Super Bowl 52 Pick

I’m doing something risky. I’m all but ignoring the Brady/Belichick era Patriots’ mystique and treating Super Bowl 52 like a game between the team with the best roster in football, minus its starting quarterback, and a team with a slightly worse roster but the best quarterback and coach in history. Okay, so I guess I’m not totally ignoring it, but I’m doing my best.

Record for the playoffs: 5-5

Against the spread: 4-5-1

Philadelphia Eagles vs. New England Patriots, 6:30 p.m. (Spread: Pats favored by 4.5) 

A lot of people didn’t expect the Eagles to get to the Super Bowl with Nick Foles in for Carson Wentz, but Doug Pederson and the Philly coaching staff helped make it happen. They used the bye week to assimilate Foles into the offense, and he’s succeeding with a lot of the same run/pass options that Wentz mastered and the Patriots struggle against.

I’m operating under the assumption that the Foles we’re getting today is closer to the one we’ve seen in the playoffs than the guy who looked lost against the Raiders in Week 16. That doesn’t mean the Eagles are suddenly even in the quarterback matchup, far from it. It just means the disparity between Foles and Tom Brady won’t decide the game. If I’m right, the game comes down to other factors.

One of those is the Eagles’ defense. The things Philly can do on defense match up with the things that typically give New England trouble: Pressure up the middle without having to blitz, with tight coverage  on the receivers so Tom Brady can’t make quick throws. 

The Eagles do give receivers some cushion from time to time, which would allow Brady to get the ball out before he gets hit. but I think they need to be careful with that, or else Brady will get into a rhythm and you know how that goes. So do the Eagles. They’re bigger and better than the Pats up front, and when New England rotates it’s blocking scheme to handle Fletcher Cox, that’s where the real weakness is going to show up: the inability to block Timmy Jernigan and the other defensive linemen Philly constantly keeps fresh. It’s so critical that the Pats play up-tempo to keep the Eagles from substituting when it wants. That’s how the Giants’ offense, bad in almost every other game this year, was able to rack up yards against the Eagles twice this season.

Speaking of being better up front, the Eagles have that advantage on offense, too. While the Pats’ pressure rate has gotten much better in recent weeks, I still don’t trust them to stop the run. Yes yes yes, I realize Belichick and two weeks of preparation might cover up some holes, but this is the second-worst defense in the entire league according to footballoutsiders.com, and it’s particularly bad against the run. New England can try and take away Jay Ajayi on the ground, but I don’t think they’ll be successful.

All Patriots Super Bowls are close, and you’d have to think this one will be too. But as I said, I’m looking at this game through the lens of what I saw this year. In fact, if there’s a blowout, I believe it’ll be Philly winning. The Eagles were the best team in the NFL with their starting quarterback, and now that I’ve convinced myself that Foles is playing 84-88% as well as Wentz, I think they’re still the best team. The better team doesn’t always win the Super Bowl, but this time it will. 

Pick: Eagles +4.5, Score: Eagles 31, Pats 23