It wasn’t the type of Super Bowl anyone expected.

New England’s 13-3 victory over the Los Angeles Rams didn’t resemble the storyline we all became familiar with this year. Points were at a premium, and offenses stalled more often than not. Deep in the third quarter, there was some thought that punters Johnny Hekker (Rams) and Ryan Allen (Patriots) could be in the MVP conversation.

In the end, the Patriots once again came out victorious but in the manner they won their first few Super Bowls with. New England’s defense harassed the Rams through four quarters, giving the Patriots a sixth Super Bowl title.

“A lot of people doubted us,” Patriots cornerback Stephon Gilmore said. “They doubted our defense. We stuck together. We got better and better as the season went on. We found our identity, and we believed in each other. I would take our defense against anybody.”

Here are 10 observations from the Super Bowl on Sunday:

1. New England dominates the next-gen coach’s offense

Remember the old days, when New England won Super Bowl titles with a stingy defense that made life miserable for the opposing offense play after play? Yeah, it has been awhile. Well, that type of defense reappeared in this victory. It did so against the next big thing, a.k.a. Sean McVay’s Rams.

When the coaching carousel began in January, the talk of the league was for teams to find the next McVay. Arizona hired 39-year-old Kliff Kingsbury, who was fired from his job at Texas Tech. Green Bay hired 39-year-old Matt LaFleur. A lot of teams seem to be searching for the next offensive wunderkind to jump-start their franchise to greater heights.

In Super Bowl LIII, the Patriots showed that a great defensive game plan can still stifle the best offensive mind.

The Rams were lost from the onset. Quarterback Jared Goff opened the game 2-of-7 throwing and never became comfortable. Running lanes closed quickly, which disabled the Rams’ ability to go with the play-action pass at a consistent rate. Rams tackle Andrew Whitworth said the Patriots kept putting six defenders on the line of scrimmage, which limited the space for runs to burst through. By taking the run away, the Patriots forced the Rams into being one-dimensional. From there, the Patriots’ pass-rushers feasted on Goff. Goff was sacked four times and took 12 hits.

“Like I’ve been saying all week, we don’t got stars,” Patriots linebacker Kyle Van Noy said. “We’ve got elite football players.”

They sure looked like it Sunday. It was reminiscent of when these two teams played in Super Bowl XXXVI, when a lot of people expected the Rams’ high-octane offense to roll past the Patriots. But the Patriots employed a great defensive game plan against the Rams then. And they did so this time around, too.

New England began aggressively and stayed with that approach throughout the game. Sometimes that can come back and bite you for a big play. On Sunday, the game plan was executed to near perfection.

“You find your identity throughout the season,” Gilmore said. “One thing is we’re not going to stick our toe in the water. We’re going to come out fighting and play aggressive. If they hit one, move on to the next play.”

Of course, in the moments after a tough loss, Rams players could only think of what could have been. They couldn’t protect well, and they couldn’t open any lanes. It was simply a disappointing outing for everyone who spent nearly a full year to get to this stage.

“I think we could have protected (Goff) better and things of that nature,” running back C.J. Anderson said. “That’s all of us — tight ends, receivers getting open. He went out there and led us. He gave us a chance at the end, and we just didn’t execute.”

There was no way for the Rams to expect their explosive offense to sputter the way they did Sunday. The Rams averaged 32.9 points per game in the regular season but were held to only three in the Super Bowl. They converted only three third-down opportunities and were held to 260 total yards.

“It’s shocking,” Whitworth said. “We have to go back and look at the tape to see where things really fell apart. It’s just embarrassing. It stings to play that way, and I almost would have rather scored a lot and lost in some way, but that would be taking away from the effort the defense had. What a job they did to give us an opportunity to win this game, and we didn’t do enough to help them.”

2. So where does Edelman rank among the league’s best receivers?

Maybe it’s his stature at 5-foot-10 and 198 pounds. Maybe it’s because he’s primarily a slot receiver as opposed to an outside target. But when it comes to ranking the best receivers in the league, Julian Edelman is often left out of the mix. That conversation usually turns to players such as Julio Jones, Antonio Brown and Odell Beckham Jr.

