Monday, November 16, 2009

So, Here's My Train of Thought from Tonight's Game...

OK, 4th and 2 from their own 28, six-point lead, a little more than 2 minutes to play. They've just blown two time outs for some reason I can't entirely comprehend. Brady's trotting off the field now, and...wait...he's signaling something... Wow, they're lining up on offense. No punt team.

Alright, so Brady's going to try to draw the Indy defense off-sides. This never works. It's kind of stupid, actually, as the Pats are just going to end up giving up five yards of...hang on. Brady actually looks ready to take the snap. OK, quick kick, then. Kind of a weird call, again, thinking about field position, but...

GOOD LORD!!! WHAT THE...??? THEY'RE ACTUALLY GOING FOR THIS...wha...who...Faulk...oh, he caught that. But the official standing right there is making a juggling motion...a juggling motion, that can't be good... Good night, where are they spotting that ball? What...? How...? NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! Belichick! Why have you betrayed us?
.......
The rest is extremely recent, and extremely puzzling, history. What on earth was Bill Belichick thinking? Did he get arrogant and get burned by his hubris? (Yes, I think he did.) Did he really have that much confidence in his offense, which had no momentum at the time (and had the considerable handicap of having Laurence Maroney on the field)?

Did he have that much confidence in his defense, which had completely lost the ability to stop Peyton Manning? At least kick the ball deep and make Manning work for it...they had to score a TD, after all. WHAT could Bill have been THINKING? And let's not even talk about his use of time outs...

What a weekend for Boston sports. The Bruins allow Pittsburgh to score with 0.4 seconds left and then lose in overtime (an absolutely classic Bruins finish). The Celtics fall off the face of the earth. And the Pats...well, I'm still not sure what happened.

Oh, I know. Boston fans can't complain. And I'm more of a Cowboys fan than I am a Pats fan, anyway (and, boy, were the 'Boys lousy today). Still, this weekend was...weird. And not good. At least not for pro sports, and especially not in Boston.

There was, of course, one spectacularly good thing that happened far from Boston and in the amateur realm, but I'm not going to talk about it. I can't talk about it. All I'm going to say is this: two more games. Two more games. We've come this far before and choked. So, two more games. That's all.

2 comments:

  1. Did you see Nathanael's statistical equation on nanio? It won't let me link...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Actually, I didn't. I should take a look. I've seen a lot of arguments, some of them statistically based, in favor of Belichick's decision. But in a game of that magnitude in possibly the loudest arena in the NFL in that situation...you punt.

    Anyway, it wasn't just 4th and 2 that was the problem. Wasting two time outs leading up to 4th and 2 was a major error as well. As it happened, the Pats couldn't challenge a questionable spot on Faulk's catch because they were (needlessly) out of time outs. Not BB's finest moment, but he's earned a gaffe or two.

    ReplyDelete