P4P

You're telling me the Brady fumble had zero effect on that game? The Steelers would have had the ball at midfield down 1 score. And that ignores the previously dropped TD pass and the inexplicable play-calling from 1st and goal at the half yard line. Pittsburgh shot themselves in the foot all night, but there was a couple times that drives probably ended prematurely due to the refs swallowing their whistles.

That game aside, the Super Bowl comes down to how much one buys the "bend, but don't break" Pats defense. Maybe Belichick is just happy to concede yardage between the 20's and that's just their plan...or maybe their 32nd-ranked SOS and complete lack of playing respectable quarterbacks/offenses has something to do with teams' inability to finish those drives. Prior to last weekend, the Pats had played exactly one "good" team, and lost at home, to Seattle. Keep in mind this wasn't the same Seahawks team we've seen the past couple of seasons, and their offense was especially putrid on the road (3 points at St Louis, 6 points in 5 quarters at Arizona, 5 points at Tampa, and 10 points at Green Bay). That Seattle team went into Foxborough and absolutely abused the "vaunted" Patriots' D. 

Last week was the only other respectable offense that New England faced all year, and we obviously saw that game very differently, but the Steelers moved the ball just fine (despite losing their best offensive player in the first quarter and most of their receivers having serious cases of the dropsies). Some egregious play-calling and possibly even more egregious drops kept their scoring down, but I don't think that had much to do with the Pats' D.

Now they face Atlanta's historically great offense, and I just don't see them being able to get stops. The Falcons, unlike teams quarterbacked by Brock Osweiler, Charlie Whitehurst, Jared Goff, and Landry Jones that the Pats have feasted on all season, don't just move the ball between the 20's...they finish drives. And they've done so against any defense they've faced. Liking the Pats in this game is making a huge leap of faith that Matt Ryan's offense is going to perform closer to these horrible offenses New England has faced all season than what they've done for 19 straight weeks. Good luck with that...

That being said, it's not like the Falcons defense is good either; they're not. And for anyone backing Atlanta that is clearly the biggest concern. Personally I feel more confident in them slowing Brady down enough to get the job done than I do with the Pats' D slowing Atlanta's offense down. This would be a much more interesting matchup in my opinion if you pitted last year's Broncos vs this Atlanta team. They might be able to do some damage. But you're not stopping a historically good offense with the cast of misfits masquerading as the "statistically ranked best defense" in the league that the Pats put out on a weekly basis. 

Again, I still haven't placed a bet. If anything I might lean towards the Atlanta team total over 27.5 more than anything. They've eclipsed that number in 14/18 games this season and as you can see from all of the aforementioned, I don't have any reason to believe New England has the capability to stop them from making that 15/19.