NFL Playoffs running thread

That was the team that went undefeated until the loss to the Giants in the Super Bowl. Was that the one that the Chargers got a huge interception that would have stopped a touchdown drive, then the defensive back fumbled it right back on the return?

Edit: I found the answer to my own question. That was the previous year. In January of 2007, Marion McCree intercepted Brady late, but fumbled and Troy Brown recovered to give New England a second chance. The Patriots scored a touchdown and tied the game with a two-point conversion, then drove for a field goal with under a minute left to win it.

 

But that doesn’t fit the narrative that manning always choked when he played Brady and the patriots.

 

This is what gets me about monday morning qbs. Marrone was a tight ass and lost because he stopped throwing on first down.

The year before, Kyle Shanahan didn't stop throwing on first down and the Falcons lost. All you read was if they would have just run the ball......


You know that thing that the coach/manager did, and it didn't work? They should have done the other thing.

 

Unfortunately, it was stupid games against the likes of the Chargers and Titans that did him in too often in the playoffs.

 

Shanahan's play calling after Jones' catch was inexcusable. Otherwise it was OK. What really did the Falcons in was that their defense was completely physically gassed when the fourth quarter started.

 

Here's the funny thing.

Every game is different.

 

That's a pretty big exception you started with there.

 

Absolutely. But Shanahan gets ripped for the whole half, rather than the one true and deadly blunder.

 

Brady is 28-10 in playoff games. 3-4 on the road. Only 7 road games out of 38 playoff games. That’s dominance.

 

It helps when you can get 5-6 guaranteed wins every year because of the dogshit AFC East.

 

That 2007 loss still chaps my hide all these years later. That interception was on a fourth-down play also; if it had fell incomplete or if McCree had just went down with the ball, the Chargers, I believe, would have been able to run out the clock and win. Of course, that was also the game where we started realizing Nate Kaeding was a great regular season kicker who would totally lose it when the playoffs started. I was happy for Manning when he got his ring, but in the back of my mind I was like "Damn, that was supposed to be the Chargers up there at the podium."

My takeaway from the conference championship game the next year, outside of the what-ifs of a healthy Rivers and LT, was that the Chargers kept getting into the red zone, but could never reach the goal line and settled for field goals. I believe the final was only 21-12 or something like that.