Super Bowl 2012 Report Card: Grading Each Team's Coordinators

Well, the Super Bowl is over and a champion has been crowned with the New York Giants defeating the New England Patriots, 21-17. It was one heck of a matchup between these two teams as some players came up absolutely huge on the biggest stage that the NFL has to offer.

This article is going to give grades to the offensive and defensive coordinators from both the New York Giants and New England Patriots.

Kevin Gilbride, Offensive Coordinator, New York Giants

The New York Giants offensive coaching staff and Kevin Gilbride did a great job getting the running game going early. In all, they ran the ball 28 times for 114 yards. This is an amazing statistic considering that the Giants rush offense finished dead last in the NFL during the regular season.

Schematically, they kept the New England Patriots defense on their toes by running a myriad of different formations on these plays. In short, the Patriots struggled understanding what was coming when.

I also liked how they went with quick slants early in the game when the Patriots sent the rare blitz. This enabled Eli Manning to get rid of the ball to his receivers in space and against one-on-one coverage.

It wasn't all great for the Giants offense. They had two really costly 12 men on the field penalties and had to waste two timeouts in the fourth quarter. These two things normally come back to haunt teams in a close game. New York dodged a bullet in that regard.

Grade: B+

Perry Fewell, Defensive Coordinator, New York Giants

I liked the way the Giants had corners and safeties jumping the box early in this game. This allowed them to shorten the field against Tom Brady and magnify the Patriots' inability to run the ball. If you take away the Wes Welker reverse, the Patriots had just over 60 yards on the ground.

The two linebacker sets against New England really bothered me. This enabled the Patriots tight ends and receivers to sit down in the middle of the field and really played to the strengths of Tom Brady. Michael Boley guarding Aaron Hernandez is a situation that the Giants want to avoid every single time, but it happened multiple times throughout the game.

The Giants defensive line also ran a lot of stunts, which really doesn't play to their strengths and takes their great pass rushers out of the game a lot. Jason Pierre-Paul dropping back into coverage in a red zone situation made absolutely no sense either.

They also struggled schematically on two consecutive long touchdown drives by the Patriots offense. Tom Brady led his offense down to end the first half and then to begin the second half, tallying 175 yards on 22 plays. The Giants just didn't make the necessary adjustments at that point in the game.

I will say they stepped up big time when it counted the most. What I liked the most is the fact that Perry Fewell and Co. didn't go to prevent defense on the Patriots final drive that ended in an incomplete Hail Mary. That is usually the death of defenses late in the game.

Overall, a great performance that lacked some good scheme.

Grade: B

Bill O'Brien, Offensive Coordinator, New England Patriots

The New England Patriots attempted to run out of the shotgun a great deal in the first half. While this had been successful for them throughout the season, they needed to understand their opponent. New York's front seven is way too athletic for that to work on a consistent basis.

I did like how Bill O'Brien and Josh McDaniels put their offensive line in a situation to succeed against a difficult Giants pass rush.

They also made some tremendous adjustments towards the end of the first half and beginning the second half. This resulted in two long touchdown scoring drives. The injury to Rob Gronkowski really handicapped the Patriots ability to succeed on offense, he was a major part of their success during the regular season.

New England did do a great job finding single coverage on the outside and targeting Prince Amukamara a great deal in the second half. They understood that the rookie was injured for most of the season and lacked the experience to come up big on this huge stage.

Grade: B-

Bill Belichick, Head Coach/Defensive Coordinator, New England Patriots

The Patriots' defensive scheme struggled throughout the entire game. When they went to the zone package, Eli Manning was able to eat them apart. When they decided to blitz, after initial success, the Giants would run through the gap where the blitzes were coming from.

One of the most glaring issues that this defense had was in the first quarter when Sterling Moore forced a  fumble deep in the Patriots side of the field. They were called for a 12 men on the field penalty, which negated the huge turnover. This has to be directly correlated to the coaching staff as their defense was utterly confused. It starts from the top down, and coach Belichick should be blamed for this.

Additionally, challenging the Mario Manningham catch late in the game wasn't the greatest decision in the world. It was apparent that the Giants receiver made the catch. The Patriots should have spent more time looking at it before throwing the red flag. This forced them to waste a timeout that would later be huge in the outcome of the game.

They went with a blitzing scheme earlier in the game, but decided to become more vanilla as the Super Bowl went on. This really cost the Patriots when the game was on the line. They needed to mask those secondary issues, but were unable to.

Grade: D