A fresh take on Super Bowl 52, including Eric Rowe on why Belichick really benched Butler

Super Bowl 52 was a wild, unpredictable, and for Patriots haters, thoroughly enjoyable four hours.

But for all the records set or broken — 29 combined, it was reported at the time — the shootout in Minneapolis will probably be best remembered for two things:

Philly Special and Malcolm Brown.

Or put another way: Bill Belichick getting outcoached by Doug Pederson and by himself.

Pederson made one of the greatest calls in recent NFL history — if not NFL history — when, on fourth-and-goal late in the first half, he green-lit a play designed for quarterback Nick Foles to not throw, but catch a touchdown pass. It worked, and directly led to the Eagles winning their only Super Bowl ever.

Belichick, meanwhile, might have outsmarted himself by benching star cornerback Malcolm Butler for reasons he still has not fully articulated. He’s repeatedly called it a “football decision,” and nothing more. Butler didn’t see a single snap on defense, and while it wasn’t the only reason, it was a reason the Patriots surrendered 41 points, 538 yards and 25 first downs that evening.

Twenty-two months later, much has changed. Foles is in Jacksonville. Butler is Nashville.

But on Sunday, when the Dolphins and Eagles meet at Hard Rock Stadium in a rare nonconference showdown, some role players in that that broader drama will get a chance to make things right, at least on some level.

Eric Rowe was the cornerback whom Belichick played over Butler that night. And Brian Flores was the position coach whose linebackers completely lost Foles on that now-famous trick play.

Both are now big parts of the Miami Dolphins, with Flores their first-year head coach and Rowe their most consistent (and healthy) defensive back.

But two years ago, both were mostly unknowns. Matt Patricia was still calling New England’s defensive plays. And Rowe, due in large part to his inability to stay healthy, was a mystery even among his peers.

“Who is Eric Rowe?” Redskins corner Josh Norman asked honestly on national television in the days that followed that game.

The answer was a pretty darn good defensive player. Yes, he allowed a 34-yard touchdown pass to Alshon Jeffrey, but he also had three pass breakups and only allowed four of nine passes thrown his way to be completed. Plus his coverage on Jeffrey’s touchdown was tight.

“I feel like I played well. I had a couple of early passes [on me], but I had pass breakups,” Rowe said. “I was playing well out there. I know he had that touchdown. That was a good throw. I was right in his pocket, thought I ripped it out. Alshon, he’s got strong hands. Besides that, I thought I played well.”

Rowe, during an interview with the Miami Herald this week, was operating mostly on in-the-moment memories. He never went back and watched the game film, a reflection more of his disappointment over the outcome than any personal failings.

But time has not dulled his recollection of that game, or the days that led up to him starting in it.

As a refresher: Butler, a former all-pro who made the Super Bowl-winning interception for New England three years prior, was a pending free agent and was probably playing his final game as a Patriot regardless.

Still, everyone outside of the Patriots organization expected him to start against the Eagles. When it was announced he wouldn’t — and he ultimately never played a down on defense — it was a stunner.

Butler would later say that he was sick with flulike symptoms the week before the game and knew he wasn’t his best self in practice. There were also rumors that were also some nonfootball issues, like a possible missed curfew in the lead-up to the game, but Butler strongly denied those rumors in an interview with ESPN last summer.

But according to Rowe, the decision to bench Butler was made almost two weeks prior.

“I found out right after the AFC Championship Game,” Rowe said. “After the championship game, we came in the next week. He said, ‘You’re starting on the right side.’ I was like, ‘All right.’

“It was a little bit of a surprise,” added Rowe, who signed a one-year deal with the Dolphins before this season. “I had been playing the slot all year. Obviously, I had been working outside too. I was like, ‘Hey, I’ll take it.’”

Now that Rowe is away from the cone of silence in Foxborough, he is free to speak freely about one of the more bizarre weeks in that franchise’s great history.

The question Patriots fans all wanted answered: What really happened?

“Honestly, I think, when it comes to playoffs, Bill, if you’re not playing good, he even said, he don’t care,” Rowe said. “He will pull you out. My guess is, he wasn’t playing good during that run in the playoffs.”

Rowe later reiterated that Butler was “just not playing well enough. That’s what I think. It’s not a for-sure answer. I wouldn’t second-guess [Belichick].”

Two years later, Rowe is in Miami, largely because of Flores. Even with the failure of 2017, they did win two Super Bowls together during a three-year stretch.

And unlike Rowe, Flores did go back and study what went wrong in Super Bowl 52.

‘Like anything else, you learn from that game, things you could have done better, things you may do the next time around,” he added. “Yeah, I’ve gone back and watched it. I’m not afraid of watching a loss or something where it didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to.”

He learned that Pederson runs a “tough offense” that has a good mix of shifts, motions and irregular formations. He learned that the Eagles had a bunch of really good skill position players, many of whom are still on the team.

And perhaps more than anything, Flores learned to expect even the most expected — like a quarterback going in motion and slipping free of all defenders in the end zone in the biggest game of his life.

But just because Flores vividly remembers the Philly Special — which began with a direct snap to a quarterback and ended with a touchdown pass from a tight end to a quarterback — doesn’t mean he’s going to dwell on it.

In fact, Flores didn’t even commit to practice defending that play in the days leading up to Sunday’s game.

“We may work on it, we may not,” Flores said. “We’ll definitely show it to them. They’ve got gadgets. They’ve got a lot more gadgets than that play, I’ll tell you that right now, if you’ve watched them over the years.

“We’ve got to be ready for everything.”