Rematch in Pats' favor
Champs have historical edge
INSIDE THE NUMBERS
When the 2017 NFL schedule was unveiled in April, Sunday night’s Super Bowl rematch between the Patriots and Falcons was a game most people quickly circled.
After all, the Patriots’ 3428 victory in Houston last February was an instant classic. Tom Brady and the Pats famously rallied from a 28-3 deficit to win it on a James White touchdown in overtime.
What’s more, this specific type of game is not the norm in the NFL. In fact, of the previous 50 installments of the Super Bowl, there’s been a rematch the following regular season only seven times.
The good news for Patriots fans is the reigning champions are 5-2 in those rematches.
Pats fans will take those odds since it’s becoming harder and harder to bet on what their team will look like on any given Sunday. For that matter, the same can be said for the Falcons.
The Patriots’ struggles are well-documented in the New England area. They narrowly escaped the Jets in the Meadowlands on Sunday and will attempt to slow down reigning MVP Matt Ryan and the Atlanta offense with the NFL’s 32nd-ranked defense.
Meanwhile, the Falcons started out with three straight victories, ranking fifth in the NFL with a plus21 differential. They won two on the road and the other against the Packers. But home losses to the Bills and Dolphins, the latter in which they blew a 17-0 lead — reminiscent of their February collapse at NRG Stadium — have brought about talk of the dreaded Super Bowl hangover.
This is the second time the Patriots have been involved in one of these rematches. Back in 1997, the Pete Carroll-led Patriots lost big to the Green Bay Packers (28-10) after Bill Parcells’ team had been rolled in Super Bowl XXXI (35-21). Parcells, of course, was off to the Jets shortly after that loss.
Sunday’s matchup will be the third time in the past four years the NFL has benefited from one of these rematches. The past two — between Super Bowl 50 combatants Denver and Carolina and Super Bowl XLVIII foes Denver and Seattle — both went to the Super Bowl victors, but they were much closer games in both instances.
This time around, 259 days will have passed since the Pats and Falcons met in Super Bowl LI. That isn’t a lot of time in the real world, but in the NFL, it’s an eternity. The Patriots have a number of new faces on both sides of the ball, an offense that has averaged just 21.5 points per game the past two weeks — after averaging more than 32 in the first month — and a defense filled with question marks on all three levels.
The Falcons are amidst a transition at offensive coordinator, with Steve Sarkisian taking the reins from one of the brightest offensive minds in football, Kyle Shanahan. They still are extremely talented, but seeing the familiar Patriots so soon after their 17-point collapse against the Dolphins will keep the demons from last February’s collapse fresh in everyone’s minds.