Super Bowl preview - New England Patriots vs New York Giants

Thought I would take a look at the big game on Sunday and try and pick the better team, will be interested to hear your views and get some debate going!

Quarterbacks
Tom Brady vs Eli Manning
What is left to prove for Tom Brady? Maybe just that he has been beaten by Eli twice, both times coming from behind in the last 2 minutes. Brady is seen as the ultimate competitor in the NFL, and has shown many times that he is a seriously clutch quarterback. This season he has thrown for over 5000 yards and led his team to the second best record in the league. By his own admission, he had a poor game against the Ravens. Will he be able to contend with the Giants pass rush and put the offence on his back like he usually does? Eli has been clutch many times this year, he was the best passer in the 4th quarter throughout the regular season. He made some big time throws at the end of the NFC championship game, including the TD pass to Mario Manningham at the end of the 4th quarter. The big question on Eli is still the fact that he has a tendency to turnover the ball. Against the 49ers, he could have easily turned the ball over twice had the Niners defenders not hit each other. Will Eli be able to keep up his excellent play in the 4th quarter, and will he be able to keep hold of the ball? At the end of the day, these are 2 of the top 5 quarterbacks in the NFL, both capable of winning Super Bowls as we know. My pick is still Brady

Running Backs
BenJarvus Green-Ellis/Steven Ridley/Danny Woodhead vs Ahmad Bradshaw/Brandon Jacobs
Both teams use multiple running backs, for my money Bradshaw is the outstanding player here. Both teams have favoured the pass this year, but I have a feeling the running backs are going to be key players on Sunday. The Patriots have BJGE as the man to gain the hard yards, the rookie Ridley as the all rounder and Woodhead as a pass catcher. Giants use Jacobs as the big battering ram, while Bradshaw can do it all. The Patriots have had more success running the ball this year than the league worst Giants, but Bradshaw put up over 120 yards of offence against the dominant 49ers defence. I am going to pick the Giants RBs to be the more effective come Sunday.

Receivers
Rob Gronkowski/Aaron Hernandez/Wes Welker/Deion Branch vs Hakeem Nicks/Victor Cruz/Mario Manningham/Jake Ballard
2 of the best receiving corps in the game, with some of the elite receivers and tight ends set to be on the field. If Gronkowski is fully healthy, he is practically uncoverable as the Giants found out in week 9 when he caught 8 passes for 101 yards and a touchdown. Welker and Hernandez also had good games that day, and the Giants will have to stop all of these guys as any of them is capable of torching a team. Cruz and Nicks have been the best pair of receivers in the NFL this year, but the wildcard could be Mario Manningham. I have always been a big fan of his play, and he has scored 3 touchdowns in the post season. I read some analysis on the Patriots defence, which reckoned that in the base 3-4, Victor Cruz would be covered by a linebacker. If this is true, then Eli Manning will take that matchup all night long. The Patriots pass defence has been horrible all year long, the Giants merely adequate. For that reason, I am going to pick the Giants receivers

Patriots Offensive Line vs Giants Defensive Line
For me, the Super Bowl rings will come down to this matchup. If the Patriots can protect Tom Brady, I think they will win this game. The big guys have played well so far in the postseason and have only given up 1 sack. However in the week 9 matchup Brady posted his worst QB rating of the year, despite only being sacked twice. The pass rush that day probably wasn't as good as it is at the moment, especially with Jason Pierre-Paul playing like a DPOY candidate over the last 6 weeks. I think the Giants pass rush is as good as any I have ever seen, with Pierre-Paul, Umenyiora, Tuck and Canty all racking up sacks in the postseason. My pick - Giants D Line

Patriots Defensive Line vs Giants Offensive Line
The Pats have struggled to rush the passer through the regular season, and losing Andre Carter, who was leading them in sacks will not have helped. But as we know, Belichick always has something up his sleeve. So far in the postseason he has been switching between 3-4 and 4-3 defences, and moving players all over the show within those defences. Mark Anderson and Vince Wilfork have been two of the unsung heroes of this Super Bowl run in my opinion, Wilfork in particular was dominant against the Ravens. Conversely, the Giants offensive line had their worst game of the season against the 49ers. Eli was sacked 6 times and hit 12 times in total. If the Patriots can do something similar, I reckon they will be far more able to put up points than Alex Smith and the 49ers were 2 weeks ago. My pick - Patriots D Line

Linebackers and Secondary
I don't know enough about these groups to make a proper pick, but I do know how badly the Patriots secondary struggled in the regular season. Victor Cruz torched them in week 9, and that was without Hakeem Nicks to take attention away from him. If Cruz gets open regularly he will probably win the game. I have seen the Giants get beaten by the Packers and other good passing attacks, but feel their weaknesses have been masked by the pass rush. I can't see them covering Gronkowski or Hernandez very effectively, and Welker will always get his catches. My pick - Push

The monkey in the room is the parallels to 2007, when the Giants battered Brady all day long and Eli made the big plays at the end. The Giants run to the Super Bowl is also similar, but I just feel the Patriots have the beating of them this time. The X Factor in this game is likely to be which defence makes one more stop, so going against my dislike of the Giants, my pick for the game - New England Patriots 24 - 29 New York Giants

Should be a very good game which is all I really care about! If I had to pick right now I'd take the Giants but i'm not sure quite why exactly and feel i'm biased by my Patriot dislike more than anything. It will be close.

