Some of the news over these last couple of days practically forced me to rewatch Eyes Wide Shut.
Aside from the obvious things, what’s striking is how average Tom Cruise is in it.
Above it all, he’s just not a star like he usually is in movies especially from that time period.
He seems stilted and pulled back. He’s tightly managed.
He’s a cog in the machine rather than being the whole machine.
That’s the work of the director of that film Stanley Kubrick, who famously had his actors do hundreds of takes and took the ones that weren’t necessarily the best but the ones that fit the movie.
It didn’t matter if he had superstars or bit part actors, they were all cogs in Kubrick’s machine.
This Super Bowl is going to be the same way. It’s going to be tightly managed and deeply scripted by coaches who know what they want and know how to get it.
These are not the two most talented rosters in the NFL.
Both are outside the top-5 most talented overall rosters, though Seattle’s is clearly stronger than New England’s.
These are two teams that have got this far because their coaches have used what stars they do have to serve the bigger picture, just like Kubrick did with Kidman and Cruise.
For New England, Mike Vrabel and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels are game management geniuses that can tailor games to give themselves massive advantages by just playing to the conditions.
You saw it twice in the championship games.
Firstly, on the play that ended in the Gonzalez pick that sealed the game the Broncos made a sub with their offensive personnel. In response, Vrabel’s Pats delayed making their own defensive personnel sub while the play-clock ran, hurrying up the Broncos operation and leading to a pick.
It’s the ritual scene in Eyes Wide Shut. It’s all about feel and set up more than anything.
Secondly, when the game was mired in a snowstorm, on multiple third and longs McDaniels had his potential MVP quarterback throw the ball away because he knew the Broncos would not be able to move the ball. On the play to seal the game, Maye got it with his legs because, despite his cannon arm, the legs were what was needed.
On the question of how to manage this game, I think the answer is the opposite of the approach they took against the Broncos: The Patriots need to be seriously aggressive.
There is an obvious talent mismatch in this game and the Patriots know it. Instead of trying to win the game on its merits, the Patriots need to take a lesson from Jack Black in School of Rock and major in bullshit. That should come in the form of serious aggression on fourth down, fakes, and double passes.
Josh McDaniels has form in that regard. The two most famous double passes in Patriots history happened in the Super Bowl against Philadelphia, when Brady dropped a wide open throw and the Edelman double pass against Baltimore to Amendola.
Defensively for the Pats, I think they go back to their somehow non-hall of fame coach Bill Belichick who always wanted to force opponents to play left-handed. That meant taking away their best player and forcing someone else to beat them.
The Seattle right hand is throwing it to Jaxson Smith-Njigba.
It’s the only thing they do really well offensively.
I expect the Patriots to do everything to take it away, largely by copying what ex-Patriot assistant Brian Flores did against Seattle in week 13. While Seattle won 26-0 that was the Max Brosmer game, JSN had only two catches for 23 yards.
Flores tilted the entire field toward JSN and consistently covered him in man with safety help over the top. That was always the Belichick move against star receivers and I expect the Patriots to steal it, likely with Carlton Davis following him around with safety help over the top and Christian Gonzalez on secondary receivers like Rasheed Shaheed or even Cooper Kupp.
Despite the interesting stuff that Klint Kubiak does with JSN, like when he put him in the backfield and ran a scissors concept out of it for a touchdown against the Rams, I expect New England to do a good job of suffocating the Darnold-JSN connection.
Assuming New England also effectively snuffs out Seattle’s run game, which is probably a good bet given Seattle has been a mediocre rushing team in the playoffs with a 42% success rate while the Pats have been the second best rush defence allowing opposing offences just a 31% rushing success rate, the success or failure of the Seattle game is going to come down to chunk plays.
It’s going to be down to Klint Kubiak to dial them up to his secondary players.
I expect someone like Rasheed Shaheed therefore to make a huge play as well as potentially some Kenneth Walker making it rain with catches out of the backfield, taking advantage of what is a sometimes slow to react Patriot second level.
The biggest mismatch in the game is Seattle’s defense against New England’s offense.
There’s a massive difference in talent between the two units. On the plays where the Pats can’t gimmick their way to first downs, Seattle head coach and defensive savant Mike Macdonald will exacerbate that difference.
Down to down, Seattle’s defence is petrifying but they’re especially scary on the rare occasion that Macdonald presses the big red BLITZ button. The Seahawks are 26th in the league in blitz rate but are third in the league in hurry percentage overall. Part of that is because they bat about 35 deep across the defensive line, but another part of it is that this is the second best team of the last five years when blitzing.
Macdonald has a Kubrick level hit-rate when he calls blitzes. He’s batting basically .1000.
Given the problems that New England have had across their offensive line, and the fact that Maye has been awful against pressure in the playoffs with a 45% pressure to sack rate, the four or five times that Macdonald hits the BLITZ button could be the four or five plays that swing the game.
As I see it, that side of the ball is the difference in the game.
If the Pats are going to win, they need turnovers to get more bites of the cherry against this dominant Seattle defence. Sam Darnold is always liable to shit the bed, but he was truly great against the Rams, might be over his big game yips, and realistically probably won’t need to have more than 25 attempts.
Even if they get those bites of the cherry, and even if New England gets six short fields, I just can’t see it being enough to get past a truly great Seattle defense.
Predictions
- Score: Seattle def New England 35 – 15
- MVP: Nick Emmanwori