obviously not influenced by the dolphins, but the niners also split jto out wide and direct snapped it to gore. it was unsuccessful. they also ran an actual reverse (not an end around, which is far more common) that picked up 18 yards.

It pisses me off that coaches get to the highest ranks of their profession and still fail at clock management. It seems like one of the simpler, more straightforward aspects of coaching. I know I couldn't properly diagram a play, breakdown a defensive scheme or give a motiviational halftime speech, but I can tell you when to use your timeouts.

As a Packers fan, I didn't like them punting, but I wouldn't qualify this as "obviously stupid."

On 4th and 2 from the Cowboys 40 it is. You should probably be going for it there under most normal situations to begin with. Down 2 scores this should be automatic.

To elaborate, you should go for it on 4th and 2 almost all of the time. You should go for it on 4th down from the opponent's 40 almost all of the time. The only time I'd think about punting in that situation is with <1 minute to go winning by 1-3 points.

obvious bump for the shotgun with 5WR from the 1/2 yd line

1/4 yard line.

this was really bad. i thought they should have just kicked the fg on first down. you need 2 scores anyhow. what good does a td do you if you wind up scoring it with 3 seconds left and you still need the fg?

I don't know what the hell any of that means, but Pitt had Byron Left****ingwich in with no timeouts down 2 scores and 4th and long in FG range. The throw was 3 yards short of the receiver and not even near the sideline. IIRC the offense was starting to walk off the field anticipating a FG attempt and Tomlin shooed them back on.

So? They're gonna have Byron ****ing Leftwich from the 40 and need to go 60 yards for a TD in 30 seconds if you kick a FG. You're almost never going to score 10 under that scenario. It's easier to score on 1 lucky play from the 20 and then advance into position to kick a long FG.

For serious, yo. It's like Mangenius was overcompensating from last week's criticism that he didn't use Favre enough. Thomas Jones is a strong young man - he can punch it in from 9 inches out.

Not necessarily relevant to this particular post, but IMO this is one of those things that the stat guys need to get on the same page as the traditionalists about. The first question is why go for 2 instead of 1 when down by 16 (if it were one score later, the "conventional wisdom" always dictates going for 1)?

But obv. the Jets had the same play called from the 1, the 1/2, the 1/4 etc. It's clearly a longshot to come back, but Favre seemed to care more about the game than Mangini at that point.

KSU was down by 17 to Louisville with something like 5-6 mins left and their coach, Ron Prince, went for 2 there.

It's esentially the same as the going for 2 on the first TD when down 14 except with an extra FG added on. I suppose it's complicated slightly by the possibility of L'Ville adding another FG.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure everyone who saw it thought he was a moron and I tried explaining it to a number of people who somehow managed to COMPLETELY ignore the math.

I would have had to have watched the game cause this makes no sense to me.

from FO:

Aaron Schatz: Let me point out something else about the Dolphins running the Wildcat against the Patriots today. When people ask about why a college offense like the spread option would not work in the NFL, the typical answer is that NFL linebackers are simply too fast; most of the time, you would never be able to turn the corner on them. Even if you make them hesitate for a moment with the fake, they'll catch up to you. But the Patriots may have the slowest linebackers in the league. They value intelligence and experience much more than speed and youth. So this makes sense as an answer: to run an offensive scheme where the Pats can't use experience to make up for their lack of speed, because nobody would be expecting it in the NFL.

They were down 17 and scored a TD to make it down 11 pending the point(s) after try. They went for 2.

This is similar to the case when you go from down 14 to down 8 pending. The math is basically the same, although going for it isn't quite as good since they would be worse off in the parlay where the other team gets a field goal (putting them down 14 in the case of a missed 2 point conversion instead of 13 with a PAT) but they score 2 TDs. Since this isn't likely at all, it doesn't really matter.

Not sure if I made this more or less confusing. The point is that it was a situation that is basically the same as a team being down 14, scoring a TD and then going for 2, which is pretty much always correct, and the coach made the right decision.

I'll post this here since it probably doesn't warrant its own thread and probably anybody interested is reading this thread.

I'm curious what people think of this. In the Boise State - Oregon game, BSU threw the ball all over the place very effectively. They were up 24 points going into the 4th quarter. Oregon put in their 5th string quarterback and were in the middle of a great comeback, when this happened.

With 3:35 to go and an 11 point lead, Boise State had the ball at the Oregon 21 yard line and were facing a 4th and 6. Oregon had used all 3 timeouts. Boise State's kicker seems to be very good and as I said their offense had been very effective throwing the ball - their QB at this point was 24/36 for 386 yards, 3 TDs and 1 INT (god damn that makes me sick to my stomach typing that).

When they ran the kicker out there, I told my friend next to me that they should go for it. My vague reasoning at the time was that they didn't need points but to take time off the clock so the chance to effectively end the game with a first down is worth the risk. Having given it more thought, I think I'm right but it doesn't matter much. The reason it doesn't matter though is that Oregon had so little chance. Probably having the QB just drop to a knee and giving Oregon the ball isn't much worse than going for it or kicking. However, I think going for it may be worth a significant amount in % terms (Oregon win % if BSU kicks divided by their win % if BSU goes for it could be reasonably large).

So going for 2 is more +EV b/c it puts you in a situation to win with a TD and FG? Or am I still missing the point?

Eh this is tough. While if you run the clock down to ~3:00 you have significantly reduced Oregon's chances to score two TD's, I think their offense is dynamic enough to where they could reasonably pull this off. If you did end up losing the game, I think a coach would get absolutely crucified for this, more than for any other decision I've seen in this thread. If there was, say 2:35 left I'd go for it.

Or tie with a TD+2 and FG, but yeah, that's basically it.

As Jared says, if you understand and agree with the concept of always going for 2 when scoring a TD when down 14 late, then you got this one.

No, the point is, if you're goiing to go for the win in reg when scoring a TD when previously down 14, go for 2 now instead of later. Your planning to do it anyways, but if you do it this way you now have a bailout if you fail. Now you're down 8 and can still tie to force OT.

Also, if you take for granted that you WILL score 2 TDs, and that you are 50/50 to win in OT, then it is +EV to go for 2 every time in the down 14 situation. Your breakeven point is like 38% success rate for 2pt conv.

38% of the time, you hit the first 2pt Conv and win the game in Reg.

62% * 62% = 38% of the time, you miss both 2pt conv and lose in Reg.

The other 24% of the time, you go to OT and win/lose 50/50.

Romeo Crennell drew oxygen today.

That's basically it. On top of that, if you miss the 2 pointer you still have the chance to tie with a 2 pointer later. That's the logic behind going for it when you go down 8 pending the 2 pt conversion/PAT - if you get it and score a TD a PAT wins it, if you miss you can still get the 2 pt conversion on a future TD so you only lose having scored that second TD if you miss both 2 point conversions.

In this case it's slightly different because there is the extra 3 points. I think it actually makes going for it better because even if you miss two 2-point conversions in a row you can still win by getting a third TD as opposed to a field goal. That's offset by them getting a field goal putting you down 14 instead of 13, but with just 5 minutes left the chance of them getting a field goal and you getting two touchdowns is low enough to be pretty irrelevant.

what about Oregon scoring a TD with ~11 min left down 34-10, and kicking the PAT to make it 34-17. WTF, why not go for 2?

Houston Texans drafting Mario Williams ahead of Reggie Bush

You say that as if Bush would have any success playing for the Texans. I think Mario has outperformed his peers thus far in their careers.