by Jamual Forrest

In Super Bowl LI, we will see one of the most frequent participants of the 2000s in the New England Patriots facing off against one of the least frequent participants of the Super Bowl’s existence in the Atlanta Falcons. The Patriots will make their 9th appearance, and 7th under head coach Bill Belichick while Atlanta will make only their 2nd in 51 seasons of Falcon football.

Atlanta Falcons

Atlanta has had nothing short of an excellent season and boast the best offense in the NFL. Yardage-wise they are second behind the Saints; however, they have the best yards per play average and are tied for 1st with the New England Patriots for the least amount of turnovers. The work done by Dan Quinn and his staff has been superb since taking over last season. We saw the potential in this team when they got off to a hot 5-0 start in 2015 before faltering down the stretch to finish 8-8 on the season. The potential came from the offensive side, where you knew Julio Jones was an elite number 1 receiver, and running backs Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman were going to be a tough duo in the backfield. The question marks lay on the defensive side of the ball, along with quarterback Matt Ryan and Kyle Shanahan. A lot of people came to the conclusion that they could no longer perform as well since Matt Ryan may be declining and not be in the future plans of the Atlanta Falcons.

All the noise was soon dead this season as Matt and Kyle became even more committed to winning, as they talked things over and Matt became a better team leader in Atlanta. In Kyle’s second year the offense was 3rd in passing and 5th in rushing, easily the NFL’s most balanced team. The offense has taken the team all the way to the Super Bowl this year, plus Matt Ryan has shaken the playoff bug off his shoulder as well. The offense averaged 40 points and 458 yards per game this year in the playoffs, and the defense gave up 21 points and 338 yards per game.

Key Players for Atlanta

•QB Matt Ryan (4944 yards, 38 tds/7 Ints. 117 QB Rating)

•RB Devonta Freeman (1079 yards, 13 total tds, 54 catches 462 yards)

•RB Tevin Coleman (520 yards, 11 total tds, 31 catches 421 yards)

•WR Julio Jones (83 catches, 1409 yards, 6 tds)

•WR Mohamed Sanu (59 catches, 653 yards, 4 tds)

•WR Taylor Gabriel (35 catches, 579 yards, 7 total tds)

•OLB Deion Jones (75 tackles, 1 FF, 4(1 in playoffs) ints, 2 tds)

•DE Vic Beasley (32 tackles, 6 FF, 15.5 sacks, 1 td)

•S Keanu Neal (72 tackles, 5 FF)

New England Patriots

New England is the NFL’s model franchise and a constant presence in the post-season in the Belichick/Brady era. This Super Bowl marks their 6th straight season where they were participants in either the Super Bowl or the conference championship, and it’s split down the middle with 3 each. Of the last 6 seasons, this year’s team is easily their most balanced team: 4th ranked offense in yards, 3rd in points, and 8th ranked defense in yards, and 1st in points scored against. The importance of Belichick was on display early in the season when, despite Brady being in the midst of a 4 game suspension, he was still able to get the Patriots off to a hot 3-1 start before finishing the season 14-2.

The Patriots have consistently won games in all 3 phases one can win by: offense, defense, and special teams. The offense under Brady (12 weeks) only had 7 turnovers, all in just 3 games. The best aspect of the New England Patriots this year has been the offensive and defensive fronts, where they have consistently controlled the line of scrimmage giving offensive and defensive coordinators headaches all season. The Patriots are 4th in passing offense, and 7th in rushing. Offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels has done a great job maintaining balance and keeping Tom Brady upright for the most part with a run heavy offense, despite being at bottom of the league in yards per attempt. Defensive coordinator Matt Patricia has made a big name for himself this season with the work he has done. After trading one of the team’s best players in Jamie Collins his front 7 still wreaked havoc by creating pressure and forcing mistakes by opposing offenses.

Key Players for New England

•QB Tom Brady (3554 yards, 28 tds/2 ints, 112 QB rating)

•RB LeGarrette Blount (1161 yards, 18 tds)

•RB Dion Lewis and James White (180 total touches, 1094 yards, 5 tds (all by White))

•WR Julian Edelman (98 catches, 1106 yards, 3 tds)

•WR Chris Hogan (38 catches, 680 yards, 4 tds)

•TE Martellus Bennett (55 catches, 701 yards, 7 touchdowns)

•DE Trey Flowers (23 tackles, 7 sacks)

•DE Jabaal Sheard (20 tackles, 5 sacks)

•LB Dont’a Hightower (31 tackles, 2.5 sacks, 1 ff)

•CB Logan Ryan (73 tackles, 1 sack, 11 passes defensed, 2 ints)

•CB Malcom Butler (48 tackles, 1 ff, 1 sack, 16 passes defensed, 4 ints)

•S Devin McCourty (64 tackles, 7 passes defensed, 1 int)

The Matchup

The biggest matchup for this game will be the Falcons offense vs Patriots defense; i.e. Kyle Shanahan vs Belichick and Patricia. The secondary of New England has been consistently good this year as opposed to other seasons where many teams could have success against them. With that being said, Belichick is known to take away a team’s best asset and force an offense to “go to its left” instead of using their dominant hand. The Patriots will key on Jones throughout the game forcing Kyle and company to use the ground game effectively and utilize Sanu, Coleman, and Freeman. Ryan is in the biggest game of his career to this point, playing against a team with plenty of experience in this game. For the Patriots, if they are able to execute effectively and take away the Falcons’ number one options they are likely to take control of this game early on.

For the Falcons to counter the Patriots’ game plan, it’s imperative to not abandon the ground game, which they haven’t done up to this point. However, defensively they will have their hands full, as this is the weakest link of the team. The Falcons do not force many turnovers and are a “bend but don’t break” style unit this year. Vic Beasley is the only defensive player who can consistently create pressure in the passing game, so a big game will be needed from a big time veteran in Dwight Freeney. The best way for the Falcons to stay in the game on the defensive side of the ball is to get Brady off his mark and make him uncomfortable in the pocket. They typically love the short passing game, so playing a man to man coverage for majority of the game will be the best way to keep the ball in Brady’s hands to try and get Beasley home. For the Patriots, they can easily take the ball away from the Falcons offense by playing keep away, maintaining time of possession in their favor and forcing Atlanta to stray away from their game plan early in the game.

Who Wins?

The Patriots leads the all-time series 7-6, and the lead will extend to 8-6 this weekend. Yes, the Falcons have improved defensively in the playoffs, but Patriots overall are the better team on both sides of the ball. Vic Beasley, who has been the Falcons best defensive player, has not been much of a factor this postseason, but they have been getting by with errors made by opposing offenses. The Patriots are the more experienced team for obvious reasons. They know how to win these type of games and their defense is more reliable than Atlanta’s defense. The New England offense is not on the levels of Atlanta’s offense, but the opportunity to dominate time of possession is there, and the Patriots will take full advantage against this team applying pressure for Atlanta to score early and often, pressure they didn’t really have to face all season.