There is an old football cliché that encompasses every mental victory.
"They won the chess match."
Everyone says it. Everyone knows what it means. Chess is a game where you must out-smart and out-maneuver your opponent. When a football team does that, it won the chess match.
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But as a description of what happened during a play or game, "they won the chess match" is just as ambiguous an explanation as "they made more plays" or "they wanted it more." Does it really explain anything?
Notice the title of the article. That's where this phrase belongs: In the headine, to be analyzed further in the body of discussion.
On third-and-3, Baltimore played man-to-man coverage on all of New England's eligible receivers and blitzed everyone else. It was Cover Zero, meaning there were no deep safeties.
The advantage to bringing an all-out blitz was that the offense couldn't block everyone. There would be a free rusher at the quarterback. The disadvantage was that there was no free safety to help on any of New England's receivers.
It was a high-risk, high-reward call by Baltimore.
The reward -- if the blitz got to Brady before he threw, a sack or turnover could result.
In chess, aggressively attacking an opponent's king can be an effective strategy. It often puts the other player in a defensive mode, making the opponent retreat into a shell and stop attacking. The same thing can happen to an offense in the face of a Cover Zero blitz. Many quarterbacks will freeze and take a sack, or do something else foolish with the ball.
But Tom Brady is no ordinary king. He has a calmness that allows him to execute in the face of extreme pressure.
When Ed Reed came sprinting off the left side of the Patriots line, unblocked, Brady knew he didn't have much time -- one, maybe two seconds. He also knew that he had one of the greatest jump-ball receivers in the history of the NFL matched in single coverage, with no risk of a safety doubling over on him. Brady had to wait until the last possible moment, before delivering the ball, and needed to put plenty of air under the throw so that Moss could adjust to it.
The amount of time between Brady catching the shotgun snap and releasing the ball was exactly 1.2 seconds. That was just enough time to take one step backward and loft a pass in the direction of Moss. If this play was a chess match, it was a close one. Reed was inches from breaking up the pass.
In his press conference after the game, Patriots Head Coach Bill Belichick described the game as follows:
"We made a few more plays than they did today."
Thanks coach. Next time, just tell us you won the chess match.
