Posted on 02/05/2012 7:22:13 PM PST by SeekAndFind
INDIANAPOLIS -- On one last Hail Mary try, Tom Brady heaved it up for his two star tight ends in the end zone. Neither Rob Gronkowski or Aaron Hernandez, who both got a hand in the play, could come down with it.
The New York Giants beat the New England Patriots 21-17 in Super Bowl XLVI, the second time the Giants beat the Patriots in the last four years in the NFL's title game.
Giants RB Ahmad Bradshaw scored the go-ahead touchdown with 0:57 left in the game.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
I was saying though, you gotta take the points if they are going to give them to you. The field goal is almost automatic but no guarantee like a giant hole and no one trying to tackle you. I would rather put my confidence in the defense than the field goal kicker. Anyway, it worked out for the Giants and they are champs.
I don't blame Bradshaw, despite how embarrassing it looked on national TV.
Maybe you should pay closer attention then. No one even questioned the call. Including the Pats.
And if you want to cry about calls, how about that non-call on pass interference?
“Ahmad Bradshaw, hard-running halfback for the Giants, was aware of the situation, and tried valiantly to stop at the one yard-line, but he was unable to do so.”
The fact is that Bradshaw had complete control of his body at all times. He very deliberately stopped inches in front of the goal line, pirouetted 180 degrees, then, after much deliberation, he sat down in the end zone for six points.
On his way to the goal line, Bradshaw had a flashback of what happened to Baltimore and their attempt at an “automatic” 3 points in the AFC championship game. This made him realize that scoring a touchdown would leave New England with the necessity to score an answering touchdown within 57 seconds to win the game, whereas if he did it Coughlin’s way Brady could have had about thirty seconds to get his team into position win it with a field goal.
In any case, Ahmad was right and Coughlin was wrong, and Coughlin knew it. One only had to look at the smile on Coach’s face after Brady’s last Hail Mary hit the ground to tell you that. If Bradshaw had done what Coughlin had told him, and New England moved the ball into field goal range and won it with a second left on the clock, and Coughlin would now be trying to sneak out of the country disguised as Madonna.
There's less than 2 min in the game, you're losing, and you have a chance to score. What's there to think about? You put the ball in the endzone, every single time. Too much can go wrong.
And as for the "genius" of Belichick's move...... Probably between the three of us, we've played in what? A zillion football games? HS, College, playground, whatever? When drawing the play up in the dirt, have you ever, EVER, heard the strategy, "OK, First we let the other team score....."
There was at least one other play to run and a 25 yard field goal is not automatic. Plenty can go wrong. Belichick really outsmarted himself, and it says a lot about the Patriots' athleticism that they overcame his "coaching" and actually made it close on the last play.
All he had to do was throw it to the sideline ten yards away and it simply would have been an incomplete pass.
But errors and poor offensive execution killed the Pats yesterday. A fumble recovery negated for having 12 men on the field. Three dropped passes in a key drive. An offside penalty that extended a Giant drive, eventually resulting in points. Zero points scored by the Pats' offense in the last 26 minutes of the Super Bowl. Those things do catch up to you eventually.
The other thing that caught up to the Patriots was the brilliant passing of Eli Manning, who has now removed any doubt about whether he is an elite quarterback - he is. And his corps of receivers and tight ends are among the best (if not the best) in the business. That catch that Mario Manningham made along the sidelines was just ridiculous. Impossible. Similarly, Victor Cruz went up into tight double coverage and snagged a ball out of the air that Manning had placed where only he could catch it, for a first down.
So while it hurts like hell to be a Patriots fan this morning (and trust me, it really, really does), the Giants deserved to win. They beat six of the best teams in the NFL to get there and that's no small accomplishment.
With all due respect, let’s look at the probabilities here. If Bradshaw stays down at the one yard-line, it will take a few seconds for the play to be blown dead, or until one of the Patriots finally realizes what he’s doing and covers him up. Let’s say 5 seconds for that to occur, after which Belichick calls his last time out, with 52 ticks left.
Now Eli runs a keeper out of the Victory Formation, lining the ball up in the center of the field at the two or three yard line. This play takes about 4 seconds, leaving 48 to go. It is now fourth down. The Giants allow the entire 40-second time clock to run down and attempt to kick what is essentially an extra point, which (with a very high probability—more about that later) clears the uprights with 5 seconds to go.
At that point, the only play left in the Belichick playbook on the kickoff return is the California tuba-player special, multiple laterals until somebody is tackled, fumbles or scores a touchdown.
Okay, back to probabilities. The probability of kicking a 19 yard-field goal from the center of the field (the exact spot from which extra points are attempted) is north of 99% in the NFL. You want to subtract a little due to the pressure of the situation—fine. But it’s the same kick that has to be made when your team trails by 7 late in the game, and then scores a touchdown. The extra point is still made nearly all of the time, pressure or not. As far as the the chances of New England receiving a kickoff and being able to kick a field goal with under ten seconds left when the ball is kicked, and no time outs: again, virtually nil,
like the chances of missing an extra point.
The opposite side of the equation is: What are the chances of Tom Brady being able to engineer a touchdown drive that starts with receiving a kickoff with 57 seconds left, and still owning a timeout? As you saw last night, even with a few drops, the percentages are way more than nil. I’d much rather take my chances on a professional kicker being able to make a (virtual) extra point than giving Brady the ball with just under a minute to go and a timeout in hand. Every time. Coughlin knew it. Bradshaw was told it (hence his hesitation.) He just couldn’t help himself. Had that last Hail Mary been snagged by Gronkowski, Bradshaw would be living with a Bill Buckneresque stigma for the rest of his life.
