Giant Upset
» Posted by GridIronMine on February 4, 2008«
This article appears in the Patriots Football Weekly and PFW online. The VF percentages quoted in this article refer to the graph presented in the hardcopy of the PFW, which uses team-dependent VF. The online tools use the team-independent (or NFL average) VF.
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The Patriots started the Super Bowl as a similar favorite as in their previous two playoff games. GridIronMine's Victory Forecast (VF) system at the opening kick showed the Pats as having an 85% chance of winning.
The Giants moved the ball on a long drive down to the Pats' 17 and had a first down. However, the Pats' red zone defense came through once again, and the Giants had to settle for a field goal and a 25% VF. Then, the Pats, as is typical, marched down the field and scored a touchdown. The key play on the drive was a pass interference penalty on Antonio Pierce on a pass from Tom Brady to Ben Watson, which increased the Pats' VF to 84%. After the score, the Pats' VF was back to 85%, and the second quarter was only a few seconds old.
The story of the second quarter was third down. Several key third down plays had large VF swings. First, Eli Manning was intercepted by Ellis Hobbs on a third down and five at the 14 yard line, for a VF swing of 7%. Next, Laurence Maroney was stopped on a key third and one play, killing a drive and costing the Pats 5%. Then, with the Giants again in field goal range, Ahmad Bradshaw committed an illegal bat on a fumble. While this cost the Giants 7% in VF, the possibility of the Giants losing the ball made it a good play. Finally, the Pats converted a third and 13 on their own 8 yard line on a screen pass to Wes Welker with just 1:35 to go in the half. This followed a questionable time out by Tom Coughlin on the previous play. In particular, GridIronMine would have recommended allowing the clock to run and calling time out if the third down play failed to convert the first down. This would still have given the Giants plenty of time to score before the half, but would have left the Pats with only about 50 seconds left if they did convert. This could have been a very important play, but Justin Tuck forced a Tom Brady fumble on a sack just before the half, killing the Pats' chance for points and increasing the Giants' VF to 21% at the half.
The third quarter did not have many interesting plays. Bill Belichick made an excellent challenge, catching the Giants with 12 men on the field on a punt and increasing the Pats' VF by 6%. However, on the same drive, Brady was sacked by Michael Strahan on third down, and then overthrew Jabar Gaffney on fourth down. Each play cost the Pats 5% in VF. The fourth down play was from the 32 yard line, and the decision was a curious one. In fact, it was similar to the situation in the Patriots/Chargers playoff game in 2006, where Marty Schottenheimer went for the first down in a similar situation (fourth and 10 from the 31 yard line). Because of the final score, Belichick's decision will talked about for ages. However, using several reasonable choices for the probability of converting a field goal or the 4th down, we find at most 2% VF difference between going for it and kicking the field goal. Belichick's decision is completely reasonable and justified, but we suspect few people will see it that way.
The fourth quarter is where the action was. First, Manning completed a 45 yard pass to Kevin Boss, then a third down conversion to Steve Smith, and finally a touchdown pass to David Tyree. These increased the Giants' VF by 10%, 6%, and 8%, respectively, for a VF after the touchdown of 55%---the first time they were over 50%. The Giants even got the ball back, and their VF got as high as 62% before they punted.
Next, Brady led one of his patented fourth quarter drives, which culminated in a 6 yard touchdown pass to Randy Moss. This increased the Pats' VF by 22% to 80%. However, this was to be the Giants' day, as they made several key plays on their winning drive: a 1 yard fourth down conversion (barely) by Brandon Jacobs (11% VF increase), a great catch by David Tyree for 32 yards (27% VF increase), a key third down conversion to Steve Smith (15% VF increase), and the touchdown to Plexico Burress (42% VF increase). The Pats still had an 8% VF after the touchdown, but the sack by Jay Alford made that 2%, and gave the Pats only two desperation passes before the game ended.