The Eagles damned the Patriots’ final Super Bowl drive with good kickoff coverage
There are two gadget plays you probably remember from the Super Bowl. One was the now immortalized Philly Special. The other is the drop by Tom Brady on his own reception attempt.
But there was a third attempted by New England in the game, and while it was only a minor disaster in the grand scheme, it got the Pats’ final drive off to a rather inauspicious start.
As with everything the Patriots do, it’s about exploiting tendencies. Philadelphia kicked off nine times in the game. Six of them went for touchbacks.
Slater’s referring to this when it comes to leverage. Look at the acres of space on the backside.
Maybe New England had seen the way Philly covered kicks during the bye week and put this play in the bag of tricks just in case.
There are acres of space because the Eagles’ coverage team is keyed on Lewis returning the ball to his right. Had the Patriots sprung the trick on this earlier kick, it probably would have worked. But this might have been the play they noticed Philadelphia’s tendency to overplay a kickoff and lose its leverage.
Police chief William Baker spoke to the media Tuesday morning and confirmed local and state police were investigating a break-in at Gronkowski’s home, but would not comment on the items listed as missing.
“There were items stolen. We’re not going to release the nature of the items stolen. Obviously the people who committed the theft know what was stolen. It’s an investigative advantage for us to know that as well and not share it with the public, so I won’t have any further comment on that.”
Gronkowski has not commented publicly on the break-in, but reports out of Foxborough say law enforcement spent much of Monday night at the home gathering evidence.