No, it's because certain people can't give Aaron credit that he can win a SB WITHOUT a running game. I said at the beginning of the year that he could and I was right.

39 passing attempts, 13 rushes, including 2 kneel downs by Aaron. What more facts do you need?

I called this game and it happened almost exactly how I said it would, although I said 40 passing attempts and 15-20 rushes by Starks. Glad MM thinks even less about balance than I do.

---

Apparently I am missing the people that aren't giving Rodgers the proper credit.. because I haven't seen anyone not giving it to him.

My perspective is to make it easier on him, keep him healthier longer and make this window of opportunity longer is all.

We agreed that we would attack and make our hay in this game in the air.. we did.. but Rodgers took over 15 hits on the day.

Believe it or not.. keeping him around is a large key to this dynasty.

I am happier than all get out the we won.. and we lit them up in the air.. but why make it more difficult on yourself than we need to?

We proved that we could run on them.. why not mix it in and create even larger passing lanes for Rodgers to attack and the receivers to hurt them in YAC?

Nothing more.

---

Or focus on the OL in the draft. Let's not forget that the Steelers have perhaps the best front 7 in the NFL and that's why he took all those hits.

Don't worry, you'll get your wish next year. Grant is 100% as we speak and he could have played Sunday. It's just IR rules kept him out of the game.

---

For the record.. I am not fighting or arguing.. just trying to pass along my thoughts and honestly because I want to see Rodgers play for a long long time.

He is that special of a QB..

---

Our OL did a pretty decent job in the game. AR was taking hits because we did not have a credible threat of a run game to slow down the pass rush.

One play in the 2nd half stood out. Starks was in at RB, AR ran a PA fake to Starks. A LB was blitzing through the hole near where Starks was and didn't even give Starks a 2nd glance--he was making a bee-line towards Rodgers. Starks was only able to chip the LB, and Rodgers got sacked on the play.

Unless you are saying:
1) the Steelers had a better offense than the Packers
2) the Steelers had a better defense than the Packers
3) the Steelers Special Teams outperformed the Packers Special Teams
or 4) Mike Tomlin out-coached Mike McCarthy

I would like to hear your explanation on why we only won by 6 in a game where our D got 3 turnovers and scored a TD on one of them.

I don't believe any of those 4 in this Super Bowl. I'll anticipate your argument, because in my opinion it's the only possible one you could make--the receivers dropping balls.

Passing and catching in these tight areas, with DBs banging you and hanging on you is difficult. The drops were all on bang-bang, hard-thrown balls with defenders in the immediate area making life difficult for the receivers. When you throw it 39 times, you're going to have some drops. Get used to it, because no one is 100% perfect.

You can't subtract those out of your passing game. It would be like someone advocating running the ball saying take away the negative runs where an OL man missed his block--it's part of the running game, it happens.

So, with the totality of our passing game in SB XLV, we only won by 6 pts.

Aaron Rodgers had a TERRIFIC game, and we would have lost without those turnovers. The passing game by itself was not enough to win.

macbob: Your focus on the margin of victory is misleading. It's not like this was a 13-7 game. It was 31-25, which means that the Packer offense put up 24 points against the best defense in the league, which had given up an average of 15 points per game. If it wasn't for the injuries to Woodson and Shields, the Packer defense probably would not have allowed the Steelers to control the clock as much as they did, and the Packers might've put up another score or maybe even two.

I agree with you on the drops. You can't take those out of the equation.

Would the Packers have been better off running the ball more? Maybe, maybe not. But the fact remains that they won the Super Bowl with a pass-happy attack. It's official: Mike McCarthy knows what he's doing.

---

/enter psychobabble mode

Hmm, that's twice I've read zombieslayer using the unicorn metaphor this morning. He must have been extra horn-y last night.

Wonder if he was playing with his collection of Simone Simons photos, too. :)

/exit psychobabble mode

p.s. Wherever one comes down on the never ending debate about the need for a better running game (and, btw, Shawn is still correct 🙂 ), one thing remains, Super Bowl or not....the Packers need to improve their OL or Rodgers won't have the opportunity to lead the Packers to those three more Super Bowl wins they need to go ahead of that other team.

---

This.

How many times did the Steelers have the lead in this game? Zero?

Had we run the ball, we wouldn't have gotten so many points. Now, had our WRs caught their passes, we would have won in a blowout.

I still can't believe we're having this discussion. And yes, MM knows what he's doing. As I said in another thread, I predicted 40+ passes and 15-20 runs for Starks. Apparently, MM believes in balance even less than I do, and that's a good thing. :thumbright:

---

The problem I have with your statements that MM wanted to throw it 40 times, he called the majority of plays as a run/pass option. He didn't call 40 pass plays. He called a handful. The rest were just reads by Rodgers.

If you want to thank anybody for passing it so much, thank the Steelers. For having a D alignment that showed a weakness that was exploitable by the pass.

If they lined up with a D that was easily exploited by the run, you would have seen a lot of runs.

When MM said that he put the game on Rodgers, he didn't mean by calling pass plays. He said it was because Rodgers was making all the decisions.

MM also said he wanted to run it more because Starks was rolling, but he was happy that Rodgers was going with his reads.

---

We have a conundrum here boys. I don't think we ever have a good to great running game until Clifton and Colledge are replace with better run blocking lineman. It's hard to argue with anything from a top 5 offense, but I'd like to see Rodgers take fewer shots going forward and that means installing a better running game, to be able to grind some of these games out and dominate time of possession.

---