While folks frame this Super Bowl as another episode of "Tom vs Time," pitting the ageless Tom Brady against a relative neophyte in Rams quarterback Jared Goff, the most interesting clash is between two men who won't run, throw or catch a single ball all game.
Everyone notes the biggest age gap at quarterback in history (Brady is 41, Goff is 24), but Bill Belichick is closing in on 67, while Sean McVay just turned 33, the largest age gap in Super Bowl history. It's a matchup cleverly coined as "Millennial vs Perennial." In fact, the Rams' wunderkind coach was just 16 years old the first time Belichick beat the St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI.
To give you a sense of how long the chasm is between their latest and first Super Bowl, let's glance at our nation in Feb 2002...
The top song in America was, "How You Remind Me" by Nickelback. The top film was "Collateral Damage," starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. The average price for a gallon of gas was $1.35. A few months prior, Barry Bonds had just finished an MLB season with 73 homers. Michael Jordan was playing for the Washington Wizards. LeBron James was still in high school. Titans. Patriots wideout Philip Dorsett was nine when Belichick coached in Super Bowl 36. (If you can believe it, in 2003 McVay would beat out Calvin Johnson for Georgia's High School Player of the Year award.)
The two Super Bowl coaches have not faced each other in their current positions. But McVay admits he got his clock cleaned by Belichick in Nov 2015 when the Patriots whipped the Washington Redskins, 27-10, back when McVay was just a wide-eyed offensive coordinator under Jay Gruden. Belichick thwarted McVay's running game (37 total yards) and made life quite uncomfortable for Redskins QB Kirk Cousins (22/40 217 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT).
Belichick has won 291 regular-season games, while McVay has won 24. Belichick has coached in 41 playoff games. McVay has three playoff games under his belt. Belichick is stoic, silent, and often gruff with the media, while the peppy McVay seems to treat every game as if it were stuffed under his Christmas tree, quick to smile and always eager to chat up every X and O on the board. One is a defensive wizard while the other sees the world in route trees and zone blocking.
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Perhaps the only non-story that's bogarting the bold ink is this cell phone bonding between the two coaches. After a game this season, Belichick zipped a few texts to McVay, lauding him for his offensive prowess. Yawn. It has no impact on the Super Bowl.
Millennials, like any group of youngsters, often say that experience is overrated, that maturity is the last refuge of the geriatric. I said it as a kid. You said it as a kid. And we were both wrong when we said it. The fact that Belichick is onto his ninth crack at a Lombardi Trophy gives him an exponential edge over McVay.
It won't be the only reason the Patriots win, if they do. And it won't be the main reason the Rams lose, if they do. But we've all been told by Boomer Esiason, Phil Simms, Ray Lewis, and a conga line of legends that there's no way to prepare for the cultural tsunami they're about to walk into. On top of that, one of his role players, Nickell Robey-Coleman summoned some bulletin-board material by declaring that Tom Brady clearly isn't as fabulous as he used to be. He since moonwalked from the comments, but you can be sure it's already lathered across the Patriots' whiteboards.
Belichick knows what plays to install on any given day, when to rest and when to practice, when to coddle and when to cajole. In fact, Belichick was installing the Super Bowl XXI defense for the Giants in 1987, when McVay was in diapers, four days after his first birthday. This game is indeed won by players, but pro football relies on its coaches more than any other team sport.
If McVay becomes overwhelmed by the moment or the Patriots' mojo, he can't call Belichick for help. But perhaps he can text Doug Pederson.