The New England Patriots won Super Bowl 53 with a new style of defense we rarely see. Last second changes and alignments left the Rams’ offense befuddled. As the league adopts this strategy, mental quarterbacks will emerge.
The New England Patriots stymied and thwarted one of the best offenses in the NFL on their way to their sixth Super Bowl title. They did it with defense and punting. As we wondered what needed to happen for a punter to be named Super Bowl LIII MVP, the real MVP was Bill Belichick, per usual.
Rumor has it that the New England Patriots took a specific tactic in defeating Los Angeles. Besides utilizing more zone than normal and throwing odd looks and mixing up stunts up front, the basic premise of their plan was as follows: wait until after the communication cut off between Sean McVay and Jared Goff, shift the defense then, and force Goff to be the one to make the proper reads.
New England’s new style of defense exposed a flaw in Goff’s game, his mental game. The NFL is full of copycats, so teams will all be emulating such tactics next season. Are we heading into a new era of mental quarterbacks, because we just witnessed what happens if you are a step slow?
Two brothers from New York, Dan Salem and Todd Salem, debate Super Bowl 53 in today’s NFL Sports Debate.
Todd Salem:
What the Patriots did was fascinating and brilliant. By waiting until after the headset between coach and quarterback cuts out, New England moved the immediate reactions away from McVay and onto Goff’s plate. Apparently, Goff wasn’t good enough to adjust.
McVay obviously wasn’t completely unable to help. He can see everything Goff sees and make game adjustments, but within a specific play, his impact was lessened. This speaks to the knowledge and leadership in the New England defense, as well as the inexperience or inability to execute of Goff behind center.
As the game grows more complex and fast-paced, it continues to become all about finding the proper read on any given play. It’s the same reason Tony Romo became everyone’s favorite analyst. He was making the proper reads on many given plays (as well as was able to communicate that to the viewers before the snap). That complexity makes the reads almost as important as the arm strength or execution. The league has always been trending this way.
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Am I exaggerating, or does this revelation make the quarterback position different in the immediate future? The position requires an offensive coordinator behind center. Everyone always used to say that about Peyton Manning, but it wasn’t as necessary back then. It was an added piece to his talents that led to further success. It made him stand out above his peers. Now, it may be a baseline requirement.
Not all defenses can do what New England pulled off over the course of a full game. But changing up a look and forcing the other side to adjust is much simpler than adjusting to a change the other side makes. Taking the head coach out of the equation in these shifts means the entire game becomes quarterback versus defense, not physically but mentally. I don’t need arm strength to win that matchup. I need something else entirely.
Dan Salem:
I’m not convinced this is anything new, but with Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, being a mental quarterback became simply how you do it. The Patriots reversed what Brady does and used it on defense to wreak havoc on opposing quarterbacks.
Saying the quarterback position is suddenly more mental ignores how critical that aspect was all along. There was a time when coaches did not have a microphone to speak into the helmets of their quarterbacks. You better believe those quarterbacks had to play this exact mental game to perfection, or lose trying.
There is a reason that quarterback is the most important position on the field. It’s no coincidence that the best quarterbacks of all time are the ones who easily called audibles at the line of scrimmage and read defenses like a children’s book. Manning constantly changed plays to combat what he saw in the defense. Brady does the exact same thing. They are two of the top five quarterbacks in history. Its unfair to compare Goff to them, yet that is how sports work.
Goff is not on their mental level right now, but he can be. New England’s defense and Bill Belichick knew he lacked in an area where most quarterbacks, especially younger ones, lack. His pre-snap reads are not good enough to overcome constant change and last second shifts. It’s likely Goff has never faced a defense which made last second shifts on every single play for an entire game.
He gets the blame for failing to adjust, but so does the entire Los Angeles offense. The receivers rarely were open, the running backs rarely had gaps to run through, and it felt as though Goff rarely had time to make his three stop drop, let alone throw the football. Its his job to make pre-snap adjustments, but this defensive tactic completely befuddled the entire Rams’ offense.
You are onto something with regards to a shift in how NFL teams operate, but its not with quarterbacks. Those mental skills have always been critical. It’s why Eli Manning is such a great quarterback. He is also very smart, like his brother, and when under pressure in the playoffs with the game on the line, he consistently made the right adjustments, the correct defensive reads, and made the winning plays. Mental skills equal longevity at quarterback. Mental skills equal dominance at quarterback. What is about to change is how defenses call their plays.
NFL teams love to emulate what just won someone the Super Bowl. We see it every season, so expect many teams to attempt to call their defense like the Patriots just did. I’m not sure most teams can sustain such a tactic for an entire game. Its doubtful that New England could do this game in and game out, but it worked to perfection for the one game that mattered most.
What we are seeing is the mentally strong quarterbacks succeeding early, like Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold, leading to this defensive tactic to confuse everything. Its not new, but new again because it worked so well. It worked because everyone executed perfectly on the Patriots. No one made a single mistake. Heck, the Rams defense only faltered on one drive when Rob Gronkowski was targeted. What they did worked great too.