A year ago the road teams won the conference championship games, and we were treated to pretty much the worst Super Bowl since the days of the NFC dog-walking the AFC around the field in the 80s and 90s. Now it's the home teams winning convincingly. Maybe that will mean another classic.
But for now, and realizing that two weeks from now everyone will be talking about how lousy and disappointing one of these teams was when it loses the Super Bowl, a moment to celebrate each.
Kansas City 35, Tennessee 24. Anything surprising about this game? Just one thing; the underutilization of Derrick Henry in the second half. I realize Tennessee ultimately fell behind by 18 points and had little choice. But: right after Kansas City scored 2 plays into the fourth quarter to go up 28-17, Tennessee got the ball and called four straight pass plays, three from shotgun formations, before punting. Kansas City then scored again, and it was all passing after that.
But really, the story was the same as Houston-Kansas City. Patrick Mahomes and company could not be stopped. Tennessee didn't have the horses on defense, as expected, and there's only so much you can do if you can't get the opposing offense off the field. The Titans have a lot to do in the offseason. Re-sign Ryan Tannehill, re-sign Derrick Henry. But they also need to find a difference-making defensive presence to help them get the stops they couldn't get yesterday. Easier said than done, of course.
LeSean McCoy was inactive in what I initially thought was a healthy scratch but was apparently due to illness. OK. Bottom line was Buffalo dumped McCoy at the start of the season because they didn't need him, and Kansas City brought him in as an insurance policy, then didn't use him at all when Damien Williams was healthy and the games were important. Presumably he'll be active for the Super Bowl. But he's an insurance policy, not a guy who will have a role.
San Francisco 37, Green Bay 20. I thought this one would be close. Dumb. If I make that acknowledgment, allow me that I was right that Raheem Mostert would be the main back, when a lot of people were thinking it would be Tevin Coleman, based on last week (in which Mostert got hurt). No, Mostert wouldn't have had an every-down role had Coleman not been injured yesterday. But it was 7-5 carries edge for Mostert prior to Coleman getting hurt and he scored his second touchdown right after Coleman left. He's better (maybe much better) and it was going to be a big day for him yesterday regardless. I went strong enough on him to win some money; only wish I'd gone even stronger.
Seeing San Francisco hammer away with huge running play after huge running play on a Green Bay team that had to be expecting the run (because that's all they were seeing) was a little shocking. Troy Aikman used a line about "taking away Green Bay's manhood" which was both amusing and completely accurate. It looked like they could have run those reverses with Deebo Samuel every freaking play. Running almost every play is what they did, and it was awfully impressive.
Back in the day I was a Packers fan, and I still on occasion lurk around those chat boards or Twitter discussions. A lot of finger-pointing go on today, most of it at the defense (quite right), discussing dumping defensive coordinator Mike Pettine (maybe), lamenting the lack of weapons for Aaron Rodgers (yeah), even bashing Rodgers himself for his turnovers, lack of emotion, etc.
Clearly, when you get run all over like yesterday, that's the big problem. Rodgers didn't have a good game (not when it mattered, anyway), but nothing he could do about the defense giving up all those points, most of which were on drives, not turnovers.
But most will recall all last offseason Rodgers gushing about how awesome Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Jake Kumerow and Geronimo Allison were. I guess in retrospect we can chalk that up to him trying to build up player confidence or whatnot. But since all of those guys were quickly and convincingly passed by nobody Allen Lazard, it seems like there should have been some awareness at the time that maybe these later-round and undrafted guys weren't going to be legit. Perhaps they could have been in the mix for a wideout at the trade deadline. I don't know. Easy to say from here, I suppose.
The quickness of San Francisco's turnaround is striking. They were a bad team last year. They spent a lot of free agent dollars the last two offseasons on Jerick McKinnon and Tevin Coleman, who had either no or minimal impact on this year's Super Bowl team. Hitting on some good draft picks, making a couple of nice defensive signings or trades. I had major doubts about John Lynch's front office, but hey, they get the last laugh. Well done. And oh yeah, the idea that Bill Belichick wanted to keep Jimmy Garoppolo around doesn't look wrong, even while noting he did very little yesterday. But they were in that position due to his performances in some other games. He answered the bell when they needed him, even though yesterday they didn't.
It's the Super Bowl at least some of us wanted. Can San Francisco run all over Kansas City? Can their strong pass defense cause problems for the game's best quarterback? Can we get another great Super Bowl to wash away the taste of last year's. We'll talk about it plenty over the next two weeks.