round 2 > round 1 IMO

I'm convinced taking the wind was slightly the correct decision. Both teams were **** offensively against the wind that day.

pretty surprised one thing hasnt been picked yet

Gonna go way off the board here, but this is perhaps my favorite botching of the clock of all time-- OF ALL TIME.

The Coach



Just look at that turd. Shaved head, mustache, fat, he looks like every dumb gym teacher you've ever had. How is he toiling away at a ****ty ACC school and not being groomed as the heir apparent to FAT MIKE? He deserves a bigger stage.

The Situation

So, you didn't watch this game. It's all right, I didn't watch the first 58 minutes of this game either, but all the other noon games had ended and I saw that BC and Wake Forest were locked in a thrilling 3-0 battle, so I flipped over for the final few minutes, and boy was I rewarded.

After trading turnovers deep in Wake Forest territory, BC started off the final drive of the game with 1st and 10 from the Wake 11 with 56 seconds to go, down 3-0 as I said earlier. After establishing twice, BC found themselves with first and goal at the 1.

Now in college, the clock stops after a first down, so this should be a fairly simple situation for a well coached team. Ideally they would simply line up and run a play quickly, preferably a quick throw into the end zone. Seems like a good time for a FADE to me.

Now a team that has mediocre coaching might not be prepared for a situation like. OK, not great, but they could have lined up and immediately spiked it. They waste a down, but then they could huddle up and THINK ABOUT IT and still probably get three plays off. Not ideal, but an acceptable outcome.

But alas, that was not the plan either. Instead, sheer confusion was the order of the day. It's a shame I can't find the full clip as the confusion prior to snapping the ball was the best part. According to ESPN, they had first and goal with 29 seconds to go. You'll notice in the clip that they snapped it with 18 seconds to go. So yeah, they let a full 11 seconds plus however long the clock was stopped for run off. NOT GREAT BOB STEVE.

However, they still could have easily salvaged this situation. 18 seconds is cutting it slightly close, but they could have gotten four plays off if they went quick. They did not go quick.

Instead, in the finest tradition of terrible coaches, Fat Steve decided to ESTABLISH. Sadly for him but hilariously for us, the BC running back was stoned in the backfield and dropped for a loss, and the remaining time ticked away as the Wake Forest defense slowly took their time getting off the pile. As the hilarious cherry on top, just after the clock stuck 0:00 BC finally was able to snap the ball and attempt a futile spike. I don't think I will ever see a team butcher a clock this badly ever again, nor do I even think it's possible.



And finally, let's hear it from all three people who caught the end of the game in the gameday thread, with a special appearance from brother of Dudd Joe Pulaski.

I'm planning to wait for Riverman to post his two selections before going (unless he and/or the commissioner prefer I pick now).

I'll have them up in a few hours

Bottom of the 8th, 5-2, you are 5 outs away from your first World Series birth in 17 years. Your stud pitcher has 120 pitches and has struggled anytime he's gone over 100. Seems like an easy decision to go the bullpen but not for good ol' Grady Little.

The Yankees won on an Aaron Boone walkoff HR in the 11th to advance to the World Series

That's a great pick. That was so painful

Before being known as the second most rapey football program in America, Baylor was put on the map by a generational talent. A man who ran a 4.41 at the combine. A man who put up absolutely absurd stats. A man who was so highly regarded as a prospect that the Washington Redskins gave up like 3 drafts to pick him.

It's hard to remember now, but RGIII was fantastic as a rookie. Led THE FREAKING REDSKINS to a division title and a playoff berth. Then...



In the playoff game, he died on the field. Shanahan ran him back out anyway. The result was this:



ACL, LCL dead. Career over.

Fun reading here:

https://www.sbnation.com/2015/9/1/92...ury-concussion

Baseball is pretty boring. But I can't pass on this one:



This article does better than I ever could.

What a dumbass.

That's the true #1

That would have been my first pick too. Yanks were losing like 4-0 right out of the gate. You could even see the look on Pedro's face saying "GMTFO here." but didn't actually say it because he was the ace.

Pedro and Wakefield lost that game but it's not their fault.

Britton is a great pick. Basically flipped a coin between Pedro pick and that one

There's a fairly obscure one out there that is probably a legit top-3 all timer; I'll be looking forward to the writeup.

