I'm not sure there are any other truly viable candidates for "Weirdest Super Bowl Ever," but this Sunday in New Orleans definitely wins that one hands down. Just about everyone outside of the 410 area code is still flabbergasted, but I'm here to rationalize you right back into closure. At the very least, everyone ought to be in agreement that these two teams deserved to be here and that in the end, they gave each other all they could handle, which made for great drama for the rest of us. By the way, can I mention early and often how I totally nailed
this Super Bowl prediction? I got the exact margin of victory and MVP honors and captured the spirit of both teams' strengths and missteps along the way. It was a nice way to go out 8 - 3 in the playoffs and 7 - 4 against the spread.
Anyway, enough with the diversions, here are some meditations on why this Ravens Team of Destiny got what they deserved in SB XLVII:
Why the 49ers Lost
Let's just get this out of the way with some unfortunate puns to boot. San Francisco stayed true to its whine country roots, claiming that the 49ers were robbed on a holding no-call at the goal line on their final drive. I will concede that the no-call was questionable to put it mildly, but the rationale that this single play cost San Francisco the entire game is as nerve-rattling to me as the argument that the Niners were a couple botched punt returns away from the Super Bowl last year. It's all sour grapes when you look at the bigger picture of how this team played each
whole game in question. Let's stay with this analogy for a minute. Last year, San Francisco was doomed by really bad offensive momentum, not just a botched return game. With Alex Smith under center and completing less than 50% of his passes, the team converted only 1 of 13 third downs, failed to capitalize on their only trip to the red zone in the entire game and was supremely fortunate to take the Giants to overtime at all with a -2 turnover margin. With those kind of results, it is quite specious to assume that the 49ers would have somehow been guaranteed a victory if Kyle Williams had just stayed home.
Now let's apply that same lens to what happened during this Super Bowl. To be fair, the 49ers accomplished a crazy-impressive rally that they should be proud of in retrospect. After a very sloppy first half and down 6 - 28 when the Superdome went dark, San Francisco took advantage of the circumstances before them and rallied back with a 17 - 0 run in just 4 minutes. I don't know of another team or quarterback in the NFL right now capable of doing this, and I'm thrilled we got to see the Niners at their best, if for a fleeting moment. Suddenly it's a 2-point game in the fourth quarter but you know what's coming.
Still, a lot of mystical things had to go right for the 49ers to get there in the first place. The officiating crew made it clear from the get go that they were going to let these two teams play scrappy ball for the duration of this game. CB Chris Culliver got away with a very obvious illegal contact play in the first half that, if called, puts Torrey Smith and the Ravens inside the 10-yard line. Instead, the Ravens had to punt the ball away. There was also an interesting no-call when Joe Flacco was hit well out of bounds after a scramble. Then John Harbaugh called a mind-bogglingly awful fake field goal inside the red zone that ought to have put the Ravens up another 3 points, and we're looking at what could have been an additional 6 - 10 points of margin for Baltimore before halftime. Instead, these breaks for the 49ers put them back "just" 2, soon to be 3 possessions. We'll never know for certain what would have happened differently if the power hadn't gone out, but there was obviously a huge shift in momentum in the 49ers favor for whatever reason in the third quarter. Throw in big injuries to the Ravens' top rush defender Haloti Ngata, who was no longer there to stuff Frank Gore in the middle, and RB Bernard Pierce, who was having much more success on the ground running down the clock than Ray Rice, and the game really opened up for SF in no small part because of things beyond their control.
So now we get to the play in question-- the hold on 4th down that stifled the 49ers' last breath of hope. Nevermind OC Greg Roman's questionable play-calling or the fact that Joe Flacco will still have almost 2 minutes and all 3 timeouts to get his team into field goal range regardless of the outcome here. Why were the 49ers down to that last play in the first place? Well, San Francisco already mishandled two opportunities on turnovers including a rough interception that fell right into Ed Reed's opportunistic arms. They also converted only 2 of 9 (22%) third downs on the day compared to Baltimore's 9 of 16 (56%). They failed on a two-point conversion that would have allowed them to tie the game at that controversial juncture with a field goal instead of having to go for a TD. They only capitalized on 2 of 6 (33%) of their trips to the red zone compared to Baltimore's 50% conversion rate. So what's my point? That this one play was far from San Francisco's only opportunity to win this game. Heck, they exploited this very issue to perfection two weeks ago when the Falcons had four shots in the red zone to go ahead but just couldn't get it done. When you add it all up--2 turnovers, 1 unsuccessful fourth down and 3 punts all resulting in 0 points; and 3 field goals and a failed 2-point conversion that left up to 14 points on the table--there's just a point when your team runs out of time, opportunity and in some cases, luck. Let it be consolation to more than a few fans that the 49ers will be back here soon.