Maybe that should finally change.

As Jason Lloyd documented in his piece, Edelman was named the Super Bowl LIII MVP after catching 10 passes for 141 yards. He routinely got open, much of it due to his crisp routes and his ability to find the soft spots in zone coverage. On one catch, Edelman froze a Rams defender in his tracks before cutting to the sideline. On another, he slipped past Marcus Peters, who was trying to jam him at the line of scrimmage. Breaking open, Edelman caught a pass for a first down.

Edelman’s teammate Cordarralle Patterson gushed over Edelman’s performance afterward, proclaiming him worthy of being discussed among the game’s best receivers.

“He’s No. 1, especially in the slot,” Patterson said. “You can’t fuck with Jules in the slot. There is so much separation that he can control and the things he can do. It’s just different. For a big guy like me to see him do the things he does, it really is amazing. The hard work he puts in each and every day, he’s second to none.”

Edelman’s road to becoming a Super Bowl MVP was quite arduous. He missed the 2017 season due to an ACL tear. He was suspended for the first four games of the 2018 season for violating the league’s PED policy. In 12 regular-season games, Edelman caught 74 passes for 850 yards and six touchdowns. Extrapolated over a full 16-game season, that line projects to 99 catches, 1,133 yards and eight touchdowns. In the postseason, Edelman finished with 26 catches for 388 yards. He also crossed the 300-yard mark in the 2016 postseason.

“I’m getting to live out a dream, so it’s pretty surreal right now,” Edelman said. “I think everything happens for a reason. I was always taught as a young boy that you always just have to work hard. Work as hard as you can, put in the extra time, and we will see where it goes.”

Receiver Chris Hogan took a question about what separates Edelman from other players in the league at the position. Midway through his response, Hogan began to choke up, catching himself before any tears could show.

“That guy’s work ethic, you can’t compare it to anything,” Hogan said. “He works tirelessly throughout the year. Again, I’m just so proud of him, the way he played. I’ve learned a lot from him. I’m just proud of him, man. He works so hard. He overcame a lot of stuff — ACL surgery, his suspension. He came back with a fire and a passion. He wanted to go out there and help us win. He came up huge. He played the game of his life.”

Said quarterback Tom Brady, “He’s a fighter man, that kid. I’m just so proud of him. He’s been an incredible player for this team in the playoffs, and he just cemented himself, again, in the history of the NFL for what his accomplishments are.”

In what turned out to be a defensive struggle, Edelman was the only skill position player who kept churning out plays for four quarters. It turned out to be one of those magical nights for Edelman, the former college quarterback from Kent State who was taken by New England in the seventh round of the 2009 draft.

“He’s exactly what you see,” Rams linebacker Cory Littleton said. “He’s one of those guys that starts going across the field, whipping back out, feeling your leverage and pressure-breaking off that. He’s a wiggly guy. He was his normal self (Sunday).”

3. Gurley’s disappearing act

Todd Gurley declared himself fully healthy for the Super Bowl almost two weeks ago. McVay did, as well. Yet as the game played out, it didn’t seem like the Rams were intent on getting their star running back the ball all that often. Gurley got the ball on the first play of the game. He didn’t get another touch until the second quarter.

So, as Lindsay Jones asked, what was the deal? Was Gurley still dealing with a knee injury?

Well, if he was, the Rams weren’t about to admit any potential fib after the Super Bowl loss.

“Todd is healthy, and we just didn’t really get a chance to get anybody going offensively, and that starts with me,” McVay said.

Gurley totaled 35 rushing yards on 10 carries. He caught one pass for -1 yard. His 11 touches Sunday followed an NFC championship game that saw him get the ball only five times. Obviously, this is less than ideal for a Rams team that relies on Gurley to spark the offense.

“Really, I never enabled us to get into a rhythm offensively,” McVay said. “We didn’t have any third-down conversions really the whole first half. They did a good job, and it seemed like every time we had a little bit of a positive play, we would end up having a penalty or move ourselves back.”

