I just watched the 4th quarter of the Super Bowl again

And it reinforced how badly the Falcons bungled this one away.

Defensively they fell apart, there is no doubt about it. The coverage on Amendola's TD after the Ryan strip sack was absolutely horrible, the defender at first just watched like he was a spectator!

Coverage was very spotty all through the 4th though by both teams especially by ATL on the game tying drive, very inconsistent. Credit to Edelman for that amazing catch and if you watch the slow motion replay he never takes his eyes off the ball even as he is getting hit by three defenders. I'd like to say it was a gutsy throw by Brady but it was actually a bad decision really. He got lucky.

On the drive that has been discussed to death IMO the Falcons had deflated the Patriots and taken the momentum away with two big plays. Starting from their own 10 they open with a BIG gain to the 48 on a totally blown coverage and a wide open Freeman. Then the amazing thrown and catch by Ryan and Julio Jones who made a simply fantastic effort to locate and grab the ball then get his feet down. His timing was perfect. ATL on the NE 22 and ALL of the mojo is going their way. A sideline shot even captured a dejected looking Brady.

Then....... a run for a loss of a yard.

The sack on the next play came from pressure right up the middle and Ryan was barely able to take two steps after seeing the defender come through the bunched up LOS and just like that he is in his grasp. I've watched it several times and Ryan has no chance to do anything. And he was not outside of the tackle box, and if he had thrown while in the grasp it's the same intentional grounding call. The RB didn't whiff which IIRC a couple of people thought, he was blocking on the edge on Ryan's blindside.

The next play was the most blatant holding I've seen since I don't know when LOL, he was practically strangling Long. Just awful. The refs could have called a facemask on the defender who had Sanu though, right after the catch he grabbed it and pulled. It was clearly a penalty you could see on the replay but I'm not sure any zebras were close enough to see it. The hold killed all of the momentum they had built up.

After watching it a few times I can't bring myself to change my mind about running the ball. It was the only sensible thing to do.

I'm sure Shanahan will have a great career like his father did, he's smart and even if he fails as a HC he will have a very successful career as an OC..........but he could have easily walked off the field a champion and it would have been a great going away present for himself and the ATL organization.

This will be debated a lot in the next several months that's for sure.