How the Ravens Won
Regardless of how you fell about the 49ers' fate, those feelings should not discredit the Baltimore Ravens, who did absolutely everything they had to do from start to finish in this postseason to hoist the Lombardi on Sunday night. Joe Flacco put an exclamation point on what no one predicted would be one of the very best postseason performances of a QB of all time with a well-deserved Super Bowl MVP award. If you don't believe me, Flacco is only the second quarterback in NFL history to throw 11 TDs and 0 INTs in the playoffs alongside Hall of Famer Joe Montana. It's as though the karma of Lee Evans' TD drop in last season's AFC Championship swung back to the Ravens threefold with stellar efforts from Torrey Smith, Anquan Boldin and most of all Jacoby Jones, who also had an MVP-caliber performance in his hometown of New Orleans with nearly 300 all-purpose yards on Sunday. They had their way with the San Francisco secondary with big play after big play threaded through the narrowest passing lane margins of error. I loved how Flacco turned Kaepernick-style scrambling on its head by darting farther back in the pocket to avoid the pass rush while setting up the long ball that nobody throws better. Obviously those were improvised moves, but they spoke to this surging QB's cool confidence when so many (including 2008 - 2012 Joe Flacco) would have made panicky mistakes or thrown the ball away.
As evidenced by the stats in the 49ers' section, Baltimore's defense also played a critical role in this game as they have done all 2013 long, even though it did a number on our collective blood pressure. Ed Reed joked in the postgame interview that his team "took the ugly girl to the dance and stayed with her," meaning that while these Ravens haven't been as dominant in all phases of the defense as they've been in past generations, they've gotten the job done with their style of play against not one but three of the top offenses in the NFL in the playoffs. Maybe it was the extra experience, the will power and/or a rich two weeks of film study, but as I predicted, Baltimore was able to keep Colin Kaepernick and company off balance early in this game to huge effect. They stuffed the run brilliantly in the first half and forced two big takeaways that made the 49ers offense look more cautious than we've seen in quite a few weeks. Even when San Francisco was able to find success with its own big passing plays with Michael Crabtree and Vernon Davis, they couldn't find the end zone until 3 minutes into the third quarter.
Ultimately, the red zone matchup is what put the Ravens over the edge against the 49ers, especially with those aggressive blitzing schemes that so few other opponents have been brave enough to use with any real effect against Colin Kaepernick. (Expect this to be a key area for Kaepernick's growth next season by the way, as the young QB completed only 1 of 8 passes in the end zone during the playoffs and missed some big opportunities with Randy Moss downfield on Sunday). The red zone game has been this slow but smart and experienced Ravens defense's bread and butter all season long, and it held them together during the Super Bowl despite giving up the most yards by a winning team in SB history. Baltimore may not have been able to outrun or overpower skill players in the open field, but they know how to read offenses in short field situations and cover (and OK, maybe sometimes hold) all of their bases when their backs are against the wall. They have played more to their own strengths and weaknesses than any other team this season when it mattered most, even when it hasn't necessarily fit the mold of what we expect from a championship team. And as if that red zone defense serves as the tidiest of metaphors for Baltimore's now-legendary playoff journey, these Ravens don't back down, no matter the circumstances.
Stray Notes
Because the Super Bowl is a gargantuan affair beyond those 60 minutes on the field (plus an additional 60 minutes of halftime antics and power outages), here are a few stray notes I have from the external affairs of the big dance:
Best Super Bowl Commercials - There were only a few true diamonds in the rough this year, which is honestly the same as it is every year despite the hype, but my top three Super Bowl commercials are:
- Taco Bell Senior Night - Great revealed use of soundtrack, visuals and concept for what I hope more old people actually do in their spare time than I'm aware of.
- Leon Sandcastle - There are a ton of promo-happy athletes without much of a genuine sense of humor or charisma about them like Aaron Rodgers and (sorry) Drew Brees, but Deion Sanders is the exception. Loved the "looks like an ugly Deion Sanders" line.
- Joe Montana Stain - I'm actually scraping a little bit for this last spot, but I liked the tie-in here to both teams playing in the Super Bowl and some sly domestic sabotage.
Beyonce Rocked It - I generally hate these halftime shows and with good reason for all the robotic start-stop medleys and tongue-in-cheek cameos. But Beyonce punched her inauguration critics in the face with a killer performance that reminded us just why she gets to hang out at the White House whenever the hell she wants. Pre-recorded or not, that voice is untouchable.
CBS Coverage During the Blackout Was Hilariously Bad - Oh my Kanye how I loathe having to listen to Phil Simms and Jim Nantz under normal circumstances, but they would have sounded like Oscar Wilde in comparison to the yokels CBS put on the sidelines during that painful 30-minute blackout. I don't even want to know what kind of paycheck Steve Tasker took home to tell us repeatedly that the lights looked like they might turn on pretty soon instead of gleaning anything interesting whatsoever from the 53 championship athletes playing rock-paper-scissors on the sidelines.
NFL Honors Got It Right - Fortunately due to
this blog and this blog alone [except not at all], the NFL Honors voters came to their senses this year and selected the league's real MVP instead of the "most valuable QB"... who it so happens wasn't the most valuable in any statistical category anyhow. I also loved that voters finally acknowledged that MVP Adrian Peterson can also be the Player of the Year on his side of the ball instead of treating it like a weird also-ran consolation prize. Finally, it is both appropriate and ironic that the NFL Play of the Year went to new champ Ray Rice for that superhuman 4th and 29 run against the Chargers back in November. Call it a sign of the Rasputin-like Ravens to come or the kind of crazy lagniappe that got them to the playoffs in the first place, but that play wraps up one of the most bananas yet triumphant seasons of football we've seen in a while... until next year.
