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          Marquis Flowers: Though painful, have to watch Super Bowl to get better

          • Mike Reiss, ESPN Staff WriterMar 22, 2018, 06:30 PM
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              Mike Reiss is an NFL reporter at ESPN and covers the New England Patriots. Reiss has covered the Patriots since 1997 and joined ESPN in 2009. In 2019, he was named Massachusetts Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. You can follow Reiss on Twitter at @MikeReiss.
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          FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- With linebacker Marquis Flowers returning to the New England Patriots on a one-year deal, it is timely to revisit some of his comments from a recent radio interview. Flowers said that as painful as it is, he plans to rewatch Super Bowl LII as part of his goal to improve as a player.

          Specifically, Flowers was in coverage on Philadelphia Eagles running back Corey Clement's 22-yard touchdown pass midway through the third quarter.

          "You're always going to think about that game," Flowers said in a March 9 interview on 96.9 FM. "I know you said 'You hate to bring it up,' but it's always somehow going to get brought up. You just learn from it. There were plays in that game, with it being so close, where you're always going to sit back and say, 'What if I did this on this play?' ... I think if we would have made a couple more plays defensively, it would have been a different game.

          "I really just look at my plays. I don't really talk about anybody else's. I talk about mine. The running back, the touchdown, it kills me because if I could have just found the ball and knocked the ball down, there wouldn't have been any discussion about a touchdown or not. I just have to get better at what I'm doing."

          Flowers, who is listed at 6-foot-3 and 250 pounds but is probably closer to 240-245, played 26.6 percent of the defensive snaps for the Patriots in the regular season. In addition to his work as a special teamer, he found a niche as a dime linebacker, which was the role he was playing on Clement's 22-yard touchdown in the Super Bowl.

          "As bad as it hurts to bring it up or watch it again, that's what you have to do to get better and learn from it," he said in the interview. "We'll watch it, and I'll ask [linebackers coach Brian Flores], 'What could I have done on this?' There were obviously some technique flaws that put me in a bad position in the first place, so at the end of the play, what can I do? He made a great play, Nick [Foles] made a helluva throw -- just right where the ball needed to be, he put it there."

          But was it really a catch?

          "I'm not saying he caught it. I still think he didn't catch the ball," Flowers said. "I got up right away, and I [saw] him move the ball. ... But it is what it is."