QB
Have to go with Brady here. Eli is pretty good at late game heroics, but Brady ain't bad himself. As BamBam mentioned, I's still figure Eli is more likely to commit a silly turnover than Brady despite what happened against the Ravens last time out.
NE 1 - 0 NYG

RB
Definitely going with the Giants here. I don't think the Patriots will commit that much to the run, though they will have to a bit to keep the defensive ends of New York honest. Bradshaw is the best of the bunch and I figure Brandon Jacobs tends to do better when he can actually be bothered... i'm sure the Superbowl falls in that category. BJGE is the best of the Pats but in the grand scheme of things is not up to much.
NE 1 - 1 NYG


WR/TE
The biggest question in my mind is over the status of Rob Gronkowski. I saw the injury last week and I genuinely don't believe he will be 100% and that changes my pick away from New England. Comparatively I don't feel the Patriots have the deep threat and given the shaky nature of both secondaries I think that gives the Giants the bigger advantage when compared with the short passing game which Welker/Gronk would clearly dominate.
NE 1 - 2 NYG

O-Lines
Going to take the Patriots here. I like their O-Line, particularly the left side and they may just about be able to cope with the pass rush from Big Blue. Hey, Brian Waters even did pretty damn well at RG and I was expecting him to fade into the twilight of his career. The Giants just don't seem as strong with C and LT a bit weak and it showed against the pressure from the Niners.
NE 2 - 2 NYG

D-Lines
Don't think you can argue here. The Giants win all the way. If you want a pass rush then just send out Pierre-Paul, Tuck, Umenyiora, Canty et all. Wilfork is still pretty immense but outside of him but without Andre Carter you can't even think about giving them the D-Line battle. I still think they will get a big of success against Manning, but largely due the linebackers and/or poor Giants O-Line play.
NE 2 - 3 NYG

Linebackers
In some senses I'm not sure which way to go here partly because in comparison to other positions I find it hard to judge talent at Linebacker when not considering pass rush alone. I will take the Patriots as Brandon Spikes and Jerrod Mayo are in my view the best of the combined bunch.
NE 3 - 3 NYG

Secondary
Both considered a weakness of each team in many eyes. The Patriots playing Julian Edleman at CB tells the story. I think i'd take the Giants Safeties as I have always rated Antrel Rolle and i'd probably take the Corners as well because Devin McCortney has dropped off this year.
NE 3 - 4 NYG

Special Teams
In predictable fashion i'm taking New England which of course ties the scores at 4 each. Mesko is probably the better punter and Gostkowski should probably be the better kicker although Tynes has plenty of clutch experience in NFC title games and given the closeness of this game that may come into play.
NE 4 - 4 NYG

Nicely perched on the fence there crazy_dave .. so who is going to win??

bambamwillis wrote:Nicely perched on the fence there crazy_dave .. so who is going to win??

I said the Giants in line 1... which was cunningly written up at the top after deciding on the 4-4 tie...

i reckon the Giants have a slight edge

gonna be close though and hopefully a good game to end the season

Nobody has considered the coaches here. If you ask me Belicheck has the edge.

I'm going with the Patriots to win and I'll think they'll do so handsomely.

I've been really surprised by a lot of the media analysis over the last week and a bit. A lot of it has been talking down the Pats and really talking up the Giants. If I see one more article about how amazing Eli has supposedly become then I'll go mental. Yep, he's had a good season but I'll take the likes of Brady, Brees, Rodgers and the healthy version of his brother over him every day of the week in any situation. It's incredible that going in to this game, if you were new to the sport, then you could only come to the conclusion that of the two QBs, Eli was the superstar and Brady was the ropey one.

Anyway, rant over, I'm no Pats fan but I think Brady will do what he did the last time it was the opposing QB getting all the plaudits and receiving all the hype heading into the game. I think he'll do to Eli what he did to Tebow and dump all over him. Pats to win....... 38-20.

The giant's will win. That is all.

Sorry, also meant to say that I reckon Gronk will be just fine for the game. Just some Belichick mind games going on here IMO.

My take, feedback appreciated: http://www.sportpulse.net/content/super-bowl-xlvi-preview-ne-patriots-vs-ny-giants-2752

I believe in Eli