Tom Brady and the Patriots.

Ok - am a Raiders fan so I dont usually give props to an opposing team in the NFL or their quaterback. I've got to give the Patriots props for an awesome season though and if your a real football fan - you appriciate good football. The pats have managed to do something quite extraordinary in the nfl - and no matter what team you support, theres not much fault you can find in their quest to the Superbowl.

Tom Brady has been fantastic in the pocket. His protection in that pocket though is really what gives him time to do what he does. Imagine a Payton Manning with that much protection. At the end of the day give any above average quaterback that kind of protection and he can tear a team apart. That been said some quaterbacks would tend to get careless - even over confident in such a situation and throw some game lossing interceptions. Brady has made good use of the protection and time he gets.



Youve got to give Brady his due - one of the calmest quaterbacks in the NFL in a long time. With protection all around him and time to pick up his recivers, he is almost unstoppable. If the Giants are to pose any threat to Bready they are going to have to pressure him. Its not like the Patriots are completely unstoppable - if youve followed all the games against the Pats - youll know some teams have been able to put pressure on Brady and come very close to stopping the Pat's.

Check out Mike Tanier's article on how this can be done:

The Patriots are beatable.
Over the past 20 weeks, opponents have found the Patriots' weaknesses and exploited them. The Eagles challenged them to an aerial dogfight and rang up 28 points with their backup quarterback. The Ravens defense briefly proved Tom Brady's mortality, sacking him three times and holding him to a sub-50 percent completion percentage. The Chargers forced turnovers in the AFC title game and moved the ball from 20 to 20 without mishap. The Jaguars controlled the tempo of a playoff game and played keepaway from New England's offense. The Colts rushed for 122 yards; the Browns threw for 287. And in Week 17, the Giants nearly derailed New England's undefeated trolley.

But while many teams have accomplished this and that against the Patriots, no one has actually scored more points than them after 60 minutes of football. That's what makes the Patriots one of the best teams in NFL history. It's also why the Giants are such underdogs despite battling to a 38-35 finish just a month ago. The Giants bring a lot to the table — the best defensive line of the last decade, a solid running game — but the Patriots bring a feast fit for Henry VIII, plus doggie-bag leftovers.

Our primary tool for breaking down Super Bowl XLII matchups will be DVOA, Football Outsiders', exclusive statistic that examines every play of the NFL season and adjusts the results based on the situation and the opponent. DVOA comes in a thousand flavors — third-down DVOA measures third down success, red-zone DVOA rates a team's prowess inside the 20, and so on. By mixing DVOA with film study and a little horse sense, we can get inside the matchups, discover some hidden strengths and weaknesses, and make a few predictions.
In the first of a two-part series, we examine each team's strength.

Patriots offense vs. Giants defense
The enduring image of the 2007 season is Randy Moss out-leaping two defenders in the end zone to haul in a 40-yard touchdown. It seemed to happen twice a week in September and October. While it's true that Moss and Brady used backyard tactics against weak opponents in the first half of the year, defenses have effectively taken the Moss bomb out of the Patriots' arsenal in the postseason. Moss has just two receptions in the last two games, for 18 and 14 yards.

Still, the Patriots have racked up 52 points against two great defenses in sometimes-Arctic conditions. There's a big difference between stopping Moss and stopping the Patriots. Offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels usually runs a modified spread offense designed to maximize the effectiveness of the team's cadre of weapons. A spread offense uses the threat of the bomb to open pass routes underneath, and opponents who concentrate on stopping Moss get whittled to death by flat routes to Wes Welker, screens to Kevin Faulk and Donte' Stallworth, and short crosses by Jabar Gaffney and Ben Watson. When everything is clicking, the Patriots move the ball in efficient 8-yard chunks, sprinkling in a few bombs to keep the safeties 20 yards behind the line of scrimmage.

The Patriots don't need quick-strike capability to drop 35 points on an opponent, they just need opportunities. The Patriots average 41.63 yards and 3.37 points per drive, the best figures in the league by a wide margin. They score touchdowns on 42.4 percent of their possessions, an amazing figure (the Colts were second at 32.2 percent). It all adds up to the best offense in NFL history, according to DVOA and most conventional measures. McDaniels' spread offense, Brady's quick release and field smarts, and Moss' existence put defenses in a triple bind before they even leave the tunnel.

