Poll: Who is more hated By America? Alabama, NE, CNS, Belichick, Brady, or all equally?

81usaf92 said:

Did it prevent the blowout? Yes
Did it give them somewhat of hope? Yes

But I compared to a lot of the Mike Shula losses to Auburn. He would out coach and out preform Auburn and Tubby for most of the game (except 2005) but his conservatism eventually costed him when Auburn turned it on.

It’s just not championship football. If the point was to make it respectable then the Jags plan was great.

But if it was to go to the SB then it was weak especially in the 4th.

But agree to disagree.

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Idk that they became overly conservative at the end of the game they just have Blake Bortles at QB. The point isn't to make it respectable the point is to win vs a team that beats you 9/10 times. So, what do you do? You find the game script that provides you the best chance of winning. You have to increase the odds. That's what the Jags did. They don't win this game if its high scoring and they don't win this game if Bortles has to throw a ton. The only way they win this game is if they catch a few breaks, play good defense, control the clock, and keep it a low scoring game. That's what they did and it almost worked.

They had the lead with 5 minutes to go on the road in a David vs. Goliath game. That is more than "keeping it respectable". That is remarkable.

The thought that Jax only wanted to play a respectable game is unfathomable. And the thought that their game plan and execution had little chance is, IMO, ridiculous. They were within one great play by a disappointing Gilmore of going ahead with less than 2 min left. No one would compare Bortles to Brady, but he played very well and almost pulled it out. IMO, the thought that Jax was hamstrung in the 4th by the fear of a Bortles mistake is misguided. They threw 13 times vs 4 runs. Even before the last drive they threw more than ran in the 4th. Jax play well and to win, NE/Brady just played better. Could they have been more aggressive on first down in the 4th ? Sure, but this was their MO throughout the year. If they had thrown more, but unsuccessfully, then everyone would have blamed them for abandoning their MO, stopping the clock, thus giving NE more time to come back. When you lose people can blame many things. When you win they forget many things. Jax played well, Brady just played better at crunch time like almost always.

Some may be surprised at the following 4th qtr stats for Jax:

4 runs
5-12 passing for 68 yards and 1 sack
So, 13 passes and 4 runs. Even without the last drive where there were 7 passes, Jax passed 6 times vs 4 runs in the 4th. OTOH, they did start 3 of their 4 drives with a run, but they did this most of the year. The last 4 runs were for a long of 2 yards.

81usaf92 said:

How many of those games did we have under Shula? The point is they were playing tight and conservative when they needed to close the deal. Put it this way... Who is going to the SB and who is sitting at home? If you play not to lose against Brady then you are going to lose. Compare Eli and Flacco to just about every other qb that has gone against the Pats in the playoffs and you see a clear trend of how to beat them. Great defense and a cautious aggressive and adaptive offense. Not a cautious conservative and predictable one.

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I agree and that's why I think the Eagles have a good chance to win the SB. The Eagles have a solid defense and HC Doug Pederson has shown that he is willing to adapt and change during the game.

81usaf92 said:

How many of those games did we have under Shula? The point is they were playing tight and conservative when they needed to close the deal. Put it this way... Who is going to the SB and who is sitting at home? If you play not to lose against Brady then you are going to lose. Compare Eli and Flacco to just about every other qb that has gone against the Pats in the playoffs and you see a clear trend of how to beat them. Great defense and a cautious aggressive and adaptive offense. Not a cautious conservative and predictable one.

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Look, you agree that they couldn't win with any other game plan because Bortles is not good enough, but you insist that this game plan led to the loss in spite of how tight the game was. What you have said is that they could not win that game with Bortles at QB under any circumstances. No one has really disagreed with you there. But, instead of blaming the talent disparity, you blame the coaches for a poor game plan because what? They could not put together a game plan the made Bortles into Brady?

Sometimes a game plan can turn a loss into a win, but when the talent gap is this wide that is pretty rare. The Pats won because they were better - better by a margin wide enough that they would likely win 9 of 10 games played. The Jags did not lose because of a poor game plan.

81usaf92 said:

How many of those games did we have under Shula? The point is they were playing tight and conservative when they needed to close the deal. Put it this way... Who is going to the SB and who is sitting at home? If you play not to lose against Brady then you are going to lose. Compare Eli and Flacco to just about every other qb that has gone against the Pats in the playoffs and you see a clear trend of how to beat them. Great defense and a cautious aggressive and adaptive offense. Not a cautious conservative and predictable one.

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Pretty sure the Eli and Flacco thing is more about how both those guys just caught fire in the playoffs. Despite how bad both of those guys can be neither of them are as bad as Bortles(well Eli might be now but he wasn't).

Brady -- he's just so smarmy. Can't stand him. In the Conf Championship, there were consecutive interference calls near the end of the game. Always seems to happen that way for Smarmy Brady and NE