16 of 29 passes for 221 yards, two touchdowns, and one interception, and Sony Michel led the team with 74 yards and a touchdown on 18 carries against the Dolphins’ sub-par defense — it was the performance of New England’s defense that raised some red flags as the defending Super Bowl champs head into the postseason.
Throughout most of the season, it’s been the defense that has kept the Patriots humming while the offense has performed in fits and starts at best. Through the first 15 weeks in 2019, New England allowed the NFL’s fewest completions (261) for the second-fewest passing yards behind San Francisco (2,666), for the fewest touchdowns (10), the lowest completion percentage (56.01%), the lowest yards per attempt (5.72) and the most interceptions (25). The Patriots allowed an opposing QBR of 57.39; the Bills ranked second in that time period at 76.73, You could argue that New England faced a relatively weak slate of opposing quarterbacks overall, but still, on that side of the ball, things were going at a historic level.
And then, over the last two weeks, it seems to have fallen apart. Against the Bills in Week 16 — a game the Pats still won to take their 11th straight AFC East title — and in that Dolphins loss, New England has allowed a completion rate of 60%, 42 completions for 548 yards, three touchdowns, no interceptions, and an opposing QBR of 98.99 — only five teams have been worse over the last two weeks of the season in that regard.
The most worrisome character in this particular regression is cornerback Stephon Gilmore, who looked like the runaway Defensive Player of the Year through the first 15 weeks of the season. Then, he allowed just 38 receptions on 82 targets for 444 yards, no touchdowns, six interceptions, and an opponent passer rating of 32.8. Among cornerbacks taking at least 50% of their teams’ defensive snaps, only J.C. Jackson, Gilmore’s teammate, allowed a lower passer rating.
All of a sudden, opponents like Dolphins receiver DeVante Parker are finding reasons to take the Patriots’ pass defense less seriously. (Bob DeChiara-USA TODAY Sports)
But over the last two weeks — that tight win over the Bills and the upset loss to the Dolphins — Gilmore has allowed nine catches on 16 targets for 180 yards, one touchdown, no interceptions, and an opponent passer rating of 131.5. Among cornerbacks taking at least 50% of their teams’ defensive snaps in that time, only eight have allowed a higher passer rating.
And it’s not just Gilmore. Jackson has been more vulnerable. Safeties Devin McCourty and Duron Harmon have not been as efficient and opportunistic of late. Perhaps most disconcerting for those aficionados of Belichick’s defensive brilliance over time is the seeming breakdowns between cornerbacks and safeties.
The first real example of things going wrong came with 7:25 left in the third quarter of the Bills game, when quarterback Josh Allen hit receiver John Brown for a 53-yard touchdown on a deep over route. The Patriots are running a man blitz here with McCourty as the deep safety, and Gilmore covering Brown in the defensive left slot. Defensive lineman Lawrence Guy forced a pressured throw from Allen, but Gilmore lost Brown on the fake outside to the seam, didn’t pick him back up, and McCourty was out in the weeds. It’s tough to remember an instance this season in which New England’s secondary was this out of sync.
“We kind of thought we had a beat on the play and we tried to be aggressive on it,” McCourty said after the game. “A call I made in the secondary where we try to be a little more aggressive and after you get beat on a touchdown, I came to the sideline and I’m like, ‘We’re not going to run that anymore.’ I think, like always, guys in our secondary, we move on fast and I think we always come to the sideline and understand exactly what it was and why a bad play happened for us, and then we fix it and got right down to it. A call that we liked coming into the week to be aggressive, and they kind of dialed up the perfect call against what we were doing, threw it away and then kept playing.”
Well, if that was a lone rogue incident, we wouldn’t be talking about a downward trend that really blew up against the Dolphins — the same Dolphins team that just fired Chad O’Shea, their offensive coordinator. So, there’s that. Well, in this game, Gilmore was exposed as he’d rarely been in a Patriots uniform, especially by Miami receiver DeVante Parker, who caught eight passes for 137 yards, and most of them against Gilmore.
Parker’s first reception, a 28-yarder from Ryan Fitzpatrick with 7:50 left in the first quarter, was another example of Gilmore in a schematic pinch.