Giants defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo likes to dictate to the offense, forcing long-yardage situations and using the league's best pass rush to force sacks and turnovers.
Spagnuolo's ability to juggle personnel on the defensive line — big Barry Cofield and Fred Robbins play running downs, fast Justin Tuck and Mathias Kiwanuka play passing downs, Michael Strahan and Osi Umenyiora play all the time — has kept opponents guessing and quarterbacks running all season long. The Giants sacked Brady just once in Week 17, but they hurried him a few times. The Patriots' pass protectors are excellent (they ranked fourth in the league in adjusted sack rate, which factors attempts and down-and-distance situations into sack totals), but they are vulnerable to inside speed rushers like Tuck.

McDaniels will counter Spagnuolo's mix-and-match approach with a hurry-up offense that limits substitution. Look for the Patriots to lure the smaller Tuck-Kiwanuka line onto the field, then go no-huddle and attack it with the hard-running Laurence Maroney. Even when he has his best pass rushers on the field, Spagnuolo will be forced to leave most of his exotic blitzes in the desk drawer. Send a seven-man jailbreak after Tom Brady, and he'll throw a screen or flat pass that turns into a 25-yard gain. Some opponents abandoned their pass rush altogether against the Patriots, using a three-man line and frequently dropping eight defenders into coverage. Spagnuolo won't do that, but he'll call a more conservative game than he would against any other opponent.

Spagnuolo must also answer the Moss question more effectively than he did in Week 17. The Giants tried to use zone coverage with a corner deep and a linebacker underneath to stop Moss, but pitting him against any linebacker is a bad idea. The Jaguars developed a successful anti-Moss template by jamming him hard with a cornerback on the line, forcing him to the inside and keeping a safety deep. If the Giants use a similar strategy, they should be able to slow Moss while limiting the effectiveness of Welker and the other receivers. While they lack a true shutdown cornerback, the Giants have four adequate cover corners in Sam Madison, Corey Webster, R.W. McQuarters and rookie Aaron Ross. The Patriots like to isolate Gaffney and Stallworth against weak links in the opposing secondary, but the Giants have no obvious patsy.
Assuming that Spagnuolo contains Moss, controls the other receivers and finds the best way to deploy his star-studded defensive line, he has two other worries. One is Maroney, whose power running proved pivotal against the Jaguars and Chargers while adding yet another dimension to the Patriots offense (the Patriots' running game was solid on a per-play basis all year, but it was hard to notice because Brady kept throwing long touchdowns). Maroney's stiff-arm and cutback ability make him a deadly weapon against nickel defenses, as 190-pound backup cornerbacks have a hard time tackling him. Maroney can also slug out yardage from the I-formation or a multi-tight end set, and both the Chargers and Jaguars learned that the Patriots haven't forgotten the cloud-of-dust tactics that nearly took them to last year's Super Bowl.

Spagnuolo's other headache is the Faulk-Watson combination. The Giants rank 31st in the league at stopping tight ends and 28th at stopping running backs in the passing game, according to DVOA. Faulk has burnt opponents time and again in the postseason, and if the Giants commit too much to stopping the big guns, he can beat them as both a receiving and a draw-play threat. Watson can split the seam as a deep threat and can work the sidelines for 15-yard gains after Moss and friends clear most defenders out of a zone.

The Patriots offense is so good that no defense can account for everything. Last week the Chargers played quarters coverage (all four defensive backs in deep zones) and conceded every short sideline pass to Faulk and Welker. The gambit generated a turnover (Quentin Jammer's pick was a direct result of the scheme), but jumpstarted a lot of drives. Spagnuolo won't be so generous, but he'll be forced to make some concessions of his own. Whatever the Giants give, the Patriots are sure to take.

The Patriots' greatest weapon is their offensive flexibility. They can run, throw long or throw short. They can shift from a four-wideout formation to a three-tight end alignment and always have high-quality personnel on the field. They can eliminate any defense's strength while exploiting its greatest weakness. Against the Giants, that means they will use runs and quick passes to stop the pass rush while using their backs and tight ends to attack holes in the pass coverage. Their special teams will exert subtle force on the game, shortening drives for the offense and lengthening them for the Giants by a few yards, forcing New York to be perfect on both sides of the ball.

Article by by Mike Tanier
Courtesy of FOX Sports.
Link: http://msn.foxsports.com/