belichick's poor coaching decision (NOT the 4th down gamble)
so, as a patriots fan, a couple of my friends and many many bloggers/reporters have been questioning whether patriots fans should be livid at belichick for not punting on 4th and 2 from their own 28 with a bit more than 2 minutes to play in last nights epic loss to indy. i for one have absolutely no problem at all with the decision. at the time it was made, and afterwards when everyone and their moms have been monday morning quarterbacking the end of that game, i still firmly believe he made the right call on that play. brian burke on the nytimes nfl blog makes a nice mathematical argument why that decision gave the pats the best chance to win the game http://bit.ly/2HJWFb). the REAL mistake was not giving tom brady more time to come back if the colts score. the real mistake was wasting those timeouts on the last drive so they had none left to challenge the spot on the 4th down bobbled catch by kevin faulk. and the final real mistake came after the colts got the ball back, when they immediately started moving the ball down the field.14 yard pass to wayne to the 14, and then 13 yard rumble by addai to the 1. why on EARTH wouldnt you just let addai score there? the odds of stopping the colts from the 1 have to be next to none. i mean the pats have had classic goal line stands to end games in the past, but this was not one of those defenses and this was not one of those games. if addai scored from the 14, the pats wouldve given brady over 1 minute to move the ball into FIELD GOAL RANGE. instead, the colts used the clock perfectly and scored with 13 ticks left. game over. i know it is hard for any coach to give up a score, but i mean, if you are playing percentages, if you want to give your team the best chance to win, it would have been to tell the defense to just not tackle addai and let him get into the end zone. end of football rant.
