| Authored by Matthew Gordon - 13th January, 2008 - 3:23 pm
 It was a Saturday evening, a perfect time for arguably the two best teams in the league to host their hopeful, wide-eyed opponents. The home teams held undeniable advantages, namely those of home-field advantage and of having had a chance to rest while watching the underdogs play. The Patriots and Packers, both highly disciplined teams anxious to make a statement to their high-powered rivals if not to each other, would undoubtedly be ready. The Jaguars and Seahawks, neither of which won very convincingly last weekend (and don’t let Seattle’s burst of defensive activity at the end of the Washington game fool you), looked good but not great – exactly the kind of play of a team that could lose in the second round.
It was altogether fitting that these playoff dances would have such different ends; Jacksonville was deemed by many to be more of a cold-weather team than New England while Seattle wasn’t expected to handle the cold too well. Jacksonville was also a nearly unanimously better team than Seattle, and the gap between the Patriots and Packers shouldn’t be overstated, as Green Bay was 13-1 in non-Bears' games this season. The key is that both favorites won as the majority of predictions prophesied and that there are specific reasons why.
Seattle Freezes on the Tundra
For four magical minutes, it appeared as though Seattle could do the unthinkable and unseat the Packers in Lambeau Field. Ryan Grant’s two fumbles were a huge cause for concern considering it was his first career playoff game, and Seattle’s fearsome front seven looked as good as it had all season. Matt Hasselbeck looked confident, and the weather looked as clear as possible given the season and the venue.
The snow fell, and the slaughter ensued.
Tied 14-14 after one quarter and then up 28-17 at the half, the Packers took control in a hurry. Almost immediately after Seattle’s fourteen-point eruption to open the game, the home team remembered what got it to a stellar 13-3 record. The final score of 42-20 might be better read as 42-6.
Ryan Grant resurrected himself in a hurry, showing why he should be a staple in the Green Bay offense for the next decade or more. He did a great job of using his holes, rushing at Seattle’s smallish defensive line, especially defensive MVP runner-up Patrick Kerney. Whether it was off-tackle or straight up the middle, Grant exhibited an incredible display of classic north-south running. A Packer playoff record three rushing touchdowns later and 201 yards, it’d be tough to disagree.
The combination of wearing down Seattle’s front seven and forcing the Seahawks to focus on the run opened things up greatly for Brett Favre, who reminded us all that he is still among the quarterbacking elite. Aside from a couple short passes to Donald Driver that met with mixed results, Favre played a practical and efficient passing game predicated upon passing to the chains. If ten yards were required for a first down, Favre would throw it at least nine. If six yards were required, he would throw it at least five. NFL defenses are too good for quarterbacks to assume that a tightly-covered player can generate yards after the catch every time. Even when a Packer wideout was tackled immediately after the catch, he tended to give them a first down or something really close.
The Packers’ pragmatic offensive plan was played to perfection by a grizzled veteran in Favre and a group of promising young players who are buying into the idea that the Packers can return to glory. Second-year Greg Jennings looked as though he’d played with Favre for a decade, catching six passes, two for touchdowns. The best example of their mutual understanding on the field came when Favre nodded to Jennings at the goal line, signaling that the play would be a run and not a pass. Even the other Packers thought it would be a run, as evidenced by the run-blocking technique undertaken by the offensive line; the Seahawks must have been fooled too because Favre’s touchdown pass to Jennings was virtually uncontested.
The Packers’ offensive explosion was matched by their intensity on defense. Unlike Seattle’s opportunistic pilfering of Todd Collins, the Green Bay secondary played a style that isn’t indicative of a good game so much as it is endemic of a mentality. These guys play tight and hit hard. After being the fifth wheel in a star-studded Philadelphia secondary and having had the opportunity to learn behind Bobby Taylor and Troy Vincent, Al Harris has emerged as a number-one corner. Atari Bigby has come from obscurity last year to being a force this year, leading the team in interceptions. Although Charles Woodson only halved his 2006 career-high of eight interceptions, he had four more tackles in two less games. All three players lived up to their expectations, with Hasselbeck not throwing for a single passing touchdown after that initial four-minute stretch and not completing a single pass longer than his twin twenty-two yard strikes.
Green Bay’s front seven complemented that secondary magnificently. Their hulking defensive line vivisected Seattle in the trenches, with Corey Williams consistently harrying Hasselbeck while Cullen Jenkins had more sacks than he did in the entire regular season. Perhaps the greatest indicator of how the Seahawks fared against Green Bay’s defense was Shaun Alexander’s pitiful twenty yards on nine rushing attempts. Neither Alexander nor fullback Leonard Weaver, who had only ten yards on four rushes, could amass a single run for ten yards or more.
