Super Bowl XLV Game Review

Despite numerous disasters off the field, Super Bowl XLV came through with the exciting game that everyone expected.  The Packers emerged victorious in the end, but you have to give the Steelers credit for rebounding from a bad first half and almost completing an epic comeback.  Here are my initial post-game thoughts:

1) Rashard Mendenhall fumbles away a comeback - As the fourth quarter began, momentum was firmly in the grasp of the Steelers.  They had already cut an 18-point deficit to four and held Green Bay's potent offense to only 16 yards in the third quarter.  After a poor punt by the Packers and another good run by Rashard Mendenhall, Pittsburgh faced 2nd and 2 at the Green Bay 33 yard line.  It seemed like only a matter of time until the Steelers took the lead to cap an historic comeback.  Unfortunately, on the first play of the fourth quarter, Mendenhall fumbled the ball on a Clay Matthews tackle and the Packers recovered.  With a new-found energy after the turnover, Aaron Rodgers promptly drove the Packers to a touchdown, and the Steelers never recovered.  If not for that Mendenhall fumble, Pittsburgh might be celebrating it's seventh Super Bowl win. 

2) James Jones, near goat -Mendenhall's fumble might also have saved James Jones from being Public Enemy No. 1 in Green Bay right now.  On the opening drive of the third quarter, the Packers faced 3rd and 5 on their own 25-yard line.  Jones shook William Gay on an in-route and Rodgers hit him in-stride up the seam.  With Troy Polamalu racing over to help, Jones would have been a footrace away from a 75-yard touchdown to again stretch the lead to 18 points.  Instead, Jones dropped the routine catch and the Packers had to punt.  I tweeted at the time that we will look back on that as a turning point if the Packers lose.  Jones had a similar mistake in the wild card game against the Eagles, when he dropped a wide-open touchdown that would have also given the Packers an 18-point lead.  He's lucky that both plays are now mere footnotes in a championship season.

3) Rodgers capitalizes on his chance - I said last week that if Rodgers won yesterday's game, he would have staked his claim as the best quarterback in the game today.  After he threw for 304 yards and three touchdowns (a total which could have been higher if not for multiple drops from his receivers) and was named MVP, Rodgers deserves to be placed in the same conversation as Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Drew Brees and Ben Roethlisberger.  If I had to draft a team from scratch tomorrow, I could make an argument for picking any one of those five guys first.

4) Roethlisberger comes up short - On the other side of the field, Big Ben missed his opportunity to move up the list of greatest quarterbacks of all-time.  Yesterday's game was a typical Roethlisberger performance.  His two first half interceptions put his team in a hole that they ultimately could not dig out of.  And his final stat line showed 263 yards, two touchdowns, and two interceptions for a mediocre 77.4 passer rating.  Yet that did not reflect how he kept his team in the game and once again had a chance to win it for them with a final drive.  Unfortunately for Pittsburgh, Roethlisberger could not recreate his Super Bowl XLIII magic.

5) Packer defense comes through in the clutch - Yesterday was the third time in four playoff games where Green Bay's opponent had the ball in the final two minutes with the chance to win or tie the game with a touchdown.  And all three times, Dom Capers's unit came up big with a stop.  In the modern NFL where quarterbacks run two-minute drills with starling efficiency, that's no small feat.

6) Interesting fact that may surprise you - With Roethlisberger's failed final drive yesterday, there remains only one quarterback in the previous 45 Super Bowls who drove his team to a game-winning touchdown with under two-minutes left when they were down by 4 points or more.  That quarterback is Eli Manning, in Super Bowl XLII.

7) Nick Collins, MVP runner-up - Rodgers clearly deserved the MVP award.  But if I had to choose a runner-up, I'd go with Nick Collins for his stellar first half that included a pick-six and some clutch tackles to stop Steeler drives.  Jordy Nelson was in contention for this award after doing his best impression of Max McGee in Super Bowl I (minus the massive hangover), but he had just as many drops as he did big plays.

8) Starks surprises - Not many analysts, including yours truly, expected James Starks to have any success against the incredible Pittsburgh run defense.  However, the few times that Green Bay did run the ball, they did so effectively.  Starks only finished with 52 yards, but had a solid 4.7 yards per carry.  I chose Green Bay to win because they reminded me of last year's Saints, who only ran the ball 17 times yet still won behind a strong passing game.  Turns out that the Packers leaned even more heavily on their quarterback, running the ball only 11 times while putting the game on Rodgers' arm.

9) Football = America - After a pregame that included the Declaration of Independence, "America The Beautiful" and The National Anthem, I don't think there's any sport out there that embraces patriotism more than football.  Although I'm disappointed there wasn't time for "My Country, 'Tis of Thee."

10) September 8th, 2011: Super Bowl winner showdown -  Looking ahead to the Thursday night kickoff game for the next NFL season, I predict that Roger Goodell will pass on the Bears-Packers NFC Championship rematch (a.k.a. Jay Cutler's worst nightmare) and instead pick the Saints to head to Lambeau for a matchup of last year's champion versus this year's.

I taped the game and am watching it again tonight in the hopes of giving you some more insight into how the Packers won their fourth Super Bowl.

Image found here.