Somewhere today Concrete Charlie is kinda-sorta smiling -- and if you have to ask who Concrete Charlie is, you are too young for this Blob. They are dragging the Liberty Bell through the streets and, I don't know, setting it on fire or something. There's even a chance they're not beating up fans of other teams, on account of there are no other teams left to beat up.
The Philadelphia Eagles are Super Bowl champions, in other words. And you know what means.
I was WRONG!
Like, for the first time EVER!
(It also means I probably do need to explain who Concrete Charlie is. Was, actually. He was Chuck Bednarik, the toughest sumbitch who ever breathed air. He also was the last man in the NFL to play both ways. He also was the star of the last Eagles team to win an NFL title, way back in 1960. You can find a bust of him in Canton.)
Anyway, I was wrong. The Eagles were not overwhelmed by the moment, or by the prospect of taking on the Roman Empire, aka, the New England Patriots. Nick Foles did not turn back into Nick Foles. Doug Pederson did not look over at Bill Belichick, throw his clipboard in the air and run screaming into the icebox Minnesota night.
Instead, he did this: Put together the ballsiest game plan in Super Bowl history.
He correctly surmised that the teams that lose to the Patriots lose to them because they play not to lose. And so Pederson's Eagles attacked from the opening bell, and they kept attacking until they were told to stop. They tried a two-point conversion absurdly early in the game, and even though it failed, it set a tone. They hit Tom Brady as often as they could, eventually getting the Brandon Graham strip-sack that sealed it. And on what everyone will now remember simply as The Play, they went for it on fourth-and-goal in the waning seconds of the first half rather than following conventional wisdom and kicking the field goal.
And they didn't just go for it. Oh, no. They pulled from the hat one of the prettiest gimmick plays you'll ever see -- a direct-snap reverse followed by a wide receiver option pass to the quarterback. Unlike the Patriots' attempt at the same thing, it worked. The Patriots were caught flat-footed, Foles was wide open in the end zone for the six, and the Eagles went to the locker room with a 22-12 halftime lead that proved to be crucial.
And when Brady did what he does and led the Patriots back, taking the lead 33-32 as the game clock got down below nine minutes?
The Eagles out-Patrioted the Patriots, outscoring them 9-0 the rest of the way and making the defensive play of the night at the most critical time, forcing and recovering Brady's fumble on the only sack of the night for either team. They made the plays down the stretch, and the Patriots didn't.
A few more observations:
1. Tom Brady is still a cyborg.
Yeah, he's now 5-3 lifetime in Super Bowls. But last night, in his eighth Super Bowl, at the age of 40, he threw for 505 yards and three touchdowns against that fearsome Eagles defense. Five hundred yards. At 40. In a Super Bowl.
You can hate on him all you want. But he's the undisputed heavyweight champeen GOAT.
2. Nick Foles might also be a cyborg.
At any rate, he certainly was not Nick Foles. He was "Nick Foles," an obvious alias, some strange being who threw for three touchdowns himself, who kept slinging the football into the tiniest crevices for crucial first downs, who played as if he were in his backyard and not on the biggest stage there is, against the most intimidating team in football.
A lot of this was due to Doug Pederson's brilliant game plan, which allowed Foles to do what he was good at it. But a lot of it was Pederson believing that what Foles was good at was a lot more than most people thought he was good at. And Foles proved him right.
Remember when the Blob said it was unlikely he could duplicate what he did in the NFC title game?
Yeah, well. At least I said "unlikely" and not "impossible." That would have really made me look stupid.
3. And then there's this: Foles is a better receiver than Brady.
He caught his option pass. Brady dropped his. So Foles has got that goin' for him.
4. The NFL catch rule is a crime against nature and has to go.
If you didn't think so before, you surely must now.
This,after the catch rule, a masterpiece of overthinking, was nearly allowed to ruin one of the more entertaining Super Bowls ever played. Had the officials overturned either Corey Clement's touchdown catch or Zach Ertz's winning TD catch, they might really have set the Liberty Bell on fire in Philly. This is because both receptions were obvious catches in every known universe except the National Football League. That they were even considered reviewable was itself an indictment of this absurd rule.
Thankfully, for both Roger Goodell and last night's game, both were ruled touchdowns. Because, you know, that's what they were.
And last but not least ...
5. That was a heck of a halftime show by Prince.
OK, so it was only a vaguely creepy projection of Prince on what looked like a giant bedsheet, while Justin Timberlake sang a "duet" with the dead artistic genius and Minnesota icon. It was both the weirdest and best moment of a bizarre halftime show in which Timberlake flitted about from set-to-set, sometimes singing audibly and sometimes not, and wearing a getup that looked like it came out of head-on collision between Gander Mountain and L.L. Bean.
But, hey. At least the guy is a darn good dancer.
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