Holding the line

New England QB Tom Brady was sacked only 15 times in his 12 games this regular season, a big improvement over the 38 times he was sacked in 2015. MARK MASKE The New England Patriots’ 2015 season was undone in large part by their inability to safeguard quarterback Tom Brady. Brady was sacked 38 times during their regular season and the Patriots simply could not deal with Von Miller and the Broncos’ other pass rushers when they lost the AFC Championship Game at Denver.

The Patriots’ 2016 season could culminate Sunday in Houston with a fifth Super Bowl triumph with Brady as their quarterback and Bill Belichick as their coach. And if that happens, the Patriots will have the greatly improved play of Brady’s blockers to thank.

Brady was sacked only 15 times in his 12 games during the regular season. He was sacked four times in two games during the AFC playoffs. The pass rush of the Pittsburgh Steelers was not a major factor during an AFC Championship Game in which Brady threw for 384 yards and three touchdowns.

“Our protection overall was pretty good,” Belichick said after that game. “We had an opportunity to extend some plays and to create some separation vertically in the defence and create some space in there.”

The Falcons do not have a dominant defence. But they do have Vic Beasley, the NFL’s sack leader during the regular season. And their pass rush did create major problems for the Green Bay Packers and their quarterback, Aaron Rodgers, during the NFC title game. The Patriots’ two Super Bowl defeats during the BelichickBrady regime came in large part because they could not handle the pass rush of the New York Giants.

So it again is up to New England’s offensive line.

Belichick signalled the importance of improving the Patriots’ offensive line play when he lured Dante Scarnecchia out of retirement last February. Scarnecchia had retired as the team’s offensive line coach following the 2013 season. But Belichick did not bring back Dave DeGuglielmo in the wake of the Denver debacle, turning back to a trusted coaching lieutenant.

Scarnecchia has delivered in a big way. His offensive line has been stable and dependable this season.

Veteran left tackle Nate Solder is the mainstay. Right tackle Marcus Cannon has developed into a reliable player who signed a fiveyear, $32.4 million US contract extension in November. Right guard Shaq Mason and centre David Andrews have demonstrated similar improvement. Rookie Joe Thuney stepped in at left guard.

“I just think the more you work together, the more things you do together, the more trust you build with one another — and ultimately if you communicate well and you trust the other guy, I think your confidence in what you’re doing will be high,” offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels said in a conference call with reporters last week.

“You go out there and try to play aggressive and fast and understand that it might not all be perfect but you believe in the guys that you’re around and you go out there and do your best. I think the group that we’ve had has been fortunate to be healthy. They worked hard to take care of their bodies and try to be out there for each other and for our team each week. I think they’ve acquitted themselves very well.”

If you watched it from start to finish, seek help. Immediately.

Everyone is always making suggestions to attempt to fix the Pro Bowl or threatening to get rid of it. Enough of that. The game cannot be fixed. Football is too violent and too dangerous to manufacture intensity in a game with nothing at stake. Those in the sport should just accept the Pro Bowl for the meaningless exhibition that it is, stop worrying about trying to fix it and be amazed that anyone actually watches it.

It is, frankly, astounding that any players actually show up. Who needs another game after such a long and gruelling season? Who needs to risk an injury, minimized due to the nature of the game itself, but still present?

Being selected to the game is the honour. Playing in it isn’t. And there wasn’t even a trip to Hawaii to lure players this time around.

Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger should contemplate retirement this off-season, as he suggested to a Pittsburgh radio station he will do.

He turns 35 in March. He has played 13 seasons in Pittsburgh. He has won two Super Bowl titles and he has made plenty of money. He owes it to himself and to his family to at least consider that option in each off-season from this point forward, given the toll taken by playing this sport.

That certainly doesn’t mean that Roethlisberger will retire. Few people in and around the league seem to expect that. He continues to

The television viewership figure for the Super Bowl undoubtedly will be huge. It’s the Super Bowl, after all, with a relatively compelling matchup. The Patriots are the team that everyone loves to love or loves to hate. The Falcons play an appealing style and were the league’s highestscoring team during the regular season.

