That was Bears ball though, right? Very very different.

didn't the Bears fumble on that play too?

Yeah, challenging a play where you fumbled and turned the ball over at the goalline is very different that simply challenging the spot of the ball on a touchdown

Ah, yes. You're right.

I dunno how obvious or stupid this was, and it certainly didn't affect the outcome, but I didn't like this combo from the Utah-TCU game.

Down 23-0, but Utah has staunched the bleeding, only allowing a FG in the 2nd quarter. 4th & 2 from their own 42, 1:07 left, not sure about timeouts. They punt but then bring the shell-shocked true soph QB Wynn back out to start the 3rd (they had won and deferred the coin toss). INT, quick score but Wynn finished the game.

Backup Cain isn't John Elway (tho he's played well this year) but Wynn was atrocious and it couldn't hurt a young fella to sit down and watch every now and then. I think if you punt, you have to bring Cain out to try and light a spark after halftime. Elsewise, go for it on 4th, ffs. IMO, this fell into the "losing by 40 is MUCH better than losing by 47" category. But again it didn't really matter. 47-7 was not indicative of the blowout.

Whittingham's a great coach but he was pretty shell-shocked himself yesterday. What a disaster, fml. I feared we'd gotten fat on cupcakes, but jfc that was a true embarrasment.

Saints did it last week and held the Steelers to the FG.

foreshadowing!!!

how often does that happen though? 5%?

Way more than 5%, it's only a 78% chance of scoring a touchdown according to the NFL Advanced Stats calculator from 1st and goal from the 1. That drops to 69 and 52% on 2nd and 3rd down. That seems a little low to me, but I guess our perceptions of how easy goal line touchdowns are is skewed. I would guess there's some significant variance on how close the ball is though, a ball on the one can be anywhere from inches away to almost a yard and a half back, challenging goalline plays probably leads to more goal to go from inside the one than just outside the one

Isn't this partly because most coaches only take three shots at the TD? I think the numbers you're looking at are based off examples from the past X years (as opposed to what a random team would do if they were coached optimally).

The Saints/Patriots/Chiefs are presumably going to score more points than the Bears/Eagles/Vikings on 1st and goal from the 1 because their coaches are almost always going to use four downs instead of three. Obviously, conservative coaching is a big factor in those figures, so I assume a team with more optimal coaching would score a TD more than 78% of the time, which is probably why the figure looks low to us.

Tom Coughlin not going for it down 2 scores at the end of the 3rd quarter on 4th and 1 from midfield.

Then they get 29 net yards with the worst punter in the NFL.

Idiot.

Andy Reid on such an epic scale

But kick the FG from shallow.

Mike Smith: 3 Kneeldowns and punt to DeSean Jackson

Honorable Mention to Jim Caldwell for challenging a 2 yard completion, turning 3rd and 5 into 3rd and 7.

This x10000

Not only do you kneel down 3x and punt to DJax, you leave enough time on the clock to let the Eagles get a hail mary off from inside 50 yards?

Why did Ron Rivera decline a 10 yard penalty and give Aaron Rodgers 3rd and 7 instead of 2nd and 17? And the Pack was at their own 20. Rodgers predictably converted 3rd and 7.

3 kneeldowns and then a punt to Desean Jackson can never, ever be topped. At least Matt Dodge had the common courtesy to shank one right down the middle, I don't even know if the Falcons punter was trying to directional kick it at all, that looked pretty solidly hit down the middle.

vikings not calling timeout on defense today at the end of the game up 20-17, A) on tampa's 3rd and 4 from the MIN 10, letting the clock run from 1:47 to 1:17, and B) not calling TO before the next play (first and goal from the 4), letting the clock run from 1:12 to 0:34.

both teams had all 3 timeouts.

this is one of the stupidest coaching moments i have ever seen and i have not heard a single person besides myself comment on it (except in response to my comments). the announcers never even mentioned it.

chris collinsworth said if they punt im going to fall off my chair. he said it was a lol decision pretty much

ya after A it was like, **** we dont know what were doing. Then after B it just got sad.

Jim Harbaugh.

Jim Harbaugh: 11 minutes left in the 4th, Akers kicks a 55 yard FG to take a 24-14 lead. Harbaugh declines a 15 yard penalty that would have given them 1st down at the Dallas 22 because he didn't want to take points off the board.

Niners end up losing 27-24 in OT.

lol google search discovers that someone else did mention it:

lolololol

i mean, god forbid you call timeout and then get the ball back tied

I refuse to believe this actually happened.