It's only the correct strategy when the alternative is to allow the other team to attempt a 19-yard go-ahead field goal (basically, an extra point) that will leave you with no time outs and about 5 seconds left on the clock. Is the likelihood of a missed field goal (from 19 yards) greater than the likelihood of Brady engineering a touchdown drive with a minute to play and a timeout in hand?
I'm with Gilbride on this one.
What is the probability of Tynes missing the field goal?
What is the probability of Brady being able to score a touchdown with a timeout in hand and just under a minute to play?
My numbers are under 2% for a missed kick and over 10% for a Brady-led touchdown.
If you think that the probability of a missed kick is greater than the probability of a subsequent New England touchdown, then Bradshaw scoring is the right call. You’d have to really tweak the numbers to get there though.
My take? It's 2nd and goal on the 8, when they let Bradshaw walk in. There's still a whole lot that can go wrong in 2 plays, from botched snaps to fumbles to blocked kicks, to penalties, to botched clock handling, to just "the kicker shanking it wide right", and on and on and on.
Is a 25-yard FG a "gimme"? Probably. But, I'll take "Probably" over "A Certain TD, then drive the length of the field in less than a minute", every single time.
Annnnnnd......IMHO, the Pats possibly would have gotten within FG range in 20-25 sec. The 20-yard out plays that they were running on the last drive were working pretty well. Might have been a 60+ yd FG, but that's no less uncertain than a Hail Mary.
What the heck, it doesn't really matter, I'm a Panthers fan anyway. LOL! Got a little more payback for what? 8 years ago? With Vinateri and his magic right foot....
Annnnnnd......IMHO, the Pats possibly would have gotten within FG range in 20-25 sec.
There would not have been 20-25 seconds left. More like 5. (See my earlier post.)
So, what it boils down to is this:
You trust your field goal kicker to kick a glorified extra point with under 10 seconds to go in the Super Bowl. or
You trust your defense to stop Tom Brady from engineering a touchdown drive with just under a minute to go and a timeout in hand.
And you would take the first option every time?
You trust your defense to stop Tom Brady from engineering a touchdown drive with just under a minute to go and a timeout in hand.
And you would take the first option every time?
I 'm sorry--I should have said I would take the first option every time.
If Bradshaw could have gotten a first down without scoring, then it would have made sense to stop short of the goal line, since the Giants could basically run down the clock from there.
I believe it would have been third down, and New England would have taken a timeout, so that guaranteed that no matter what, they still would have gotten the ball back with at least 30 seconds left, so at the point, he might as well have scored.
Good Analysis on the 5 seconds or so left. I figured about 20, at the time. Might have been off.
I think that the decision is Belicheck saying "I trust Tom Brady to make a big play more than my defense". I guess what I'm debating is *his decision*, not Bradshaw's decision to score. IMHO, if I'm Bradshaw, and it's the 4th quarter, and my team is losing, and I have a chance to score..... then I put the ball in the end zone, every single time. Nothing to debate. Otherwise, the Giants are one botched snap away from "What the hell was Bradshaw thinking, not scoring the TD when he had the chance?"
Man, this is going to be rehashed a million times between now and August. LOL!!
Look, there are no guarantees, only probabilities. There is a chance of a bad snap, a muffed hold, a blocked attempt, or even an outright shank by the kicker. But all these possibilities combined still give the kicker a 98-99% chance of success for a kick from what is essentially the extra-point distance.
So, if you're Bill Belichick, and you don't allow the Giants to walk into the end zone unchallenged, you are left with 1 or 2 chances out of a hundred of winning the game.
If you allow your quarterback to get the ball with just under a minute to play and one timeout, you are still in a fairly desperate situation, needing a touchdown to win, but I think it's a lot better than one or two per cent. I don't know what the percentages are for Hall of Fame caliber quarterbacks engineering a touchdown drive under those circumstances, but they would seem to be a lot better than one or two percent. You talk about a botched snap. What about defensive pass interference, which is far more likely? A team could easily pick up 30 or 40 yards like that, with time stopped on the field. Geez, Brady managed to get a Hail Mary all the way into the end zone, with some tall receivers there to outjump the defenders or catch a rebound.
I've been a Giants fan since I was 8 years old (which takes us back to 1956) and I was mortified when Bradshaw scored, instead of milking the clock and trying the field goal with virtually no time left. Nothing that happened in the last 57 seconds did anything to persuade me otherwise.
Sure there are. Bradshaw was guaranteed a touchdown. The Giants were guaranteed a 4-or-more point lead, with less than a minute to go. That's where I would want to be - firmly in the driver's seat - rather than 2 points down and waiting for a chip shot FG with time expiring.
Now, if the score would have been closer and the Pats can tie or win with a FG....then that's a little different. Running the clock out to nothing makes some sense.
OR, if Gronkowski is at something closer to 100%, he's a difference-maker on the Pats offense. Again, I might sit on the ball.
But we've been hashing this out all day. Bradshaw had a second or two to make his decision. The coaches had maybe a handful of seconds more? Tough call to make.
I missed all of the postgame wrapup. Are the talking heads on ESPN, etc etc having as good a debate as this? :-)
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