The Packers rallied behind their leader to put up their most points ever in a playoff game, using a balanced attack that was conservative but not too much so, and the Seahawks were unable to do anything. Hasselbeck was rattled; Alexander was stifled; and Kerney was a non-factor. A game that was at first made interesting by the metaphorical Vaseline on Grant’s gloves turned into one that had all the makings of a massacre. And then the snow fell.
Undefeated Still
I don’t think I was alone when I felt that the Jaguars had a decent shot of beating the Patriots. Unlike the prospect of the Seahawks having to leave (relatively) warm, cozy Seattle for the sub-zero temperatures of Wisconsin, the Jaguars were a team assembled to play tough games in the cold. Fred Taylor and Maurice Jones-Drew comprised the best backfield tandem this season without question, and David Garrard had only three interceptions all season, preferring to take smart passes over flashy ones. The Patriots, of course, had their own little claim to fame, that being the league’s first ever 16-0 record and home-field advantage throughout the AFC portion of the playoffs.
Both teams played a very good offensive game (403 net yards for New England to 350 for Jacksonville), and this is a matchup that might have turned out differently had Jacksonville been the team with the bye week or even merely the team playing at home. Although the Jaguars looked impressive early, matching the Patriots’ efforts in the first half, the Patriots simply outlasted them. It was what they did to the Cowboys in Week 6 and then the Colts a couple weeks later, and it worked again.
Neither secondary can be said to have played that poorly although I was hoping to see more out of Reggie Nelson after his late-season frenzy that continued into the Pittsburgh game. This was just an epic game for the quarterbacks; mid-way through the second quarter, they’d thrown for a combined one incompletion, and neither team had punted. On their second touchdown drive, Jacksonville never even saw third down. Brady threw two incompletions all game.
What separated the Patriots from the Jaguars, the 16-0 team from the 12-5 team, was in the ability to sustain that effort while also establishing the run. If I were to see Fred Taylor’s stat line and then Laurence Maroney’s without knowing who rushed for what, I could have sworn they’d be switched. Maroney is in a great situation where he will almost certainly thrive and is part of an up-and-coming generation of young running backs who could veer the league away from its recent infatuation with passing. (Adrian Peterson, Marshawn Lynch and the aforementioned Grant, I’m looking at you.)
Something that was apparent the entire season but came to the forefront in this game is the sheer number of weapons with which Tom Brady has to work. In Randy Moss, Wes Welker, Donte’ Stallworth, and Jabar Gaffney, the Patriots have four rotation-worthy wide receivers; in Ben Watson and Kyle Brady, they also have two good tight ends. Add Kevin Faulk into the mix, and that’s seven legitimate targets. The Brady-to-Moss combo, deadly as it’s been, wasn’t even necessary in one of the Patriots’ toughest wins of the season. Stallworth, who averaged 15.2 yards per catch this season, had a reception for 53 yards, and Welker had nine catches. All together, there were four Patriots who had three or more receptions, and shockingly, Moss wasn’t one of them.
Something the Jaguars could have done significantly better was control the clock. If you want to beat the Patriots, you have to win the time of possession battle, and that was something the Jaguars couldn’t do. Taylor had to have a big game if only because he’s the heart of that Jaguar offense and probably the entire team, and he didn’t. Credit the Patriots’ combination of veteran linebackers and the enormous Vince Wilfork for Taylor’s 47 yards of troubles… but only to an extent.
Taylor’s presence, even when he’s struggling, counts for something. Those 47 yards came on a piddling thirteen carries, good for 3.6 yards per rush. That’s not that bad, especially against a defense like New England’s. It’s not as though the Jaguars trailed the whole way and needed the pass to stay in the game; in fact, it was the polar opposite. Garrard couldn’t succeed against the Patriots forever, and Taylor was needed to keep the Patriots’ record-setting offense off the field. Looking down the stretch, at how the Patriots knew to expect the pass and consequently held the Jaguars’ red-zone offense to field goals instead of touchdowns, it’s evident why this was an eleven-point tilt instead of a much closer one.
The Patriots should be commended for fueling their potential timelessness, and the Jaguars gave a good effort even if they didn’t execute the way they had to in order to win. One thing’s for sure though: this wasn’t Brett Favre’s systematic dismantling of everything in his sight. This was a test, a test the Patriots passed, and an indicator of just how tough this AFC is. |
