Super Bowl XLVI

There was a sense of déjà vu in the lead up to the 46th Super Bowl on Sunday and the game didn’t disappoint, delivering a game full of intrigue and drama, that resulted in the New York Giants taking their second Super Bowl in the last five, the franchise’s fourth, and making the New England Patriots wait at least one more year to add their own fourth Super Bowl.

Much of the pre-game build up revolved around the dominance of individual units and individual positional groups but throughout the course of sixty minutes each team’s defense and each team’s offense had spells where they had a clear upper hand on the opposition ensuring that neither team could get out of sight. Ten points is the magic barrier in the Super Bowl but each team fell just short of this margin and instead it was the final swing of the pendulum, a 12-0 scoring run from midway through the third quarter, back towards the Giants that proved decisive. Once again it was the Giants’ offense taking control of the ball with the game on the line that proved decisive as it has in the prior two encounters between these two teams. The Patriots recognized this and tried everything to get Tom Brady the ball back with time to win the game, but 80 yards in 57 seconds proved too much.

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Come the Super Bowl everything gets magnified, and so it is with the PFF Focus Points. Rather than simply giving you one matchup to look at, we’re dividing our efforts and taking a look at both blind-side protectors to check the impact of two of this game’s more intriguing spots.

PFF Founder and fearless leader, Neil Hornsby, takes a look at New England’s left tackle Matt Light while Sam Monson cast his eye over David Diehl, Light’s New York counterpart. Below is the account of what each learned during the game.

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Given the incredible success of Sam Monson’s piece telling everybody why the San Francisco 49ers couldn’t beat the New Orleans Saints in the Divisional Playoffs, we’ve decided to draft in some help, hedge our bets, and take both sides of the Super Bowl.

While Sam may prove yet again to be wide of the mark, at least this way one of our analysts’ “guarantees” will prove correct. PFF’s Director of Analysis, Ben Stockwell, joins Sam in making cases for why each of the Super Bowl protagonists is fighting a losing battle on Sunday.

Here’s what they’ve determined to be the Achilles heels for the big game.

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This is it, the end of the road, the final countdown, one last game to decide the title and along with the 2011 season’s crescendo comes one last opportunity for the PFF staff to offer their air-tight, take ‘em-to-the-bank predictions.

For this last edition of PFF Picks, the floor has been opened to the entire PFF staff. Our analysis team is joined by the Player Participation crew as well as the editing and IT people that help make the site go.

As you’ll see, the gang is split, a good sign that we’re in for a game worthy of its title (and something that should make for some fun discussion at our next meeting). This is also your last chance to make a call. So, as we await kickoff, which team is your money on?

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Swerving from our usual path of providing a quick detail about the upcoming game’s key matchups, during Super Bowl Week we’ve gone into further depth and broken out each of the pivotal battles in their own articles.

With that being the case, this Three to Focus on is going to serve as a clearinghouse for all of the preview content we’ve supplied you with in the past few days–your one-stop shop for PFF’s Super Bowl content.

If you missed anything along the way, here’s your chance to click through and catch up.

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This being Friday of Super Bowl Week, you’ve surely encountered a healthy dose of matchups, breakdowns, and backstories for the two teams and their players by now. The necessary paces of proper previewing dictate certain topics get covered, and the customary angles get addressed, but that’s all a bit too rigid for the Scramble.

Instead of tacking on more about the head-to-head, this-guy-or-that battles (tough to add to what our analysis team has produced this week anyway), our four Scramblers were set loose to explore the fringes of this week’s big game. Free to trek down whatever random path caught their interest, they’ve returned to assemble a piece that’ll take you in four directions and round out your pregame prep.

So, as the meat marinates, the beverages chill, and the guacamole awaits its first chip, have a read and join in on the conversation in the comments section below.   Read the rest of this entry »

As much as we like to pull the Super Bowl matchup apart piece-by-piece and haul each one under the microscope, this is a quarterback-driven league, and the bottom line is that these two men are likely to determine the outcome of the game between them. The man with the better game, or the one who can avoid the key error is going to go a long way towards tipping the balance toward his side.

With that in mind, we’re going to take a look a little deeper into the recent form of both players, trying to move beyond simply their season statistics and see at how each is playing as their teams have made their runs to the Super Bowl. Who enters the game in the better form? Who is more likely to carry his side to the Lombardi Trophy and win himself a trip to Disneyland and an MVP award in the process?   Read the rest of this entry »

One of my favorite things to watch this season has been the route running skills of Victor Cruz. Most wide receivers make the majority of their yards from their athleticism and natural physical ability (think Calvin Johnson here), but Cruz has bucked that trend, especially for such an inexperienced player, by taking defensive backs to task with his routes and fakes.

That’s not to say Cruz is without athletic talents himself–some of his best plays on the season have come from combining both those talents with the route running–but it’s such a rare thing to see a player with such precise, slick, and disguised routes, it needs to be highlighted.   Read the rest of this entry »

Dominance.

It was the theme and most memorable attribute of Super Bowl XLII. Even more so than the game-winning touchdown pass from Eli Manning to Plaxico Burress, and the New York Giants victory over the New England Patriots. The unstoppable juggernaut grounded by a defensive front having its way with the opposing offensive line.

It was the manifestation of an age-old theory that pressure trumps everything when it comes to stopping a passing offense. The Giants brought that pressure and the vaunted Patriot offense simply couldn’t match the form it had shown all season to lead New England to perfection. Read the rest of this entry »

Continuing our Super Bowl Preview Week at PFF, we’re turning our attention now away from the team perspective in order to focus more closely on an individual player from each squad.

We’ll find out the Giants player that is coming under the microscope tomorrow, but today we’re taking a look at one of the game’s true X-factor players: New England’s Aaron Hernandez.

Hernandez started off as another of the new breed of receiving tight ends (a big receiver that can’t really block), and saw much of his time split out wide or simply running routes from his tight end spot rather than contributing with any blocking. Since then, however, he has morphed into a legitimate hybrid of three positions, and in this piece we’re looking at examples of how Hernandez can hurt teams three different ways.   Read the rest of this entry »