Global Review fully supports Bill Belichick's decision to go for it on 4th down from their own 28 last night [play-by-play here]. A punt offers the possibility of a serious runback, and Peyton Manning probably had a 50% chance of completing the two-minute drill to win the game. Likewise, the Patriots had converted 5 of 10 fourth downs this season. This was fourth-and-two, and the play worked perfectly - for 1.5 yards. Only a perfect tackle prevented the Pats from icing the game.
The defense took the call as disrespect, which is understandable. But given the situation, it made sense.
The bigger coaching mistake came one down earlier. On 3rd-and-short, Brady passed, incomplete. If Coach knew he was going to go for it on 4th, he should have run on 3rd. That would have allowed the possibility of a small gain even without a conversion, making the 4th-down attempt easier. More importantly, it would have caused Indy to immediately burn their third timeout. Instead, Belichick burned his own timeout, leaving him helpless to prevent Indy's 29-yard slow motion drive which ate up all but 13 seconds. Brady and co. would have had at least a chance of getting into field goal range with 30 more seconds to use.
4 comments:
http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2009/11/16/going-for-it/#more-2823
my problem was the play call - why throw it 2 yards if u need to go 2 yards??? throw 3 yards; or i would really have liked a screen
Also, the referee blew the call. They DID reach the down marker.
Which, btw, is yet another reason you need to save a timeout: for the challenge. That 3rd-down pass play looks worse and worse.
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