1. Possession football

Given the spirited success the Giants have enjoyed making comebacks late in games, the balance of the game is dramatically asymmetric. With the Pats more delicate, possession approach, they have to take and hold a lead early. As a caricature, the Patriots must win by the third quarter. If they don't score early, a gassed Patriots secondary could break.

2. Two Game Plans on Offense

We will likely see two significantly different attacks from Belichick. Rob "Yo soy fiesta" Gronkowski is likely to be limited in agility and probably will weaken as the game progresses. Using him aggressively early--either live fire or as a decoy with Hernandez and getting patterns downfield. If there are any plays from Chad Ochocinco's repertoire that Brady still believes in, perhaps he can double his scoring on the season.

Coming out of the thirty minute half-time I'd expect a slower, clock-conscious attack, using Green-Ellis and Woodhead to catch and run, using Welker in screens, and possibly Nate Solder spelling Gronkowski in run blocks and outlets. Just as the Patriots pass to set up the run, they may be able to improve protection against a dangerous Giants OL attack with a 2001-style slot and flats attack.

3. Chemistry on Defense

One benefit of the bend-but-don't-break philosophy is that it's often allowed Belichick to get superior collective performances from what the numbers might suggest are inferior individual contributors. By showing their hand only when the situation is optimal (or desperate) they're able to surprise opposing QBs and send the Lawrence Tines onto the field often.

Sterling Moore was the hero of the Ravens game by forcing a mistake at the worst time. If he and the rest of the defense can get two mistakes from Manning--either through the air or off the ground--and limit Victor "Salsa" Cruz--they will have the possessions they need to delivery a third quarter "win."

Bottom Line

From Elias Sports Bureau: The Patriots a minus 3 in turnovers so far in the playoffs. Only the 1975 Steelers had a worse differential entering the Super Bowl, which they won. Of the four previous teams with the worst differentials entering the Super Bowl, three won.

As I told my wonderful wife Doris today, a good template for success would be Andy Reid's "low and slow" 17-10 victory over the Giants. The Eagles held the ball for 36 minutes and sustained long drives. In the final three minutes Manning connected with Cruz for one touch down and got into position for a second. Then the Eagles

"Salsa" or "Fiesta"? One will likely deliver the key winning score in this affair. Belichick has a high rate of success when facing an opponent a second time in a season, especially when they lose the first time.

Keys to the Game

Both teams have sentimental reasons for relishing a trip to the hosting city of the Colts for the Super Bowl. Three big profiles will determine the Raven's success on Sunday: Reed, Rice, and Flacco.

X Factor: Reed

Statistically, the Ravens will be the toughest defense the offense has faced this year. While their pass rush has slowed compared to years previous, they may be able to get pressure by rushing only four, allowing linebackers to drop back and an extra CB to press.

Against empty sets, the Ravens may show amoeba-like looks that force Brady to commit to a play call before he gets a read on which receivers are getting the best release. We can assume Ray Lewis will spy while Suggs rushes on many of those snaps, making it more difficult for targets over the middle (Brady's strongest region this season) to hold onto balls or get down the field reliably.

At the end of the equation is Reed. His coverage over the top has been reliably outstanding this year. No opposing quarterback has thrown more than one touchdown against the Ravens all season. Especially in the red zone, Reed makes many conventional patterns risky affairs. Look for the Patriots to score over the ground, perhaps making more use of Hernandez out of the backfield, but also likely throwing to Woodhead at the line.

Y Factor: Rice

It was impressive how well the Patriots ends and Linebackers stayed square in their containment of the Broncos running game. That was essential when defending Tebow, who seemed to get more capable outside the pocket. With Rice the challenge is different: he's smaller, and elusive not through power but by stealth. His ability to pick through the tackles for big gains has carried the Ravens in more than a few wins this season.

I don't expect the Patriots to go all-out to stop Rice out of the backfield. Of course we can assume the Pats will studiously prevent a repeat of the opening play of the last playoff loss to the Ravens, but I expect the Patriots will be more concerned with long plays through the air. Some of those plays may be to Rice, who was their number three target over the air with three receiving touchdowns. Only inside their own 30 will there be a need to clamp down and gamble against play-action to stop Rice though the gaps.

