Page 14 - Florida Sentinel 2-7-17

Sports
The greatest quarterback of all time capped off the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history, leading an eight-play, 75-yard touchdown drive on the opening possession of the first Super Bowl overtime. Here's what we learned in the New England Pa- triots' 34-28 victory over the At- lanta Falcons in Super Bowl LI:
1. After throwing a second- quarter pick-six to put his team in a seemingly insurmountable 21-0 hole, Tom Brady bounced back in the most dramatic fash- ion possible, earning Super Bowl MVP honors for an unprece- dented fourth time. En route to a Super Bowl-record 466 passing yards, Brady erased a 25-point second-half deficit by orches- trating four touchdown drives and a field goal in New England's final five series. Thumbing his nose at Father Time in the last game of his thirties, Brady com- pleted 26 of 33 passes (78.7 per- cent) for 284 yards (8.6 yards per attempt), two touchdowns and a 122.7 passer rating on those five legacy-cementing pos- sessions from the middle of the third quarter through James White's game-ending touch- down run.
"There were a lot of plays," Brady told Fox Sports' Terry Bradshaw during the presenta- tion of the Lombardi Trophy. "Coach talks about how you never know which play it's going to be in the Super Bowl. There were probably 30 of them tonight. Any one of those would have been different, the outcome would have been different."
2. If the quarterback position wasn't the most uniquely impor- tant in all of professional sports, White would have been the runaway choice as MVP. The shifty scatback authored the most brilliant performance of his career on the game's brightest stage, hauling in a Super Bowl- record 14 receptions for 110 yards while adding three touch- downs and a clutch two-point conversion. From Kevin Faulk to Danny Woodhead to Shane Vereen and, now, to White, no quarterback utilizes pass-catching "satellite" backs to greater effect than Brady.
3. Nine years later, the Patri- ots extracted a decent payback for David Tyree's miraculous "Helmet Catch," instrumental in the Giants' Super Bowl XLII
Brady, Patriots Erase Deficit, Defeat Falcons In Super Bowl LI
Falcons QB Matt Ryan Wins NFL MVP, Offensive Player Of Year
TOM BRADY
upset. Facing an eight-point deficit with 3:30 remaining in the fourth quarter, Brady un- furled an ill-advised pass over the middle into double coverage. Although the ball was tipped by Robert Alford as two other de- fenders arrived, the cornerback's leg prevented it from falling in- complete. Julian Edelman plucked the ball off of Alford's ankle, bobbled it for a second and somehow hung on without allowing it to hit the turf. Edel- man's "Ankle Catch" is New England's answer to the circus- catch antics of Tyree and Sea- hawks wideout Jermaine Kearse.
"I couldn't believe it," Brady said after the game. "One of the greatest catches. You know we've been on the other end of a few of those catches."
4. If the prolate spheroid had bounced differently in the sec- ond half, the Falcons could have turned Super Bowl LI into a lop- sided laugher. Reminiscent of the Seahawks' lopsided Super Bowl XLVIII victory, when Dan Quinn's Seattle defense domi- nated Denver's record-breaking offense, the Falcons simply out- classed the Patriots in terms of speed and athleticism for the first 40 minutes of Sunday's ul- timate affair. Atlanta jumped out to a forbidding 28-3 lead, with fleet-footed middle linebacker Deion Jones setting the tone as a true sideline-to-sideline force on defense and big-play tailback Devonta Freeman shredding New England's de- fense on the other side of the ball.
Falcons general manager Thomas Dimitroff cut his teeth in the Patriots' front office, learning how to construct a suc- cessful organization from team- building master Bill Belichick. When Dimitroff was afforded the chance to run his own opera- tion in Atlanta, he parted ways
with his mentor in one key area: Whereas Belichick emphasized size and power, Dimitroff coined the phrase "urgent ath- leticism" to describe his own draft philosophy. That difference played out in stark terms for one half at NRG Stadium on Sunday evening. Despite the heartbreak- ing loss, the talented young ros- ter compiled by Dimitroff, Quinn and assistant GM Scott Pioli is poised to remain an NFC powerhouse for the next few years.
5. That said, Quinn and of- fensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan will battle persistent nightmares over an ultimately decisive sequence in the middle of the fourth quarter. After Julio Jones tight-roped the sideline for one of the most acro- batic catches in postseason his- tory, the Falcons simply had to call three straight runs that would have forced the Patriots to use their timeouts. They would then have the opportunity for a field-goal attempt of roughly 40 yards, extending the lead to 31- 20 with less than four minutes remaining. Instead, Trey Flow- ers sacked Matt Ryan for a third time, turning a three-point opportunity into a punting situa- tion. It's hard to crush play- callers for remaining aggressive, but this was a costly miscalcula- tion for the Falcons.
