Superbowl and Stuff

New England won. I had wanted them to win so that they can get their "dynasty" rating out of the way. Well, they got it. Now they can go to Hell.

It was a good game. I have a couple of thoughts on the game. First of all, people misunderstand New England. As a Bills fan, I have seen them up close, twice this year and every year. And so at the break, when things were tied at 7, the commentators were talking about how the Eagles were in the game. I'm screaming at the TV saying, NO, No!! New England is not the crispiest team out there. You can play them tough and be very much in the game at the half. It is the 3rd quarter that is the killer. That's when they adjust to what you are doing and clamp up and pull away. The other thing is that you always feel like you are in the game with them until you lose. So the Eagles had to be up by 7-14 points going into the half to have had a shot.

Second point. McNabb got the ball back, down by 10, with 8 minutes to go. The eagles were sauntering about like they had all the time in the world. With 8 minutes to go and down by 10, that is panic mode. That's when you begin to run your no huddle, ultra 2 minute offense. You want to score with at least 5 minutes left because you can assume that you may stop the Patriots, but that they'll get a couple of first downs and run approx 3 minutes off the clock. This way you can get the ball back with 2 minutes and three timeouts, plenty of time. But the Eagles just seemed to have no clue.

Michael Wilbon of the Washington Post was on the Tony Kornheiser show this morning and thinks that McNabb git hit in the head, because everyone agreess that clock management was attrocious and he just seemed out of it. In fact, you could tell he had given up or something with 5 minutes to go. I think, the players should have suspected something, called a timeout and made the case to the Coach to pull McNabb. The Eagles have two very good backups and it would have been worth it to put them in there. Their odds of wining with their backup were just as great as trying to recover an onside kick against a supremely coached New England special teams.

As for the Bills, what to say. I thought we finished the year very strong offensively. But now we hear Tom Donohoe and Mike Mularkey talking about giving our first round draft pick J P Losman a shot at quarterback. It is clear they don't want to win a Superbowl. Drew Bledsoe is now an average quarterback. As long as he realizes that and he understands that he is no longer asked to win games, but manage them, the Bills are as competitive as anyone out there. We have the second best defense in the NFL, we have the best special teams, and all we need is to average 17-20 points per game and we will be in good shape. To bring J P Losman in now is to jeopardize any hope the Bills have for a title game in the next two years.