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.