Classy: Dak Prescott Uses Offensive ROY Award Speech To Honor Ezekiel Elliott
EZEKIEL ELLIOT AND DAK PRESCOTT
Dak Prescott was named NFL offensive rookie of the year on Saturday. When he went up on stage, he brought teammate Ezekiel Elliott with him, the one he beat out for the award. And the first thing Prescott said was, “Do we have a knife so I can cut this in half?”
Prescott then went on to call this moment an honor and very humbling, and he thanked everyone — including the 31 teams that passed up on him in the draft.
When talking to reporters, Prescott talked more about El- liott:
“Obviously, I couldn’t have done it without him. The de- fense was honing in on him, making my job easier — special moment.
“He deserves it just as much as I do from his yards, his catches, the way we handled things in the backfield, it was al- ways together ... without Zeke, I don’t win that.”
Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan was named NFL MVP at Saturday night's NFL Honors awards show, capping a career-best season in which he guided the team to its first Super Bowl appearance since 1999.
Ryan, 31, received 25 votes from a nationwide panel of 50 media members who regularly cover the league. New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady finished second with 10 votes, followed by Dallas Cow- boys running back Ezekiel El- liott and Oakland Raiders quarterback Derek Carr, who each received six.
Ryan also won the Associ- ated Press NFL Offensive Player of the Year award Satur- day, beating Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers 15 votes to 11. He passed for 4,944 passing yards with 38 touchdowns and only seven in- terceptions and led the NFL
MATT RYAN
with a 117.1 passer rating, help- ing the Falcons score a league- high 540 points.
"I just want to say thank you, and this is an incredible honor for me," Ryan said in a video that was shown during the awards show (he did not at- tend). "Obviously, there are so many other great candidates and players who had amazing seasons. I want to thank all of my teammates; obviously with- out them, none of this is possi- ble. We've had so many guys on our team make great plays and have great seasons for us, so thank you to those guys."
Tomlinson, Warner, Davis Part Of 7-Man Hall Of Fame Class
Iran Says Ban Of U.S. Wrestling Team Lifted
The quarterback served as ringmaster for "The Greatest Show on Turf." The running backs were known simply by their initials: LT and TD. And the receiver also known by two letters — TO — was on the out- side looking in again.
All unstoppable in their own way, LaDainian Tomlin- son, Terrell Davis and Kurt Warner earned their spots in the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday. Terrell Owens, though, got turned away in a decision that went viral on so- cial media and led the receiver to blame a "flawed process" in an after-the-fact tweet.
Also making it were sack- master Jason Taylor — in on his first ballot, the same as Tomlinson — and Morten Andersen, the NFL's all-time leading scorer, who joins Jan Stenerud as the second pure placekicker to make the hall.
Seahawks safety Kenny Easley made it as a senior nominee, while Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is in as a contributor. Former NFL com- missioner Paul Tagliabue did not get in, with his role in downplaying the severity of the league's concussion problem a factor in the vote.
Tomlinson's victory shed a glimmer of light on a dark year for San Diego fans. The city lost its team, but gained a Hall of Famer.
"Those fans there inspired me to run harder, to dig deeper in times when I was tired in the fourth quarter and didn't think I had anything left," Tomlin- son said.
In nine years with the Chargers, then two with the Jets, the 5-foot-10 Tomlin- son reset the template for what had been known as a
LADAINIAN TOMLINSON, TERRELL DAVIS AND KURT WARNER
scatback, proving someone of his size and speed could be a game changer, not merely a change of pace.
As dangerous catching the ball (4,772 career yards) as he was running it (13,684), in 2003, LT became the first player to rush for 1,000 yards and catch 100 passes. His 31 touchdowns scored in 2006 are still the single-season record. He finished his career with 145 TDs, not counting the seven he threw on halfback op- tions.
In giving the thumbs-up to Davis and Warner, the 48 Hall of Fame voters answered 'Yes' to the question of whether a few truly dominating years are enough for someone to be enshrined.
Getting a big, fat 'No' for the second straight year was Owens, the league's second- leading all-time receiver, but also one of its most divisive players over a career that spanned 1996-2010.
"Unfortunately I DID NOT MAKE IT again this year," Owens tweeted. "Thanks to ALL my fans & supporters. #FlawedProcess."
Warner on Owens: "When you just look at what he accomplished, everybody looks and says, 'C'mon.' The num- bers are there, the impact is there."
Iran has lifted a ban on U.S. wrestlers, allowing them to take part in the Freestyle World Cup later this month in the Iranian city of Kermanshah, Iranian media reported.
The Sunday report by state TV quotes Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi as saying that the ban was lifted after the "discriminative restric- tions" on Iranian nationals trav- elling to the U.S. were suspended by a U.S. federal judge.
The wrestlers were originally banned Friday from the Feb. 16- 17 competition after President Donald Trump temporarily suspended travel from seven Muslim-majority countries, in- cluding Iran.
The Trump administration is now appealing to reinstate the travel ban. On Sunday a judge in San Francisco rejected the gov- ernment's request for an imme- diate reinstatement. Formal arguments in the case begin on Monday.
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