I'm tired of the Belicheck apologists

[detlef]

I agree with you 100% - I was throwing that out really trying to say that stats and odds don't really matter. I think it was a dumb move and you have to put a bit of trust in your defense to be able to stop someone from going over 60 yards in 2 minutes when you know they can't run the ball. The biggest stat or number to look at is the fact that nobody else goes for it in that situation and that should tell you the whole story.

 

 

it sounds like if you are a smart coach with an above average team, why would you ever punt on 4th down and less than 2 yards to go from your side of the field?

 

maybe everyone who plays the football video and board games are right going for it on 4th down from anywhere on the field.

 

in 40 years of watching football, i have never seen that move. It is the gamble that is not worth the price if you don't make it. That is what the genius's on the sideline for all those years already figured out.

It's called innovation. For the 20 years leading up to Bill Walsh and the Niners running things, championships were built on the backs of lining up, pounding the ball with the running game, and then mixing in a long pass downfield. That's how you did. Then, along comes this guy who just started throwing short passes to the backs on 1st down and playing a possession game through the air. Kinda worked out OK.

 

For the longest time the rule of thumb was to put 5 huge guys up front and knock people over. Then the Broncos tried putting 5 smaller but very agile guys and running complex blocking schemes. Next thing you know, they can put pretty much anyone back there and dude is an instant star.

 

Who's to say that this isn't more of the same. I tried to find the link and couldn't, but read an interesting article from a guy who did the math and realized that teams punt far more often than they should. So it doesn't surprise me that the guy below is questioning the paradigm.

 

From the article

 

"Just because something's always been done that way," Kelley said, "doesn't mean it should continue to be done that way."

 

Of course, because the Pats couldn't 1) convert a play that they should have converted, coupled with the fact that they couldn't also manage to defy anything but overwhelming odds against in keeping Indy out of the endzone, everyone is going to assume that they've had it right all along. However, there isn't a sample size large enough to show that this isn't a logically sound strategy.

 

 

i guess you never heard of this guy

 

 

Yep. This is why football isn't played on a spreadsheet. Thank God.

I'd be very, very surprised if most savvy teams do not employ some geek in the pressbox crunching %s, just so the team knows. That doesn't mean that you always have to follow them, but I'm sure a coach would love to know what the deal is, whether or not he chooses to go that way.

[kpholmes]

The Onion jumped all over this one...

INDIANAPOLIS—As of press time, the New England Patriots, playing on the road against an undefeated Indianapolis team, are headed into halftime with an all-but-insurmountable 24-14 lead.

 

Barring an almost inconceivable and utterly out-of-character mistake by head coach Bill Belichick, the Patriots have virtually secured a week 10 win against their closest rivals for AFC dominance.

 

No Belichick-coached Patriots team has ever led by this much at halftime and gone on to lose the game.

 

"If we just keep playing smart Patriots football, I don't see any reason why we won't come out on top," Belichick told reporters, jogging to the locker room with his team as the second-quarter clock expired. "The only time they've been able to stop us is on on short-yardage passing plays, so if we're careful to execute and avoid any situation where we give Peyton Manning excellent field position, I'm extremely confident we'll leave here with a 'W.'"

 

"Really, very confident," the usually reticent Belichick added. "Very."

 

Under Belichick, the Patriots have come to be regarded as the team that is hardest to defeat when it carries a lead into halftime. No other coach is thought to share Belichick's calculating, almost mechanical ability to disregard emotion and analyze the situation on the field, and he is widely respected for always having confidence in his offensive or defensive unit to make the necessary play.

 

"We had hoped to get ahead quickly, but that just didn't pan out," said Colts head coach Jim Caldwell, whose eight-game winning streak is by any rational evaluation almost certainly over. "The Patriots are just too clever, and Bill [belichick] is just too smart, too tough a customer."

 

"If you're going to wait for Bill Belichick to get overconfident and screw up, you're in for a long day," Caldwell added. "Just doesn't happen."

 

Thus far, both Brady's arm and the Patriots' receivers have been characteristically sharp. There have been few notable miscues, save a short two-yard pass to running back Kevin Faulk that was bobbled and dropped at the halftime two-minute warning, a mistake that was almost certainly noted by Patriots coaches and will be corrected for in second-half adjustments.

 

The Colts offense, however, with Manning's young receiving corps, has committed several significant errors. But the Indianapolis defense has fared even worse, and has only been able to stop pass plays of four yards or fewer, an insignificant advantage that a seasoned coach like Belichick will find easy to avoid.

 

"We have to do a better job in the second half, there's no question about that," Manning said while heading to the tunnel. "Problem is, the Pats simply never, ever, ever hand the game to you. You have to earn it. If we sit back and wait for them to screw up, we're sunk, plain and simple."

 

Sunday Night Football commentator Cris Collinsworth agreed, saying that the Patriots could basically ride Belichick's cool, conservative play-calling and their tremendously competent defense to victory.

 

"Even though the Colts scored first, Belichick has to be feeling good about the way his young defense is playing," Collinsworth said during his halftime breakdown of the game. "Holding Peyton Manning to just 14 points is no small feat. It must be great for them, knowing that their coach trusts them to make plays."

Edited November 19, 2009 by kpholmes