But Vice President Biden called it almost 3 weeks ago.
P
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 have NEVER seen that kind of incomplete pass called intentionaL GROUNDING.
nEVER.
I was not going to watch it but discovered 3 players from my Alma Mater (Troy University) were starting for the Giants. Osi who always says “University of Troy”, the kicker, Tynes and kickoff returner, Jerrel Jernigan. Jernigan looked so good, I wish they would let him return punts too.
Newt called it for the Giants yesterday. Now hopefully he can call it for his campaign.
Headline-’Newt Wins in the Fourth Quarter!’
Like the Calvin Johnson "possession" controversy from last year, I think the NFL has too many pointy-heads making up the rules.
The very next week after the Calvin Johnson thing, I watched a highlight reel of a receiver making an almost-identical catch in the end zone. But, he lost control of the ball after he crossed the plane of the sideline, and it was ruled a touchdown.
Throwing throwing the ball out of bounds without a receiver in the area is illegal, and is called when it happens (though NFL quarterbacks are usually smart enough to throw it close enough to a receiver that it's not going to be called very often).
There is no way an official could know, unless he was psychic. Or maybe he was thinking “gotta be on the lookout for a safety” and then screwed up because of the Superbowl jitters. Or....Las Vegas?
As John Madden once famously said, “You have to remember, there are three teams on the field."
I have never seen that called either but after it was explained, it was a correct call. I also noticed the players picked up on it immediately and began making “safety” symbols with their hands.
Outside the tackle box, throws can be to nowhere. But inside the tackle box AND under heavy pressure, the call was easy.
Lots and lots of judgments involved - but Brady made this easy. It was grounding ... and it was a bad one.
Oh, and I made a bet when the Giants were 7-7 that they'd win the Superbowl with said brother in law. I could see a change in their attitude. WooHoo! Now he has to give me his intended Obama contribution!
Sure, without a receiver in the area, but when they make that throw “with a receiver in the area”, it’s 10 feet over everybody’s heads. Ain’t nobody catching that, not even Wilt Chamberlain. The intent is obvious.
It doesn't matter why there was no receiver in sight. There wasn't one - and Brady was inside the tackle box - and he was under pressure.
Who's to say it would have altered outcome anyway? Psychic refs? he he he
It's the correct call unlike the interference call they didn't make later in the game. Chris Collinsworth tried to chock it up to seeing the play in "real time" vs. reply. Anyone who can't make that call in real time shouldn't be reffing in the NFL.
Intentional Grounding of Forward Pass
Intentional grounding of a forward pass is a foul: loss of down and 10 yards from previous spot if passer is in the field of play or loss of down at the spot of the foul if it occurs more than 10 yards behind the line or safety if passer is in his own end zone when ball is released.
Intentional grounding will be called when a passer, facing an imminent loss of yardage due to pressure from the defense, throws a forward pass without a realistic chance of completion.
Intentional grounding will not be called when a passer, while out of the pocket and facing an imminent loss of yardage, throws a pass that lands at or beyond the line of scrimmage, even if no offensive player(s) have a realistic chance to catch the ball (including if the ball lands out of bounds over the sideline or end line).
Really?
:=P
:) Don’t get me started!
The end of the game was a trial by fire for this long-time Giants fan. Down by two points, with 57 seconds left and 2nd and goal from the six, the right call was to run two plays, make New England use their last time out, and attempt a game-winning field goal that, from that range, is just a glorified extra-point, which has a 99% probability of success.
Bill Belichick, wise coach that he is, was aware of the statistics, and told his defense to lie down and let the Giants score. Tom Coughlin, a bit older than Belichick, but also quite wise, told his team to keep the ball from crossing the goal line, to set up the potentially easy game-winning field goal.
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 Giants scored the go-ahead touchdown, but gave the Patriots a real shot to come back with just under a minute to play, and one time out remaining. The fact that a few passes were dropped in the final minute, and a last-ditch hail Mary hit the ground after a few Patriots had a shot at it only proves what Coughlin had told his team beforehand. Don’t score! Had New England managed to come back, it would have been a totally avoidable scenario that had been undone by a player’s failure to heed his coach’s admonition.
YES THE NEW JERSEY GIANTS WON....!!!!
Not a total sucess as Brady still breathing (I’m a JETS FAN)
But Vice President Biden called it almost 3 weeks ago.
P
I’m sure he is happy someone is listening to him.
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? :-)
Gronkowski was in the best position to catch the tip on the last play of the game....if he was 100%, he might have been able to dive and make the catch.
Who won?
“There was at least one other play to run and a 25 yard field goal is not automatic. Plenty can go wrong. “
My sentiments exactly. Must be the conservatism in me. .
The “fieldgoal alternative” assumes getting the clock down to at most, 17 seconds, while hustling the field goal team onto the field and the right players off with no confusion, with the referee saying when the play clock starts.
Among other things, there is an elevated chance of an miscue on the snap from center. Even though the game was well played by both teams (no turnovers that I can remember), there were penalties against both teams for having 12 players on the field earlier in the game.
When you have championship quality players (or high quality people in any business for that matter) it’s a good idea not to overcoach. In the end, with the Pats needing a touchdown, the best thing that Beliceck’s micromanaging could produce was a predictable 50 yard Hail Mary.
“Man, I hate to see games decided by bad officiating.”
And with that, I’m sure we can all agree....
He is last on the depth chart when I'm looking for a Giants player to seal a game.
An article in Slate analyzes the probabilities of each strategy. The probability of the Giants' winning by killing the clock and attempting the field goal is calculated at 98%. The probability of the Giants' winning by scoring the uncontested touchdown and giving the Patriots a minute and a timeout to answer with a touchdown was computed at 88%. In other words, milking the clock gave the Pats a 2% chance of winning, while letting the Giants score gave them a 12% chance. That's a six times greater probability of New England winning the game. Here's the link.
All that is stupid in light of the fact that Brady had an entire game to score more than 17 points and couldn’t do it, so the liklihood of his team scoring 7 more in 58 seconds was not good. Folks should ignore crap like you’re trying to float because it does not take into the calculus the history of the game up to the 58 seconds. Defenses win super bowls. The Ginats’ defense won the game by shutting Brady and company down for only 17 points. How many points per game did the Pats avergae the whole year? ... But not against Piere-Paul & co. defenses!
Brady did set a Super Bowl record by completing 16 passes in a row. In this game. Yes, the Giants’ defense held him down. But we are not comparing things in a vacuum. We are comparing the Giants defense ability to stop the Pats with a minute to go and one timeout to the ability of Lawrence Tynes to kick an extra point. Is the probability of making that field goal under 98%? Is the probability of stopping the Patriots from answering with a touchdown greater than 98%? How is “what I am floating—crap?” Unless you can quantify how your preferred strategy is superior to Belichick’s, you are merely using anecdotal evidence to support what is a question of probability.
Without any sort of context, taking a knee and getting tackled at the two makes sense.
If your kicker is David Akers, perhaps it would be foolish to try to score a touchdown.
But to pass up a guaranteed six points-when you're behind with less than a minute to go-in favor of a field goal attempt by a spotty kicker who almost missed two field goals under forty yards earlier in the game is absolute madness, Brady or no Brady.
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