Super Bowl 53: C.J. Anderson laments Patriots’ defensive success

Rams running back C.J. Anderson went on “Undisputed” and lamented the Patriots’ defensive success against his team in Super Bowl 53.

Some losses, like some games, are easier to forget than others. Chances are the Los Angeles Rams won’t be forgetting – or getting over – their loss to the New England Patriots in Super Bowl 53 anytime soon.

It’s not just that the Rams failed to win a championship. It’s also the way the Rams failed to win a championship.

After finishing the season as the second-best offense in the NFL, the high-flying team rolled through the Dallas Cowboys and then stormed back against the New Orleans Saints to find themselves in Atlanta. Unfortunately for L.A. and its fans, the team then ran into a solid brick wall in Bill Belichick’s unforgiving New England defense.

The Patriots held the Rams – a team that averaged just under 33 points a game in the regular season – to a field goal in the Super Bowl. The three point total was their lowest scoring output in all of 2018.

So it’s no wonder that at least one member of the team is still a bit salty about how things transpired at Mercedes-Benz Stadium two-and-a-half weeks ago.

C.J. Anderson, signed off the street to spell Todd Gurley and provide the Rams with some power running between the tackles, joined Skip Bayless and Shannon Sharpe on FS1’s “Undisputed” sports talk show to discuss his season, the playoffs, and Super Bowl 53. When asked specifically about the Patriots’ defensive success against the Rams, Anderson didn’t hold back in his evaluations.

"“Bill (Belichick) does a great job of putting his team in the right position,” Anderson said on the show. “They played great gap control against us. They gave us some different coverages that was not shown on tape. If anybody wants to go back and watch the Super Bowl — if you watch their season, 90 percent they’ve been in (man-to-man defense). They play a little zone (here and there) but they probably played 80 percent zone against us, because they probably didn’t think they had the best matchups.”"

It’s true – New England did spend most of 2018 playing man-to-man coverage against other teams, largely because of the talent and cohesion they boasted in their secondary. And it would be just like Belichick to embrace the opportunity to transform his strategies and the look of his squad, even on the game’s greatest stage, in an effort to confuse and throw off the opposition.

The Patriots have been so successful for so many years for a variety of reasons, but one of the most prominent has to be their versatility, resourcefulness, and ability to constantly change and adapt in order to neutralize a specific opponent. Like a chameleon changing its colors at will to blend in with its surroundings, the hallmark of this Patriots dynasty has been the team’s ability to transform itself week after week, and find success with a number of these different identities.

“I think (the Patriots) slowed down all our big plays, and it was kind of frustrating, and that’s kind of how the game went. It sucks,” Anderson said bluntly. At that point, it was clear to anyone watching that he’d had quite enough of discussing Super Bowl 53… just as his Rams had quite enough of that terrific Patriots’ defense on February 3.