Patriots Shade Packers

Throwing shade, is a common slang expression providing an insult, or expressing contempt.    It is not unlike its cousin, trolling, which is where negative comments are made in internet forums.  After the Super Bowl on February 2, did Patriot coach Bill Belichick shade the Green Bay Packers?

While I boycotted watching the Super Bowl, it was a very low scoring game which the Patriots won 13 to 3 over the Los Angeles Rams.  The Rams entered the game as the number three scoring offense in the 2018 regular season, following the Kansas City Chiefs and the New Orleans Saints. New England was the fourth highest scoring offense.  The two highest scoring offenses lost to the fourth and third ranked offenses in their respective championship games.  Although many argue that the Rams defeat of the Saints was tainted.  My prediction that the d-back for the Rams who was not penalized in the Saints game would be in the next game came to hold true.  That d-back was called for interference a call that only seemed to reinforce the fix was in for the Patriots as many say it was not even close to an interference call.  It is a seeming occurrence that when a high scoring game is predicted the opposite often occurs.  The tainted, fixed Super Bowl was one of those games.  The game also played into my assertion that defense wins championships, something the Packers have yet to figure out.

Bill Belichick 

The potential shade thrown by the Patriots to the Packers is easily explained.  Of the eight head coach openings in the NFL, Patriot offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels decided to only interview with one team--the Green Bay Packers.  McDaniels had been a head coach for a few years in Denver, but did not do well and was released.   He eventually went back to the Patriot organization from which he was hired.  (Last year Indianapolis McDaniels would be their next head coach, but he backed out right before the announcement, meaning get the signature on the contract before anything goes public. Indianapolis had even hired some assistant coaches the McDaniels wanted on his staff.)  One cannot hold such lack of success against a coach, as Belichick, who many now believe to the greatest football coach in the NFL lacked prior success.  In any event McDaniels placed his eggs for a head coach position in one basket-the Packers-but that team decided to hire a young man who has never been a head coach and was a play-calling offensive coordinator for only one year, yes just one year.

Josh McDaniels

While that young coordinator was hired away from Tennessee, his prior experience included stints with various teams including the Redskins, and the year before his one year in Tennessee, with the LA Rams, under Sean McVay.  Sean McVay is (was?) considered a wunderkind of the NFL and his ability to get to a tainted and fixed Super Bowl illuminated this moniker.  So, the Packers hired Matt LaFleur as their head coach, with only one year of play calling experience and no head coaching experience.  The Packers seemingly wished to imitate the LA Ram success by obtaining a candidate with an association to Sean McVay.

Sean McVay

Clearly, Sean McVay was out coached in the Super Bowl.  This is a self-admission, which you can read about here; hence it need not be debated.  It was a tight low-scoring affair, with only one touchdown scored.  Going into the locker room at half-time, the Patriots were leading 3 to 0.  This is when it got interesting.  After the game, Belichick credited his offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels with the adjustments for the Patriots ability to better control the ball and score the one offensive touchdown of the game.  It is not necessary to go to the adjustments to which McDaniels is credited.  What is important is that the head coach said the success rested with his offensive master-mind, Josh McDaniels who only interviewed for one head coach position this year--The Packers.

Matt LaFleur

The Packers have copied the success of the LA Rams and its young coach Sean McVay, but yet McVay was easily out coached and his thought of prodigious offense being no where near prodigious. So, was Bill Belichick now providing a slight, or shade, to the Packer management for having hired a protege of McVay over McDaniels?  The Packers copied a team, the LA Rams, who reached the Super Bowl due to poor officiating, and basically were also rans in the Super Bowl.  So, yes, I think this one comment by Belichick threw shade on the Packers. This one comment by Belichick clearly shows that he thinks the Packers made the wrong choice, by going for someone off the unproven McVay coaching tree and not that of the Patriots, the masters of the NFL. After all it is quite clear that any adjustments the LA Rams staff made during the game did not work.

Mark Murphy

The NFC North will not play the AFC east this year, so if the Packers were to play the Patriots, it would have to be in the Super Bowl.  That is a long shot given the pathetic nature of the Packers.  Will the Packer choice of a head coach show the folly of following a new trend?  In this case, the new trend, of the Sean McVay offense has proven that it is no match for an old hand.  Throwing shade and trolling are, in my mind, not unlike bullying.  But I guess even bullies can make a valid point.  Time will tell if Packer management made the correct decision.  If they did not, and the team goes into another four years of mediocrity the Packers need to clean house beginning with Mr. Mark Murphy.  Although in my mind he should have been fired this year.  For too long Green Bay has lived off its past laurels.  The NFL is fixing to assure Boston is the new Titletown.  Murphy forgot about the team for the past several years, and his Titletown district.  Due to the lack of success of the team, the moniker Titletown is becoming obsolete and the Titletown District will be but an adage to a long ago era.