Z Factor: Flacco

If we allow that the Patriots can neutralize Reed and don't overreact to Rice, the fulcrum of their fortunes is Flacco. His strength tends to be game management, with a capable play action and habit of deep passing.

Look for the Patriots to bring selective pressure and keep the Ravens in long-yardage passing situations where Spikes, Chung, and McCourty can cut off patterns. The Ravens may be forced to ask Flacco to gamble and score points in a hurry.

One big spike

Brady should be able to keep the Raven's pass rush at bay by getting the ball out more quickly than we've seen this season, likely making use of unusual TE patterns from the flats to the middle and to Welker outside the hashmarks. Those outside patterns won't be deep, as Brady will studiously avoid Reed's neighborhood.

Both defenses are rightly proud of their quality red-zone defense. Brady will be successful throttling the clock with their signature slow-down no-huddle look. As a result, we shouldn't discount the likelihood of field goals determining the game. Of course one big spike from Gronkowksi would be a nice way to seal off the game.

Keys to the game.

The Great Eights

For a club with only three losses in the regular season of 2011, the Patriots have endured a chain of statistical indictments of their defense. Most often the squad was said to be the "worst in the league" and occasionally and incredibily "the worst ever." Indeed there hasn't been a game without a few breathtaking plays with defensive backs out of position, missed tackles near the goal line, and--perhaps most disheartening--sideline muggings of wide receivers that draw flags even on what look like uncatchable passes.

As ugly as it's been to watch, taken over the whole sixty minutes, the game plan still looks like the bend-but-don't-break defense of the past. Yes, the Pats have given up huge yards to opponents. The only team that gave up more is the Green Bay Packers. Belichick's situational approach means a focus on innovation and practice for situations in the red zone. What happens between the 30 yard lines just doesn't matter as much. Looking at turnovers and points allowed the Patriots look more competitive. When this philosophy has worked, it's meant opportunistic turn-overs and a "taking care of business" attitude which has closed out games early.

Another observation has been that in 2011, no win came against a team that finished with a winning record. Fully half of the Pats wins were in fact against teams that finished neither winning nor losing. 8-8 was a very popular record this year and hardly suggest doormat status. One of those teams is the Denver Broncos.

The Delicate Machine

Recent playoff opponents (the Giants, then the Ravens, then the Jets) had two characteristics in common through their victories: an offense not favored to dominate that played free and found success, and a defense that hurried and harried Tom Brady successfully. In those seasons the Patriots had a passing offense as carefully crafted as a swiss watch. The vertical capability was personified by Moss, the slot attack by Welker. The timings and tolerances were finely honed reliance on receivers.

In those losing efforts, the Pats faces talented defensive lines that successfully jammed the offensive clockwork by throwing off Brady's timing. In those games the weakness of the offense was exposed: limited outlets and second looks--they lacked tight ends or running backs who could catch the ball and take pressure off the line to protect Brady.

While we've seen the Patriots offense experience tremulous timing this year, it's been more likely to recover because of the flexibility of the Gronkowski and Hernandez. Even when the timing is off, the Patriots 2011 passing attack has been able to right itself after a series or three. Witness the startling contrasts between one quarter or half and another. In previous years it felt like it they didn't have it in the first possession the game was already half lost. This year the offense feels far more resilient. To wit, look for the twin TEs to keep drives going and create a scoring differential that complicates last minute gambling by the Broncos.

The Option Read

As a run/pass quarterback, Tim Tebow and the Broncos offense force an opposing defense to react three times: first to the threat of a timing pass (Tebow's weakest asset) second to the play-action, (a credible threat with Denver's strong running game ex-Tebow) and third to a scrambling deep-ball threat (best exemplified against the Steelers the previous week).

Look for the Patriots to follow the model of success in Denver (and the success of Kansas City) by crowding the line, reading the option, preventing eight-yard-plus runs and keeping up man-to-man with Broncos receivers. This approach doesn't come for free--it could gas any defense.