But keep in mind that wherever TV viewership numbers end up, they won’t be as large as if the Dallas Cowboys had reached the game. It is the Cowboys who spearheaded the sport’s ratings rebound late in the regular season following the U.S. presidential election. And it is the Cowboys who likely would have provided that extra little bit of oomph to make viewership for this game that much more eyecatching.

A competitive, entertaining Super Bowl would be a welcome conclusion to a set of NFL playoffs that lacked both of those commodities.

There was one memorably great game during the playoffs, the Packers’ 34-31 triumph at Dallas in a pulsating NFC semifinal. That same day, the Steelers’ 18-16 win at Kansas City in a secondround AFC playoff game was hard-fought, although not exactly artful.

Otherwise, the AFC and NFC playoffs were pretty much a dud. Home teams went a combined 8-0 in the other games, with an average margin of victory of 19 points.

Anyone who wanted to watch Super Bowl media night had to stay up fairly late Monday.

Both teams’ media sessions were not exactly early evening viewing.

What used to be media day on Tuesday morning became media night on Monday because the NFL believed that fans would want to tune in and watch.

The San Francisco 49ers hired John Lynch, the former nine-time Pro Bowl safety for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Broncos, as their GM on Sunday. He had been working as an NFL analyst for Fox. The Niners are a long, long way from the glory days of Bill Walsh, Joe Montana and Steve Young.

Even the far more recent, far more abbreviated revival under Jim Harbaugh is becoming a fading memory now.

Their plan for attempting to recapture that glory is to pair a first-time NFL head coach with a novice NFL general manager.

Will it work? It will be fascinating to find out. But the Niners’ follies in recent years don’t afford them the luxury of receiving the benefit of the doubt.

Lynch will be paired with Kyle Shanahan, the offensive coordinator of the Falcons who is to become the Niners’ head coach following the Super Bowl. Shanahan clearly is ready to be an NFL head coach after overseeing the league’s highest-scoring offence this season.

Lynch, a finalist for possible election Saturday to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, was known as a student of the game as a player.

He has become a respected analyst, a role which has kept him close to the sport and familiar with current players.

But running a front office will be new to Lynch, and sitting in the big head coaching chair will be new to Shanahan.

They presumably will be given time and allowed to make some mistakes. ESPN reported that Lynch is to receive a six-year contract.

This is essentially a startover project. Shanahan follows two head coaches, Jim Tomsula and then Chip Kelly, who lasted only one season each. There is no franchise quarterback in sight, although the 49ers have the second overall selection in the NFL draft.

Jed York, the team’s chief executive officer, and former GM Trent Baalke failed to make things work with Harbaugh, then failed to win with Tomsula and Kelly. So York decided to clean house.

The 49ers were wise to wait for Shanahan. He is more than ready for his head coaching chance.

The decision to hire Lynch probably will end up being either brilliant, outside-thebox thinking or a total fiasco.

It is unlikely that there will be a middle-ground result.

The new decision-making team starts out way behind in its preparations for next season. Shanahan must hire a staff.

Preparations must be made for free agency and the draft, something that began in earnest for other teams last week by having their coaches and GM, among other key staffers, on hand to scout draft-eligible players at the Senior Bowl practices in Mobile, Ala.

Shanahan also must deal with the questions from reporters this week in Houston about the 49ers’ situation as well as those about the Falcons’ offence and the game. It is a hectic time indeed for him.

And an extremely intriguing time for the 49ers.

Commissioner Roger Goodell’s annual state-of-the-league address and news conference during Super Bowl week will be held on Wednesday. That’s a change from its usual Friday morning time slot.

The NFLPA has not changed the timing of its annual Super Bowl news conference. That is to be held Thursday.

Goodell is to participate in a fan forum on Friday.

It will be interesting to see how many Patriots fans show up with their questions related to Deflategate and Brady’s suspension.