Super Bowl LII is just around the corner – it’s high time to take a look at the most important figures. Where do the New England Patriots have advantages over the Philadelphia Eagles on the basis of last season’s figures and what is the other way round? SPOX shows you the most important comparisons and head-to-head duels before the big season finale. Super Bowl LII will be available on 4. February from 11.45 pm live on DAZN – optionally with German and original US commentary!
When Tom Brady sunday night at Super Bowl LII saw the U. S. A. artificial turf. Bank Stadium he will be able to rely on a strong season and lots of statistics that speak for him. But even if he and Bill Belichick have a flawless record in 15 playoff games against teams they hadn’t met in the regular season before, the challenge of the Eagles will be a special one.
The Pats and Eagles will be played for the first time since the 6th edition. December 2015. Philly could celebrate her only victory against a New England team with Brady thanks to three defensive or special team touchdowns. The 40-year-old kept the upper hand in the four other encounters, including Super Bowl XXXIX. In the five games he threw together 12 touchdowns and 2 interceptions.
Brady is the hottest candidate for the MVP award after the season. He had a register rating of 102.8, scored an Adjusted-Completion-Percentage of 76 percent and was awarded Pro Football Focus’s top score of 95.5 of all quarterbacks, and sold outstandingly well against Pressure. Here he threw for a register rating of 96.6, a completion percentage of 55.4 percent and 7.9 yards per pass attempt.
Historically, the pressure against Brady in the Super Bowls played an important role in both defeats.
Against Blitzes, Brady is one of the best quarterbacks in the league’s history – and yet he lost in both Super Bowls against the Giants, who had put him under pressure at over 40 percent of the dropbacks. The decisive factor was that they reached these values, even though they were flashing at less than 20 percent of Brady’s dropbacks.
In every other Super Bowl, Brady was put under pressure less often than 40 percent of his dropbacks. This was also the case in last year’s Super Bowl: although the Atlanta Falcons put pressure on him in the first half with 44 percent of the dropbacks, they built up a 28-3 lead. In the second round, however, the pass rushers ran out of grains, only 30 percent of the dropbacks were made. The end is well known.
Such values were also noticeable in another of Brady’s few failed comeback attempts. In AFC Championship Game 2015, Brady was put under pressure by the Denver Broncos at 49.2 percent of his dropbacks and couldn’t turn the game around in favor of the patriots.
The Eagles Defense led the league after the regular season in the “Pressure” category. With 271 pressures, they had 27 more than any other team. What is worrying for New England is that the Eagles usually generate pressure without flashing. With 38 percent of his rushes, Philly was able to produce pressure without lightning – yet another league record! Only nine teams flashed less frequently.
The same is also noticeable in Philadelphia’s two previous playoff games. The Eagles flashed against Matt Ryan and the Falcons at only 8 of the 39 dropbacks, against Case Keenum and the Minnesota Vikings even rarer (7 of 50 dropbacks). The pass Rusher Brandon Graham, Chris Long, Vinny Curry and Rookie Derek Barnett collected a total of 22 bags this season and played an important role in the move into the Super Bowl.
Brady was blitzed at 23.6 percent of his dropbacks in 2017. Its register rating of 96.6 against pressure is 10 percentage points higher than the average quarterback rating for any down.
With 8 interceptions, Brady threw as many interceptions as since 2014, but still remained below the second digit mark. The Eagles Defense, for its part, pushed 31 turnovers and thus the fourth-best value in this category. There were three more against the Vikings.
The patriots love the use of their running backs. You have three of them running at least five touchdowns. However, Dion Lewis certainly has the greatest amount of work to do. Since October, he has been involved in the game more and more often, paying back an impressive 5.0 yards per run and 49 Missed Tackles. He leads the Pats with 6 touchdowns and 896 Rushing Yards. In addition, Philly’s D 5 Receiving-Touchdowns through running backs allowed for more than 30 other teams in the league.
But in the playoffs in New England they turned a little bit away from the rushing game. Here the Pats ran for 74 yards and 3.2 yards per attempt. Against the Eagles, it’s hard to get better scores: Philly had the best Run-D of the league and held the Falcons and Vikings in the last two games at 70 and 86 yards. The 3.8 allowed yards per run are the sixth-best value in the league.
In the Receiving Department, Danny Amendola’s increased use is particularly noticeable. Where the slot receiver still had values of 4.1 catches, 43.9 yards and 0.1 touchdowns during the regular season, there were 9 catches, 98 yards and a touchdown in the playoffs.
Coordinator Jim Schwartz’s Eagles Defense team has to come up with a way of defending Rob Gronkowski. Two of the league’s elite tight ends were defeated in two of the three seasons against two of the league’s elite tight ends, and both of these games had a big impact: Travis Kelce caught a touchdown pass in Kansas City’s Week-2 win over the Eagles 8 passes for 103 yards and Jimmy Graham in Seahawks victory in Week 13.
Philly’s season’s best coverage linebacker Jordan Hicks in Week 7 against the Redskins didn’t help much. In this game Jordan Reed and Vernon Davis promptly came up with 12 catches for 131 yards.
Page 1: Patriots-Offense vs. Eagles Defense
Page 2: Eagles-Offense vs. patriot defense