Sports Then and Now

In the future Jake Ballard could be making catches for, instead of against, the Patriots.

You can generally rely on the New England Patriots and Head Coach Bill Belichick to spring a surprise and create talking points for the football betting community to discuss, and that’s just what they did recently when he claimed New York Giants tight-end Jake Ballard ‘off waivers’, which prevented the Giants from slipping him onto the reserve list.

Some may say that this is a form of revenge for the Patriots who were shocked by the Giants in last season’s Super Bowl. The Patriots may waive him with the ‘failed physical’ designation, exposing him to waivers and likely setting the stage for the Giants (or someone else) to claim his contract.

Otherwise, the Pats will have to carry Ballard, who won’t play in 2012 after tearing an ACL in the Super Bowl, on the 90-man roster until the first wave of cuts in late August. Read the rest of this entry →

Belichick knows the value of special teams. He signed Nick Koutouvides in week 9 to sure up the Patriots coverage units.

When analyzing a football game like this one it’s all too easy to forget about the impact of special teams. We all seem to acknowledge big special teams plays after the fact, but by the time the next week rolls around the pundits are right back to talking about offensive and defensive match-ups. Maybe it’s a simple numbers game. There just aren’t many special teams plays in any given game, and the kickoff rules instituted this year have turned a significant number of those plays into non-plays.

And then a week last week comes along and reminds everyone just how important special teams are. Danny Woodhead’s fumble on the kickoff following a Raven scoring drive that gave them the lead for the first time in the game seemed to seal the Patriots’ fate. Instead New England battled back to take a three point lead, a lead that kicker Billy Cundiff had every opportunity to erase. The 32 yard try should have been trivial for Cundiff, but he missed, and New England punched their ticket to Indianapolis.

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It's been a frustrating year for Sebastian Vollmer, but his return could bolster an improved Patriots running game.

In Super Bowl XLII Tom Brady attempted 48 passes. In the week eight meeting between these two teams Brady attempted 49 passes. It is easy for fans, media types, and even coaches to become overly enamored with the Patriots passing attack, and it’s hard to blame them. But against a Giants team whose hallmark remains the ability to generate pressure with only a four man rush it’s damn near suicidal to drop back that many times. The Giants pass rush is too good to give them that many opportunities to get after the quarterback.

To keep Brady clean the Patriots must be able to run the ball. The Giants are exceedingly likely to dare New England to run. In their first three playoff games defensive coordinator Perry Fewell has called for a rush of four or fewer men over eighty percent of the time, and given their past success using four-man pressures against Brady there’s little reason to believe this strategy will change.

The Giants front four of Justin Tuck, Jason Pierre-Paul, Osi Umenyiora, and Chris Canty are the best pass rushing unit in the league, but they lack a true run-stopper. They simply don’t have the beef on the interior of the line, and their aggressive up-field rushes leave a lot of the run responsibilities to their linebacking corps, the weakest unit on their defense.

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Previously, we touched on the unknowns of Rob Gronkowski’s ankle injury, but there are some things we know about these teams for sure. The Patriots secondary is very bad, and the Giants wide receivers are very good. The single largest mismatch in this game belongs to Eli and the G-Men, and if the Patriots are to win their secondary will have played no small part.

For a lot of Patriot fans that declaration may be disconcerting, but let’s not forget the first meeting between these teams in 2011. Their week eight match up was deadlocked at zero at the half, and the Giants entered the fourth quarter of that game with all of ten points. Granted the Patriots had only scored three points, but that’s beside the point. A shutdown defensive performance just isn’t in the cards for Belichick’s gang, but they proved capable of slowing Eli Manning in that game.

Manning completed just over 50 percent of his passes on the day, and the Patriots limited him to 250 yards through the air. Such a yardage total is not normally something to write home about, but when you consider the talents of Manning and the talent he has it’s a little more encouraging.

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Gronk will likely be rocking the walking boot right up until Sunday.

Being that this is Super Bowl week, we thought it appropriate to do things a little differently. Our normal preview piece comes in one easily digestible chunk and highlights three key areas for the Patriots in their upcoming game. But since the Patriots are putting in extra work this week, why shouldn’t we? This is the first of five posts to come in which we’ll highlight various crucial elements of Super Bowl XLVI.

It seems appropriate to start out with what may be the Patriots’ biggest question mark heading into Sunday: the health of Rob Gronkowski’s ankle. Thanks to an overly chatty father, who is apparently unfamiliar with the “Patriot Way,” we know that Gronkowski suffered a high ankle sprain at the hands of Patriot killer Bernard Pollard. The national media made a big deal of the revelation, but while it was certainly not taken from the Bill Belichick handbook, was there ever any doubt about what kind of injury Gronkowski had suffered?

All indications are that the big man will play, but the question is how effective can he be? And if he can’t be effective at all, how will the Patriots adapt their offense? According to ESPN’s Mike Reiss, the Patriots used two or more TEs on 80% of their snaps, far and away the highest percentage in the league. They also lack a true backup at the position, meaning that replacing Gronkowski would entail more than a simple substitution. Who would take Gronkowski’s snaps? Julian Edelman? Tiquan Underwood? Chad Ochocinco? I’d rather not think about it.

In their first match up against the Giants the Patriots heavily utilized their three TE package. Presumably this was done to keep the Giants’ phenomenal pass rush honest and also because for all of their pass rushing acumen the Giants defensive line is a little undersized, particularly on the interior. The Patriots’ ability to use this package hinged on the health of Sebastian Vollmer, in whose absence Nate Solder is forced to slide in at RT.

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The New York Giants and San Francisco 49ers have played some memorable playoff games over the last 30 years.

When the San Francisco 49ers and New York Giants meet for the NFC Championship on Sunday it will mark the eighth time the two squads have met in the playoffs and second time with the Super Bowl on the line.

Given that these two squads have a combined total of eight Lombardi Trophies, it is hard to believe that when they first met in the playoffs thirty years ago, neither team had ever made a Super Bowl appearance.

In the first playoff game of the Joe Montana and Bill Walsh era, the 49ers jumped out to a 24-10 halftime lead and went on to register a 38-24 victory. They would go on to defeat the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl XVI.

That game proved to be the first of five playoff meetings over the next decade.

The 49ers claimed the second matchup three years later with a 21-10 victory on their way to their second Super Bowl title.

However, the tide would soon turn as the Giants won 17-3 in 1985 and then in 1986 completely demolished the 49ers 44-3 on their way to their first Super Bowl title.

The two teams would not meet again in the playoffs until the 1990 season and for the first time they were playing in the NFC title game.

San Francisco was shooting for a third straight Super Bowl title, but in what would prove to be his final playoff start as a member of the 49ers, Joe Montana suffered a huge hit from defensive end Leonard Marshall that knocked him out of the game for nearly two years.

The 49ers led the game 13-6 in the second half, but three Matt Bahr field goals, including the game winner following a Roger Craig fumble, allowed the Giants to steal a 15-13 victory and end the dreams of a third straight Super Bowl for the 49ers.

New York went on to defeat the Buffalo Bills 20-19 to win their second Super Bowl under head coach Bill Parcells. Read the rest of this entry →