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?