The Patriots seemed intent on taking the running game away at all costs. Gurley had only a couple of runs when he got to the edge or slipped into the next level. Most of his runs ended near the line of scrimmage. The same occurred for Anderson, as well, as the Rams finished with only 62 yards on the ground.

Gurley said he wasn’t bothered with his workload.

“No, it’s cool man. It’s a team sport,” Gurley said. “There are 11 people on the field. Everyone can’t touch the ball. Still a great season by us. I’m blessed either way it goes. I’m just grateful for the opportunity to be able to play in the Super Bowl.”

For someone who ran over and around defenders all year, it was such a different sight to see Gurley bottled up. Even Gurley admitted that he felt the Rams eventually would hit some big plays on the ground.

“When you’ve been doing what we’ve been doing all year, it’s just like, next rep, next rep and try not to press,” Gurley said. “I felt we all did a good job at the end of the day just going out here with whatever Coach gave us. We tried to make the best opportunity out of it. Really appreciate all the guys on the team. It just didn’t go our way.”

4. The week that was regarding the halftime show

As for the Super Bowl halftime show, Colin Kaepernick’s presence loomed large heading into it.

Rapper Jay-Z was one of the first to admonish the league for its stance on Kaepernick, who three seasons ago took a knee during the National Anthem to protest police brutality in the U.S. Rihanna, an artist the NFL apparently coveted for this year’s show, reportedly turned down the gig in support of Kaepernick. While Cardi B performed in NFL-sponsored concerts during the week leading up to the game, she publicly said she wouldn’t take part in the halftime show for the same reason. Of course, the NFL eventually found a trio of willing acts — headliner Maroon 5, with guest artists Big Boi and Travis Scott.

Up until the end of the week, many artists remained silent on the issue. An effort by The Athletic to reach Big Boi went unreturned. An attempt to reach rapper Ludacris, who performed Thursday night at State Farm Arena, also ended without comment.

While Big Boi hasn’t received much local criticism for taking part in the halftime show, the pro-Kaepernick crowd was never going to give him or Travis Scott, a Houston native who embodies an Atlanta trap sound, a pass. While Atlanta has become the capital of hip-hop, a large number of Kaepernick’s supporters believe playing the halftime show is akin to choosing right or wrong. Vic Oyedeji, a 33-year-old software tester and founder of Dubata online tech school, traveled to Atlanta on Saturday to protest the halftime show. In doing so, Oyedeji projected a video onto the Bottle Works building in front of Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which asked the participating musicians to take a knee. Later Saturday evening, Oyedeji projected the video onto the actual stadium.

A message was projected onto Mercedes-Benz Stadium asking the musicians taking part in the Super Bowl halftime show to take a knee. (Courtesy of Sydney Dobkin.)

Oyedeji was responsible for a change.org petition that asked for Maroon 5 to drop out of the Super Bowl halftime show. As of Sunday, more than 115,000 people signed the petition. Oyedeji also created the platform for another change.org petition urging people to quit watching the NFL until Kaepernick was signed, which earned more than 200,000 signatures. For someone like Big Boi, Oyedeji believes the Super Bowl’s location shouldn’t grant him immunity for participating.

“The question to ask all the performers is simple: If it wasn’t a Super Bowl, and it was a regular performance, and you had this much backlash and this many people asking you to drop out in support of Colin Kaepernick, per se, would you drop out?” Oyedeji said. “Or is it, at the end of the day, the Super Bowl and the exposure is that great that the allure of the performance clouds your judgment when it comes to serious issues like police brutality?”

The halftime show drew plenty of outside criticism as it was. But mid-week, the NFL amplified it by canceling the annual entertainment news conference. This was certainly not a normal occurrence the week of the Super Bowl. And one line of the NFL’s paragraph-long statement stood out in particular.

“As it is about music, the artists will let their show do the talking as they prepare to take the stage this Sunday,” the statement read.

Atlanta radio station V-103 disc jockey Darian Morgan, more popularly known by his moniker “Big Tigger,” said Maroon 5 was likely “scared” of the Kaepernick questions. Maybe the band was. Maybe not. There is no way to know, considering when lead singer Adam Levine did speak publicly, it was in an “Entertainment Tonight” interview softer than the wool off a freshly shaven sheep.

