In terms of controversial Super Bowl buildups, the past week ranks as a one out of 10 on the scandalous scale.
That is most certainly a good thing.
Zero pending NFL investigations, no trash talk through the media, no chatter about pop star girlfriends, and just about nothing in terms of the dreaded distractions that NFL coaches fear so immensely. The only bits of tumult came from Corporate Tom Brady declaring that he’s not rooting for either team in the Super Bowl (I genuinely don’t know how that caught anybody off guard) and an MVP voter bizarrely giving a first-place vote to Justin Herbert. That’s about it.
Though the lack of salacious material may have made life more difficult for anyone who hoped to harp on the tabloid fodder all week, it may have also made some people forget that there’s actually going to be a damn good football game this weekend.
I’m not one of them. And neither are you. Here are the questions I believe that will ultimately determine the outcome of Super Bowl LX.
Can Jaxon Smith-Njigba be contained?
To me, every story about this football game should begin and end with Jaxon Smith-Njigba. The man is that good.
His comfortable victory in Offensive Player of the Year voting — over Christian McCaffrey and Puka Nacua — was merely the latest reminder that nobody was more impactful this year than Smith-Njigba. And while the Patriots can’t hope to shut him down, they’ve no doubt dedicated significant mental energy trying to strategize how to limit his production.
Exactly one defense has been able to put the clamps on Smith-Njigba this year, and it was Minnesota limiting him to two catches for 23 yards in Week 13. (If not for former UNH quarterback Max Brosmer’s four interceptions, perhaps it would have mattered on the scoreboard.). Other than that and a divisional-round win when the Seahawks didn’t need much of anything from the passing game to blow out the Niners, Smith-Njigba didn’t have fewer than 72 yards in any other game this season.
If so, this figures to be a heavyweight battle. Yet while I believe Christian Gonzalez will match up plenty of times with Smith-Njigba, this is going to require an all-out effort from the entire secondary.
(Fortunately, Keion White won’t be around to tempt the Patriots’ coaching staff to use him in coverage against the best receiver in the NFL. Yes, that happened.)
Smith-Njigba will get open, he will move the chains, and he will impact the game. It’s up to the Patriots to manage that aspect while preventing any 40-plus-yard plays and also keeping a keen eye on No. 11’s whereabouts in the red zone. The Rams struggled with that in the NFC title game, and it proved costly.
Could Kenneth Walker III be a game breaker?
As expected, much of the focus in this game has been centered on the quarterbacks. That’s the way things work. Yet if you look at the dominance of the Patriots’ defense this postseason, its foundation has been in stopping the run.
The Chargers duo of Kimani Vidal and Omarion Hampton combined for 30 yards on 12 carries, with most of those yards coming when Vidal scooped up a Justin Herbert fumble and took off running. Woody Marks had just 17 yards on 14 carries (!) while Nick Chubb had 14 yards on four carries for Houston in the divisional round. RJ Harvey, Jaleel McLaughlin and Tyler Badie mustered just 52 yards on 18 carries in Denver.
By neutralizing the running attack, the Patriots’ defense was able to attack the opposing quarterbacks, forcing seven turnovers from Jarrett Stidham, C.J. Stroud and Herbert while also racking up 10 sacks.
Simply put, if the Patriots can follow that game plan on Sunday, they’ll terrorize Klint Kubiak‘s and Sam Darnold‘s plans.
The question, then, is can they bottle up Kenneth Walker III, especially if Robert Spillane is playing on one foot?
With Zach Charbonnet getting hurt in the divisional round, the entirety of Seattle’s rushing game rests on Walker’s shoulders. Despite splitting reps all year with Charbonnet, Walker broke the fourth-most tackles in the NFL this year with 23, and he’s the playoff leader with six thus far. Spillane is as sure of a tackler as they come in the NFL; backup Jack Gibbens missed a tackle in the open field against Harvey that allowed Denver a chance at a field goal before halftime.
It’s not a prime-time matchup like Gonzalez vs. Smith-Njigba, but whoever looks best in the Walker vs. Spillane showdown will have something to say about who wins this game.
Will an unlikely hero emerge?
Seeing some national guys rank the stars in this game …
Well, it made me realize a couple of things. One, people really didn’t watch the Patriots this year. And two, there’s going to be a real opportunity for an “unknown” to make a major impact on the game.
That “unknown” will of course be known to Patriots fans, but they may send a number of national media types in the press box scrambling to grab their roster sheets after an explosive play.
One player I keep coming back to is Kyle Williams. He obviously has had trouble finding a consistent rhythm with Drake Maye, and he’s been almost nonexistent for the past four games, with just one reception for seven yards while taking 85 offensive snaps.
That one reception happened to be both important and impressive, as he put his defender on the ground and came back for a toe-tapper to convert a fourth-and-4.
With Nick Emmanwori dealing with an ankle injury, Pop Douglas figures to get some opportunities to run some whip routes near the line of scrimmage, but Williams feels like a worthwhile option to test Emmanwori deep, either with a double move or with straight speed. The fact that Williams has only taken 32 of his 415 snaps out of the slot this year could add an element of surprise to utilizing him there for at least a small handful of snaps. If it works just once, it could yield significant, game-changing results.
On the flip side, might someone like Jake Bobo — who caught a touchdown in the NFC Championship Game on his fourth catch of the entire year — play the role of this year’s Chris Matthews?
Will a defensive score change the game?
My memory isn’t what it used to be, but I’ll always remember the first time I attended a Bill Belichick press conference. It was in 2007, leading up to the Patriots’ Sunday night matchup against the Eagles. At the podium, Belichick referred to defensive or special teams scores as “bonus points,” because you can never reliably plan on getting them, even if those units are hunting turnovers and/or big plays every time they take the field.
The reality is, a mistake that can lead to an opponent scoring can blow up an entire game plan in an instant. Think back to the first of the 21st-century Super Bowls involving the Patriots and ask yourself when you first truly believed New England might win the game? For myself and countless others, that moment came when Mike Vrabel walloped Kurt Warner in the face, leading to Ty Law reaching up to the sky while blazing down the sidelines for a pick-six.
That was one of just two touchdowns scored by the Patriots in that game, and they wouldn’t have won without it. Spin it forward 24 years, and the Patriots maybe don’t escape Denver with a win if not for forcing Stidham to cough up the ball deep in his own territory. That wasn’t a defensive score, due only to officiating incompetence. But Maye punched it in for six just two plays later, scoring the only touchdown of the afternoon for New England.
These scores aren’t in the game plan because they can’t be, but it’s not difficult to envision numerous scenarios that can alter the game.
Milton Williams and Christian Barmore figure to be in position to feast on the interior, against guards Anthony Bradford and Grey Zabel, who’s a rookie. Center Jalen Sundell isn’t exactly an All-Pro, either. Forcing Sam Darnold to throw before his receivers are looking for a pass or forcing a fumble before the throw might be the kind of play the Patriots need to win the game.
“Bonus points” are how favorites can find themselves suddenly trailing. But they can also be devastating to a team trying to write an underdog story. By that measure, Maye has to toe the line between being the gunslinger that made him an MVP runner-up and being a quarterback who values ball security. While everyone loves to see him run to his right, stiff-arm a linebacker to the ground with his left arm, look upfield and fire a dart into a tight window … a play like that could also backfire if he’s reckless with the football.
Either way, as everyone lays out their matchups this week, they can’t account for which team is going to benefit from the “bonus points.”
Did Mike Vrabel and Josh McDaniels fix Drake Maye?
We started with one of the most important questions, so we’ll end with the most important question: Did Mike Vrabel and Josh McDaniels utilize this extra time to
