It's still run the ball often, pass the ball well. That will never change, regardless of all the desperate amendments to the rules, and pass interference that is increasingly liberal in its interpretation.
The most important quinella is pass the ball well and stop the pass. No denying that. The Colts in 2006 had lousy rush defense numbers in the regular season but they were excellent in passing and pass defense to the point their statistical resume was actually superior than it had been in prior seasons when they were more hyped. It's still beyond all logic that the Colts opened those playoffs as a 4 point underdog to Tennessee, a team that couldn't pass with McNair beyond his peak, and whose pass defense wasn't special, in fact below the middle of the league in YPPA allowed.
New England is an interesting study of the amusing penalties once you fall for the flag football approach. Despite the unbeaten regular season in 2007, New England had more than 20 rushes fewer than any of its 3 Super Bowl title teams of 2001, 2003 and 2004. In fact, the 2004 team had more than 70 rushing attempts than 2007. It should have been the opposite, given the domination of the 2007 team, rolling up big leads particularly early in the year. More wins should equate to more rushes. But since they were winning more and rushing less, it screamed New England was becoming too soft, believing it could arrogantly flick aside the typical requirements based on superior weaponry. The Patriots weren't in the Marino/McNabb category of automatic reject due to insufficient rushing attempts but they were volunteering themselves into more jeopardy than they rightfully should have faced.
Obviously the Patriots/Giants Super Bowl was pivotal to Dolphin historical perspective. While watching it I charted the rushing attempts, worried New England would pile them up, as had been the case in previous Super Bowls. Philadelphia had all but forfeited the 2004 game by passing 3x their rushes, 51/17, including several senseless throws on first down in the red zone early in the game. Throughout the Pats/Giants Super Bowl I became increasingly comforted because New England wasn't rushing at all. I remember turning to my dad and saying, "This is supposed to backfire on them." The Giants were putting up stats almost identical to New England's vs. the Eagles in that prior Super Bowl, near balance in terms of rushes and passes, while the other side flailed away in the air. Sure enough, New England ended up with numbers nearly mirroring the Eagles of several years earlier, 16 rushes to 48 throws, and were justly dismissed by the same margin, 3 points. Damn shame.
I knock Marino here often. Actually not Marino, but that era. Well earned. We had 8-18 rushing attempts in so many pivotal games it was sickening, other than collecting my bets. If you throw those numbers in Excel databases, as I have literally hundreds of times, you'd be shocked what it spits out. You won't win 20% of the time. In fact, the league is still where it's always been, 82-85% of games in a given year won by the team with the highest number of rushing attempts. If you want a simple method to determine if the result was proper or not, that's where to look. We outrushed the Colts 49-11, so that's an alltime brutal defeat, one that barely registers statistically. Last week we outrushed New Orleans, 30-27, so that's a minor bad beat but it evidences we did not maintain control of the game.
As always, keep in mind it's called the Vince Lombardi Trophy, not the Don Coryell Trophy. For younger fans, substitute Andy Reid for Coryell.