“It’s hard to be in front of the lights and the microphones and asked a variety of questions you’re not capable of handling,” said Big Tigger, who was a daily presence on BET shows “Rap City” and “Rap City: Tha Basement” in the 1990s and 2000s. “I love Maroon 5 dearly. I’m not even hating on Maroon 5. But they agreed to do this for the sheer artistry of it, which I get. Unfortunately, there are some politics and some scenery that goes along with it, which they really didn’t sign up for — but you did sign up for it!”

So, yeah, it made for an eventful week on the entertainment front.

5. Maroon 5 did what most people expected, which was nothing special

In that “Entertainment Tonight” interview, Levine suggested the halftime show would address the concerns critics had for the band. So what was in store? Nothing, of course. If anything, Levine would have been better off saying nothing. It’s not like Maroon 5’s fan base cares. So why try to fake it with people who were interested to see what you had to offer?

As for the show itself, Maroon 5 relied on cliched pyrotechnics. It went heavy on its own catalog as opposed to being hip-hop driven, which is something Levine also promised. The only hip-hop moments came when Travis Scott rapped his hit “Sicko Mode” after a SpongeBob introduction. Big Boi faked fans out by starting with “Kryptonite” before launching into “The Way You Move,” his hit from the OutKast album Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. Big Boi’s performance was the only thing that could be construed as a positive.

Meanwhile, Levine steadily took layers of clothing off until he was shirtless by the end. Even sillier was when Levine, born in Los Angeles, put on an ATLiens jacket during Big Boi’s song.

If you are a Maroon 5 fan you probably enjoyed it. If you don’t care much about music outside of what you hear on the local top-40 radio station, you probably thought it was a neat spectacle.

If you’re into Travis Scott or Big Boi, you probably felt teased. If you’re the type of person friends label a music snob — such as myself, for better or for worse — you probably hated everything about it. In the end, Maroon 5 kept it corporate. Not many people will remember this performance.

Honestly, however, that is probably what the NFL wanted.

6. Chung impresses teammates with return to sideline

After the Patriots were finished celebrating their Super Bowl victory, players began to slowly file out of the locker room into a crowded hallway at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. One of those players, veteran safety Patrick Chung, continued to wince as he was clearly feeling the pain that came with breaking his arm in the third quarter. Sporting a denim jacket, Chung asked for assistance from a teammate to roll his sleeve up since his right arm broke a few hours before.

When Chung suffered the injury, he needed an air cast immediately to support his arm before going to the locker room for X-rays. After the test came back positive for a broken arm, Chung returned to the sideline to cheer his teammates on.

This was important to Chung, who said he received nothing but support when he went down.

“It means everything. I was on the ground crying,” Chung said. “They said, ‘Stop crying, bro we got you.’ I heard it. I felt it. I had no doubt in my mind we would be good.”

Chung’s return to the sideline echoed what Rodney Harrison did back in New England’s win over Carolina in Super Bowl XXXVIII. Harrison injured his arm, tried to play through it and then completely broke it. He received an air cast and continued to support his teammates from the sideline.

That gesture went a long way for Chung’s teammates.

“It didn’t matter what it was,” defensive lineman Lawrence Guy said. “He was going to be out there supporting, giving his knowledge and his leadership on the sideline.”

Said Gilmore: “He’s a warrior, to see a guy put his body on the line like that. You should see the play; he came in flying. When you see someone like that giving his body on the line, you want to do it for each other.”

7. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it

There was a key sequence in the fourth quarter that helped decide the outcome in New England’s favor. And it wasn’t anything too difficult to decipher.

With less than nine minutes to play, the Patriots sent Edelman over the middle and tight end Rob Gronkowski up the seam. Brady hit Edelman for a 13-yard gain. On the next play, Brady threw the ball to Rex Burkhead for a 7-yard gain, with it coming on what CBS color analyst Tony Romo said was the same play.