Round 2 Selection

There are some sports teams that are always good, some that are always bad, and a sea of endless mediocrity that briefly, if ever, flirts with championship-level success. Dynasties emerge, almost always, from the timely addition of perfect pieces: Jordan and Phil, Tom and Bill, Tim and Gregg.

There has been, however, one dynasty in which the subtraction of an integral piece led to untold fortune.

A bit of HISTORICAL CONTEXT for Britton in 2016


1. ERA+ is a metric that calculates a pitchers results factoring in their ERA, the league average ERA, and the park that they pitch in. It is an effort to handle all sorts of variables that might be out of a pitchers hand.

The average pitcher has an ERA+ of 100. Above that is above average, below is below.

Some historically great seasons include Pedro Martinez having an ERA+ of 291 in the year 2000, Greg Maddux having one of 271 in 1994, and Clayton Kershaw having one of 197 in 2015. Historically elite seasons are under 300.

Britton's was 795.



2. WHIP is the number of walks + hits a pitcher gives up per inning pitched. Britton's was 0.836. That would be good for the 11th best season OF ALL TIME. The only two pitchers that did better since 1913 were Pedro and Maddux.


This guy was untouchable. The best season since Pedro Martinez' absolute best season.

His manager left him in the bullpen because it wasn't a save situation. In a one game playoff. In extra innings.


Imagine this:
"Hoody B, why did you not play Tom Brady in the AFC title game you just barely lost?"

"Because stats show Tom is great at come from behind wins. We were waiting to be down a score with 4 minutes to go since that's what he does well. But we never were since it was tied. So we never used him."


It's bat**** insane yet that's the logic LOLBUCK used.

He never should leave the coaching thread title. He is an abomination of idiocy.

You made the right call. Boston had a WS on the line in Game 7. The LOLO's were never gonna win the WS.

Mark Jackson certainly wasn't on my radar, that's a creative pick. Like the RG3 one too. Uncle BUCK was one of the first few that came to mind.

Hoping to see some face-melting old timer **** ups that I've never heard of too.

Round 3 Selection

The flip side of Buck's failure to use Britton, I'll take Joe Maddon's usage of Aroldis Chapman in Game 6 of the 2016 World Series.

To make matters worse, Chapman appeared to injure his leg covering 1st base to make the last out in the 7th as well.

Absolutely inexcusable mismanagement which unsurprisingly led to Chapman blowing G7 save, and nearly costing Chicago its first WS since Teddy Roosevelt was President.

Uhhh, it was a massive error. They were close to 100% to win by running the clock out, New England didn't have enough timeouts to control things. Passing not only massively increased the chances of a turnover but an incomplete pass let New England stop the clock without using a timeout which was a huge deal equity-wise. There's an analogy to this but it's an UNDRAFTED.

Crazy to me, Pedro is at least defensible to me and imo gets way blown out of proportion due to RESULTS. People say stuff like he was "clearly done" but he got up 0-2 on Jeter, Matsui, and Posada (3 of the 4 who got hits). He still had his velocity. I mean look it could have been a bad decision but there's clearly a world where Pedro gets pulled and the bullpen blows it and all the talk is "how could you pull the best pitcher in the world in a game 7?". Britton otoh is absolutely 100% indefensible. It's unbelievable Showalter remains employed.

You may need to watch the game again. SEA was trailing, they couldn't just run the clock out. They had to score.

Thread delivers.

MOAR PLZ

lol didn't know it exactly, but I remember Britton's ERA+ was cartoonishly high

Buck still rolling out his summer stirrups is certainly #magic

I obviously understand that, my point is that they could control the clock. If they were going to score they could score and leave New England in dire straights timeout/clockwise. Passing on 2nd down GUARANTEED that New England had as many timeouts as plays left, so they would get the ball with as much clock left as possible no matter what. That's not a small deal. That+increasing chances of turning it over hugely are way the decision was so bad.

Well if you understood that, saying they were "100% to win by running the clock out" is an absolutely atrocious way to put it.

Secondly, time wasn't really that much of a factor. NE got the ball back with 20s left. Even if they went incomplete, incomplete, score. NE has got less than 20s and a couple of TOs. You're correct that they could have left NE in even worse shape, but the EV lost with respect to that particular issue is tiny.

I'm not saying it wasn't a bad call. I said as much in my post. I'm saying the EV lost by that decision was not nearly as much as dozens of other horrible football decisions in the last decade alone.