Superbowl XLVII Thread

[Kerb Hohl]

I hold them to different standards but Lewis
A: Walks on water as a player/leader so should be near a coach in standard.
B: Is 10x more obnoxious in his canned leadership. Don't get me wrong, respect the hell out of the guy and he'd inspire me to run through a wall, but his canned statements get so old. You can only repeat that people have to better themselves, you have to be resilient, and his locker room has people growing as leaders several hundred times in your life. Every answer in his interviews is about being resilient and developing yourself into a leader.

[humanrefutation]

The biggest LOL is when the entire Ravens team held (no reason not to) on that punt/safety and ZERO flags were thrown. There were 3-4 horrendous holds since they didn't care and none were called.

I'm sure they were instructed to do so.

[Kerb Hohl]

The refs or the players? The players all absolutely were told to hold since there was almost no consequence. The refs should have at least thrown the flags even though it was inconsequential.

[whatthe_buck!?]

I hold them to different standards but Lewis
A: Walks on water as a player/leader so should be near a coach in standard.
B: Is 10x more obnoxious in his canned leadership. Don't get me wrong, respect the hell out of the guy and he'd inspire me to run through a wall, but his canned statements get so old. You can only repeat that people have to better themselves, you have to be resilient, and his locker room has people growing as leaders several hundred times in your life. Every answer in his interviews is about being resilient and developing yourself into a leader.

The guy has like 2 1/2 brain cells left, cut him some slack. I feel like u criticizing Lewis for being repetitive in his aphorisms is like criticizing Muhammad Ali for shaking too much. What's Jim Harbaughs excuse for acting like a douche bag?

[Kerb Hohl]

Jim probably has the same amount of brain cells left considering his career haha.

But he's an intense guy. Is it my favorite aspect to see him lose it on the sideline? No, but it's not horrible in my mind.

[whatthe_buck!?]

Jim probably has the same amount of brain cells left considering his career haha.

But he's an intense guy. Is it my favorite aspect to see him lose it on the sideline? No, but it's not horrible in my mind.

See thats where we disagree. I personally can't stand a coach who acts like that all game on the sideline. Jim Schwartz can be discribed as calm and composed compared to Jim H. And I know that u weren't being all that serious about Jim's career being as destructive to his mental capacity as Lewis', but there's really no comparison between the career of any NFL QB and Ray Lewis. Playing 17 seasons as a hard-hitting middle line backer is IMO more destructive as far as CTE goes than having a twenty year career as a boxer.

Middle linebacker is IMO the worst position to play in the NFL in that regard, only full back or half back is close, and at least full backs and half backs get plays off and end up in the end zone on some plays without a collision, at MLB you're either making the tackle, end up with ur face in the dirt, or you're taking on a lineman or a fullback with a full head of steam behind him. I honestly feel like with what we now know about cte, halfbacks full backs and Middle line backers should be made to retire mandatorily after like 7 or 8 seasons. I'm dead serious. I played middle line backer in high school and I got a bunch of concussions that I played through and felt the effects of later on, I can only imagine how much more r*tarded I would be today if they had been NFL level collisions instead of the comparatively p*ssy *ss high school ones lol...

[El Duderino]

Tonight was the third game in Flacco's postseason career that he completed 60% of his passes and the first one this year.

He has more postseason games with a completion percentage of 50% or less than he does games with a completion percentage of 60% or more.

He had a 114.7 qb rating this postseason and his lowest qb rating in a game was 106.3. Use whatever stats u want to try to downplay what he did this postseason, there's really no way to successfully do it. Dude was great this postseason. Yes his completion % is not on Rodgers level, but he's not as good as Rodgers and never will be. Plus he isnt asked to do the same kind of thing as Rodgers in games as far as the types of passes he attempts (whether that has to do with fact that he can't complete the same kinds of passes that Rodgers regularly can, while probably being the reason, isn't really relevant because no one is trying to compare him to Rodgers)...

I agree, Flacco was great in these playoffs and deserves all of the praise he is getting for that play. He also was good in the AFC Championship game last year and was a Lee Evans drop away from back to back Super Bowls.

Whether he's worth 20 plus million a year is another story.

[trwi7]

Geez Risdon. Is Flacco Matty Ice now?

He’s just entering the peak performance age for quarterbacks and has raised his level of play to where he’s arguably the most clutch QB in the league.

[emunney]

I'm pretty sure that by extension this means that it was a miracle that the packers made the playoffs this season, correct me if I'm wrong...

Packers won the division, of course they made the playoffs. But they'll never be an NFC championship contender unless they can beat this year's version of the 49ers with their future team every time.

We were at worst a 60/40 dog when we played them this year.

We could have easily won the SB last year and this year. If you think that is ridiculous, imagine if things actually played out that way. It would not have been a huge surprise had we won the SB last year or this year by any stretch of the imagination.

Poe's law.

From now on I'll be referring to the best teams as potential true contenders and SB winners as true SB contenders.

Ravens started this game like a true Super Bowl contender, then the lights went out, then they looked like potential contenders for a while, but when the dust settled, the 2013 Baltimore Ravens stood alone as the true Super Bowl contenders. They really showed their physicality by limiting the 49ers to 182 yards on the ground in 29 carries (6.3 ypc) and 2 TDs.

[Kerb Hohl]

Geez Risdon. Is Flacco Matty Ice now?

He’s just entering the peak performance age for quarterbacks and has raised his level of play to where he’s arguably the most clutch QB in the league.

Ah, wonderful. Another thing that when he gets a fuller sample in his prime will show that he is, just the same in the playoffs.

Almost nobody is "clutch" in the playoffs if you look at their numbers. Flacco is due for a bad playoffs sometime soon through no fault of his own. Just like a 16 game regular season, you're going have some good games and some bad games. Sometimes you have an incredible 4 game stretch.

Favre is one of the only guys that I can definitively say changes his game in the playoffs. Peyton Manning struggles outdoors in the cold but only won 1 SB because the team around him mostly sucked compared to Brady and even Eli. If you compare Mr. Clutch Tom Brady (though he's losing that tag now) and Mr. playoff Choke Peyton Manning...they have...the EXACT SAME QB RATING in the playoffs.

That's not to say that guys can't elevate things a bit. Rodgers seemed to turn it up a few playoffs ago. I'm not saying there is NOTHING with clutch or nerves in the playoffs but I mean honestly, when you have Patrick Willis on the other side of the ball how well can a guy say "yeah, I'm gonna up my game so much that I will dominate him (but I couldn't before)."

[Kerb Hohl]

I agree, Flacco was great in these playoffs and deserves all of the praise he is getting for that play. He also was good in the AFC Championship game last year and was a Lee Evans drop away from back to back Super Bowls.

Whether he's worth 20 plus million a year is another story.

You probably also acknowledge this but he was also a Denver Broncos pants-shy tting defensive strategy late away from not making it out of round 2 this year.

[ReasonablySober]

LSUFreak is a hero.

[RiotPunch]

That is great.

[an_also]

Thats outstanding.

[whatthe_buck!?]

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8912868/bill-barnwell-puts-ravens-win-perspective#footnoteref7
Interesting article by Barnwell that non-sarcastically makes the point about the fallacy of outcome-based analysis many in this thread have already been making.

[MartyConlonOnTheRun]

So why do you have the punter take the safety? Why not have a QB or running back take the snap and run with it. Yeah, the 49ers could recognize that they were taking the safety and get their closer but I don't want a punter trying to make football moves. Plus, you could always have 1 wideout to keep the d honest and have to cover.