Then it happened again. The Patriots ran the same concept, with Edelman running over the middle and Gronkowski down the seam. This time, Brady put the ball up deep, and in a perfect location, for Gronkowski. The veteran tight end snagged the ball for a 26-yard gain, which set up Sony Michel’s 2-yard touchdown run.

“Tom threw it to me, and I had to make a play,” Gronkowski said. “I just come through whenever it needs that time. He knows to trust in me and throw that ball, and I’m going to go grab it. We played together as a team, and we won this game as a team.”

Said Brady: “Incredible catch. He’s an awesome player, great teammate, friend and just so proud of everything that he’s done for our team. He just had an incredible game.”

8. Cooks drops what would have been two touchdowns

The statistics would indicate Brandin Cooks had a great game in a losing effort. He finished with eight catches for 120 yards and seemed to be Goff’s most reliable target throughout the game. But there were two plays Cooks was a part of that proved to be killers.

The first came with less than four minutes to play in the third quarter. Cooks found himself wide open in the deep middle of the field. Goff didn’t recognize this until later in the progression and threw the ball up for grabs. The ball was late with Cooks waiting on it, and that allowed Jason McCourty to make a play on the ball.

“Just one of those plays,” Cooks said. “Kind of popped open, busted coverage, and you’re just back there waiting for the ball. Not something we expected, so Jared saw it late, and I just go to go up earlier to give myself a better opportunity and not be in the back of the end zone and let the guy get close to me.”

Said Goff: “He was running somewhat of a runoff route, clearing off coverage, and they dropped him. They let him run through free, and I was kind of surprised that he was that wide open, and I tried to get it to him as quickly as I could. Unfortunately, it was too late.”

In the fourth quarter, Goff looked for Cooks again, this time down the right sideline. Goff put the ball in a place only Cooks could grab it, with Gilmore in coverage and with safety Duron Harmon trying to close the play. Replay showed that Cooks had a chance to catch the ball before taking a hit from Harmon. But before Harmon hit Cooks, the ball was coming out of his hands. A catch in that situation would have provided a game-tying touchdown.

Unable to aid his team in that situation led to Cooks suffering consecutive Super Bowl losses. Last year, Cooks was with the Patriots when they lost to Philadelphia in the title game.

“It’s disappointing,” Cooks said. “All that hard work that you put in, and you get here, and you don’t capitalize, and then it’s like all over again. You’ve got to put all that hard work in again and hopefully continue to build and be able to get back here.”

9. Gilmore makes Cooks pay after dropped touchdown

With Cooks unable to tie the game late, the Patriots went with a cover zero blitz on the next play. The pressure forced Goff into a tough decision. He was unable to throw the ball away and was not in a good position to take a sack. Seeing Cooks in man coverage against Gilmore, Goff decided to throw a jump ball in that direction. The ball floated for what seemed like an eternity. In the end, Gilmore came down with what was a fairly easy interception.

Gilmore said he was never nervous as the ball came down. He kept his eyes on the ball and looked it in the entire way.

“It was clutch,” Gilmore said. “I mean, I knew he was going to throw it up, and I knew I had to make a play. I knew he was going to force it up there. Our defensive line put a lot of great pressure on him, and he chucked it up, and I was able to make a play.”

The New England Patriots celebrated in style with cigars that owner Robert Kraft brought into the locker room after the game. (Jason Lloyd/The Athletic)

10. Celebrating with cigars

After the game ended, Patriots owner Robert Kraft entered the locker room with a gift for his players: a large rectangular humidor filled with 50-year-old Padron Cigars.

Apparently, these cigars were a gift from Padrón Cigar brand founder Jose Orlando Padrón’s son a year ago. Ideally, these cigars would have been distributed then, except for the fact the Eagles defeated the Patriots in Super Bowl LII.

That put the cigar celebration on hold, with Kraft waiting until Sunday night to pass them out to his players. After telling reporters the backstory of the cigars, Kraft moved through the locker room telling his players what he had for them.

One player who grabbed a cigar then muttered his amazement out loud.

“Fifty years? That’s twice my age,” he said.

(Top photo of Patrick Chung: Matthew Emmons / USA TODAY Sports)