NFL Notes: The untold secret behind the Patriots’ Tremendous Bowl LIII win over the Rams

The spine of the Patriots’ win over the Rams in Tremendous Bowl LIII was not Tom Brady, nor Rob Gronkowski nor a well timed discipline objective.

It was a Invoice Belichick grasp plan.

That evening in February 2019, the Patriots held one of many highest-scoring offenses in NFL historical past to a few factors by finishing a complete overhaul of their protection. At Belichick’s course, they deserted their man-to-man id and as an alternative majored in two kinds of zone protection. In addition they put in a brand new entrance that essentially challenged Los Angeles’ file dashing assault and shut it down.

The Patriots caught to those easy tenets from begin to end, placing the Rams in a headlock till they submitted by a last rating of 13-3. It was a stroke of genius, one which future Rams opponents copied the next season and finally compelled head coach and offensive whiz Sean McVay to change his system.

However earlier than kickoff, Belichick’s plan impressed a hovering confidence in gamers who later admitted they hadn’t skilled the identical perception in earlier Tremendous Bowl matchups with the Seahawks, Falcons and Eagles. However this time, victory felt assured. Even Belichick sensed it.

“We’re on it,” Belichick advised defenders at observe that week. “We’re on it, we’re on it, we’re on it.”

Six years later, because the Patriots put together to host the Rams once more, there stays one excellent secret of Belichick’s sport plan.

It was truly his plan B.

The week earlier than the Patriots flew all the way down to Atlanta, website of Tremendous Bowl LIII and a number of other pregame conferences, media occasions and one other week of practices, they ran a distinct sport plan. Initially, the teaching employees blended their conventional schemes with the newer ideas and coverages, and took this plan to the observe discipline. However with solely a day or two earlier than takeoff from New England, Belichick walked right into a coaches assembly at staff headquarters with a brand new directive.

Scrap it.

“Invoice got here in,” Pats cornerbacks coach Mike Pellegrino remembered, “and actually, type of modified the web page on that.”

‘That was a storyline that most individuals didn’t even decide up on,” added Patriots cornerback Jonathan Jones. “It occurred mainly the week of.”

In doing so, Belichick gave his assistants and defensive gamers minimal time to enact the modifications. His thought was to construct your complete plan out of the brand new stuff — working a 6-1 defensive entrance and early-down zone coverages — as an alternative of treating them as changeups.

“We took out rattling close to all of the man-to-man calls,” former Patriots security Devin McCourty mentioned. “Like, what you noticed within the Tremendous Bowl was what we ended up going to. I don’t bear in mind how a lot zone we had in there, however after the change, I bear in mind watching it and speaking to Invoice and him saying, ‘Do you assume we are able to run this?’ ”

His reply was a powerful sure.

“The cool factor about that secondary was we didn’t budge. We have been like, ‘I get what you’re saying. F— it. Let’s do it,’ ” McCourty mentioned. “Let’s simply go do that.”

The keystone of Belichick’s plan was a youthful Jones, who would bounce between nickelback and security all through the sport. His mixture of lengthy pace and protection expertise allowed the Patriots to execute their chosen zone coverages on early downs: Cowl 4, which requires two deep safeties to sometimes cowl receivers 1-on-1, and a model of Cowl 3 the place Jones dropped towards the center seeking to cowl deeper crossing routes the Rams liked to run.

Throughout video games, Jones made a house at nickelback, the place he typically matched with slot receivers in man-to-man protection. Within the previous AFC Championship Sport, for instance, he shadowed ex-Chiefs speedster Tyreek Hill. However in observe, Jones dabbled at security, leaping in with the scout-team protection when he may to get additional snaps.

“I feel that confirmed coaches I can play security, I can do these issues. Nevertheless it was actually simply me making an attempt to go on the market and get reps towards Tom Brady,” Jones mentioned this week with a smile.

Jones remembers his place coach, ex-Patriots cornerbacks coach Josh Boyer, breaking the information every week earlier than the Tremendous Bowl.

“It was a last-minute determination to alter the protection,” he mentioned. “You get two weeks off to organize, we ran one sport plan for the primary week, after which the coaches got here in and mentioned, ‘That is what we’re going to do.’ ”

Belichick later defined the pondering behind his plan throughout a post-game interview with ESPN.

“We needed to put collectively one thing that may neutralize the working sport and their massive play-action passes on early downs,” he mentioned. “We felt like if we may make them drive it and earn it … we’d have an opportunity to get them off the sector on third down.”

Within the Tremendous Bowl, the Patriots did play man-to-man on third down, which allowed Jones and fellow cornerbacks Stephon Gilmore, a future Defensive Participant of the 12 months, and J.C. Jackson to do what they do greatest. However with a purpose to attain third down, they needed to concurrently cease the Rams’ early-down passing assault and run sport. That meant Belichick needed to relinquish a long-standing disdain for Cowl 4, AKA quarters, a scheme that may commit as many as 9 defenders to the run and defend towards deep passes.

That shift shocked longtime defensive veterans like McCourty.

“(Belichick) hated quarters,” McCourty mentioned. “He’d a lot fairly play Cowl 2 than play quarters to get two excessive safeties. So to enter that with every week or so within the greatest sport of the 12 months, that was actually uncommon for any New England staff, and any staff, actually, to have a coach who trusts his guys to do one thing completely different, and for a coach to drop their ego like that, what we did in that Tremendous Bowl, to me, wasn’t regular in any respect.”

In Atlanta, the success Belichick’s plan generated in observe not solely annoyed Brady and backup quarterback Brian Hoyer, however allowed the coaches to dial again the depth greater than they’d earlier than another current Tremendous Bowl. Actually, practices have been so relaxed McCourty thinks they could have run their final one in sneakers.

But when any participant had a query concerning the new plan, Belichick had the identical reply: examine the Rams’ win at Detroit through the common season.

In 2018, the Lions had held the Rams down for 3 quarters below then head coach and ex-Patriots defensive coordinator Matt Patricia, who had additionally used a 6-1 entrance. That helped lay the blueprint for Belichick’s pivot within the Tremendous Bowl. What the Patriots did was supercharge that plan with higher expertise and some tweaks.

“Entrance to again, what Detroit did as a protection, match what we have been doing. That was Invoice’s preaching level,” McCourty mentioned. “Activate the Detroit sport, watch it by your self, watch it collectively. You probably have a query, ask. We all know what they have been doing.”

By the point kickoff rolled round, the outcomes have been astounding. The Rams went scoreless within the first half, with six punts and two first downs.

“We have been giving them issues,” Jones mentioned. “And after we first began out, you may inform. Up entrance, we have been stopping the run and simply giving them issues in every single place else.”

With out a run sport to lean on and his play-action passes all coated, Rams quarterback Jared Goff fell aside. Defensive play-caller Brian Flores delivered the knockout blow within the fourth quarter, calling an all-out blitz that led to Goff’s solely interception: a decide Gilmore predicted on the sideline earlier than grabbing in entrance of helpless Rams receiver Brandin Cooks. That blitz was the lone departure from a plan that 10 days earlier had hardly resembled how the Patriots initially deliberate to seize their sixth Tremendous Bowl title.

Did Belichick’s changeup shock the employees?

“No,” Pellegrino mentioned. “As a result of Invoice.”