Dominate the Super Bowl-Chapter 572

Chapter 572: Stop once, look twice Chapter 572: Stop once, look twice “Attack!”

Mahomes announced the kickoff, decisively, with no superfluous fancy moves—his primary play was a quick connect, handing off the football to Li Wei outright, refusing to waste time.

In the opening phase, whether on offense or defense, all were deployed according to pre-game strategies, testing the opponent while evaluating their own condition and tactics, so the execution of tactics by both sides was especially firm.

The football came into the embrace of Li Wei.

There was no delay.

In an instant, one could clearly feel the murderous intent from across the Chu River and Han border crashing down on Li Wei, as the air instantly became stagnant.

The eyes of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ defensive group players ignited with flames, each clenching their teeth, an astonishing energy bursting forth from within their bodies.

Boom, boom boom.

...

The thundering roars surged toward Li Wei with the force of thunderclaps—

Blitz!

On the second consecutive defense, the Pittsburgh Steelers chose to apply pressure upfront, Tomlin demonstrated his exceptional boldness, ready to use continuous pressure and impact to give the rookie quarterback Mahomes a shocking lesson right from the start.

Whether to capture or breakthrough was one matter; but to continuously apply pressure, to keep tension sustained without any breathing time, elevating the rhythm and tension to a new level from the opening phase, was another matter.

For a young quarterback like Mahomes, who lacked experience, setting aside individual ability, things like breathing adjustments, concentration, and the pace of the game could easily lead him astray, his cognitive speed unable to keep up, his tactical vision unable to unfold, the defensive group seizing the initiative before a chance to breathe surfaced.

This was an advantage on a tactical level, as well as on a strategic level.

Even if Reed was again shrewd and comprehensive, the matter of a young quarterback’s game experience still had no answer; it could only accumulate slowly through continual mistakes.

Here again, Tomlin’s tactical cleverness and cunning could be seen.

So, what about Reed?

Reed naturally knew the shortcomings that the young quarterback couldn’t make up for; how could he be unprepared?

The first offensive play, a quick short pass, required no thinking from the quarterback, testing the proficiency from off-season team training.

The second offensive play, a ground attack, shifted the pressure from the quarterback’s shoulders to the top scorer of the team at the moment.

And so.

This scene unfolded before us.

“Li Wei VS Defensive group.”

The Pittsburgh Steelers didn’t panic; the blitz was still a blitz, whether attacking the quarterback or the running back, the strategy of applying pressure to the pocket by the defensive line was the same.

The moment Mahomes handed the football to Li Wei, the defensive group completed their adjustment in starting up right after.

Confrontation!

Impact!

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Exertion!

Breakthrough!

All in one go.

Defensive End Hayward had already cut into the pocket.

As a seasoned veteran in the league for many years, Hayward also showed his experience.

The first blitz focused on stalemate and entanglement, allowing the linemen to cut in from the outside; the second blitz was aimed at penetration and advancing, tearing the pocket before the linemen had a chance.

Similar tactics, different rhythms.

Without even blinking, Hayward’s steps had already cut into the pocket, a brief pause allowed him to shake off, throwing off the offensive line players’ entanglement; his eyes, sharp as a hawk, firmly locked onto Li Wei.

However, Li Wei didn’t move—

Literally, he stood in place.

Hayward: Could he have been scared silly?

Logically, since Mahomes didn’t use a feint and chose direct handoff, this was a standard ground offensive play—clean handoff motions are to gain time for the running back, to jump-start during the brief gap before the defensive line and linebackers restart.

This was also Li Wei’s forte in ground propulsion.

Defensive group players across the league knew, one couldn’t allow Li Wei the space to accelerate; once Li Wei got going, the subsequent defense could be very very difficult; therefore, defensive group players had to seize the time difference, compressing Li Wei’s starting space as much as possible.

In front of him, that’s how it should have been.

But Li Wei made an unusual move:

He stood still, motionless.

Hayward: ???

Hayward knew that Li Wei definitely wasn’t frozen in fear, but in the split second, he had no time or space to think, unable to find any other possibilities.

Once his feet had started moving, they had to keep moving forward.

There was no time for hesitation.

The only thing Hayward could do was to be fully alert, with his attention highly concentrated, not forgetting—

Apart from the speed advantage, Li Wei’s ability to change direction was also top-notch in the league.

In the blink of an eye, Hayward’s brain missed a critical point, or rather, a blind spot: behind him.

That couldn’t be helped; after all, Hayward didn’t have eyes in the back of his head.

The players who noticed Li Wei’s stillness were not just Hayward but also the outside linebacker TJ, inside linebacker Vince Williams, and cornerback Burns.

They had to pay attention, because the ground offensive tactic was too obvious and too direct, laid out before their eyes.

It was difficult to overlook, and then they noticed Li Wei’s irregularity.

In that moment, countless thoughts flashed through their minds, each with their own judgments.

Wait, could it be…

Li Wei was preparing to pass the ball?

Despite how absurd it seemed, indeed, some thought so, resulting in each person’s reflexes and secondary reactions being slightly different.

For a moment, the situation was tumultuous.

And all of this, every bit of it, fell into Li Wei’s eyes—

The Bell training template.

It turned out that when Le’Veon Bell stopped moving, within the blink of an eye, the world he saw was like this.

Although Li Wei had attempted similar initiatives before, more often than not, it was out of necessity, but now he was actively halting his movements, reading the defense a second time in Bell’s manner.

Prying open the door to a whole new world.

While all the defensive players were scrambling for time, their secondary reactions were all captured in Li Wei’s eyes—TJ’s, Williams’s, and Burns’s positions, trends, and running patterns were all clearly visible, including the rapidly advancing safeties in the distance.

The second defensive read unfolded in his mind in a vivid three-dimensional way.

Describing it seemed to take forever, but in reality, it was just a fleeting moment, within a single breath.

And then, the shadow of Hayward with his arms wide open had already engulfed Li Wei.

Shifting his gaze to the ferocious Hayward in front of him, Li Wei calmly executed a backward-leaning, crouching evasive move to the left.

While going down, he drew a circle clockwise.

His body, like a spinning top, evaded the spot where Hayward first exerted force, then the lower body followed, with his right leg leaving the ground to make room.

It wasn’t a change of direction, just evasion.

Hayward didn’t anticipate it; his bulky body instinctively fell towards the right side, ready to stop Li Wei in the simplest way possible or simply disrupt him.

Their gazes briefly met.

But Li Wei didn’t glance at Hayward at all.

His right leg circled around Hayward, taking one step to bypass his position.

He waited and waited until now to finally explode with stored energy—surging forward, he surpassed Hayward.

A miss by an inch, lost by a mile.

Hayward saw Li Wei within arm’s reach, so close, yet his body couldn’t twist around, his center of gravity out of control.

Twisting his head to look back, he captured only a streak of red lingering afterimage.

Hayward, empty-handed.