Look for the Pats to perhaps benefit from the patchwork personnel of the regular season by begin able to exercise a lot of sub packages and keep key guys fresh.

Bottom Line Numbers

If we ignore the Josh McDaniels sideshow and assume the offensive machine will keep time, then it's up to the defense to simply "take care of business" by pressuring the Broncos into short drives. Two key people on the defense for that effort are 25 and 75.

For the first time since September Patrick Chung (#25) will be playing safety with a health secondary and Mayo comfortable as the signal caller. Look for Chung to be key in preventing the Broncos "big play" attack along the sidelines.

In December, Wilfork (#75) had opportunities to hurry or sack Tebow but didn't get there. By drawing a double-team, he's often springing someone else. Look for him to get to Tebow passing or running and to hear it from a nervously confident crowd. A win in this game means the Patriots can play free one or two times more.

Of director Michael Mann's ten films, this is his first. I believe it's easy to cite them each in a brief introduction because Mann's scope and structural complexity have certainly expanded but the narrowness of his focus--a focus that betrays his training in filmed documentary--remains strongly connected to this feature.

His focus is on the personal code, how it relates to labor, and the artifacts of that combination.

The the possible exception of "The Keep", a common thread along all of these films is a relentless focus on the work. Their labors are often extreme ones, accompanied by behavioral and philosophical codes that bind their world.

The central subject of his remake of his own NBC television series "Miami Vice" concerns itself primarily with the logistical and psychological contortions necessary to stay within not one but two codes: that of a play-acting criminal within the bounds of the law.

Perhaps Mann's best signature is his courage to expose this code in dialogue. So many of his films turn on a fulcrum distant from violence or conflict, but in conversation, often between men of two opposing codes.

A nine minute scene, appearing relatively early in this picture, is where Caan puts everything on the table, as if we're peering through the keyhole to the mechanics of a reinforced safe.

Similarly, Al Pacino's will sit on the floor of a Japanese restaurant across from Russell Crowe, one perhaps a predator, one perhaps pray, and set the stakes for the remarkable combination of legal mechanics and familial code in "The Insider".

Then there is a riddle of realism and here I will mention one film Mann has not made. "Bullitt," the Peter Yates and Steve McQueen collaboration strongly summarizes the riddle: is the film a commitment to realism with its patience to frame police procedure and criminal economics with apparent clinical attention to detail?

Or the complex protagonist, like Frank in "Thief", or Neil McCauley in "Heat," or Jeffrey Wigand in The Insider, placed as they are at the extremities of their society and their own code that they form a unity across the distance between cops and robbers, or soldiers and guerrillas (as in "The Last of the Mohicans") or a fighter (as the title figure in "Ali") and a government (the Federal Government or the Nation of Islam; take your pick).

These are strongly Romantic figures, in the technical sense of the word, and their codes are exhibited and articulated with what can only be called hyperrealistic self-awareness. Surely few criminals and cops (even as portrayed in his exclusively digital production of "Public Enemies") are so carefully calibrated and concerned with the integrity of a set of ideas.

The influence of "Bullitt" is more tangible in "Heat", but the combination of heroic forms, often shadowed by ambiguity, against an almost technocratic landscape of detail, research, and realism shines here, as it does--I would argue much more dimly--in "Collateral."

The riddle shines brightly in "Thief" and is perhaps its most impressive characteristic.

Now I encourage you to put aside these remarks and look forward to the next two hours. Wherein:

You will marvel at Caan's barrel chest, finally exhibited as an apparent totem of technological triumph.

You may enjoy two fleeting cameos by men who will many years later each carry their own prime time dramatic series for CBS.

You will witness what I posit to be the strangest most intense stare at least between two men, ever captured on film.

You will enjoy Robert Prosky's delivery what is for me perhaps the most vividly offensive and curiously indelible of threats.

And finally the many cars, shirt collars, and public phones that punctuate this film with a rhythm and reliability that perhaps bests the musical contribution herein, one provided solely by the group Tangerine Dream.

Enjoy Michael Mann's first feature film. We begin in the streets of Chicago. 1981.

Notes