It may look odd that Haley was chewing out his players and calling time outs that late in the game, but if you preach the “60 minutes” mantra, you have to live up to it. Same story with Belichick. So, they are related, but really only by philosophy. Belichick is friends with almost the entire staff of KC, so I can’t see it as retaliation.
And while I can recognize the value in conceding in the face of certain defeat (at minimum reducing risk of injury by not continuing to make plays) I really enjoy watching a team refuse to give up. There’s always that little moment of letdown when I see the losing team take a knee, even if we all know that one last play is going to be futile.
mdowdle
4663
Coming from a rugby perspective, I personally see no problem in a team that is leading by a lot to continuing to play its best game right to the closing whistle. Nobody in rugby complains when New Zealand gives their all to score one last try in the last minute in a match against Japan or the United States when they are already leading 80-7. In fact, just the opposite: if New Zealand works its way to a 60 point lead in the first three-quarters of the match, and then fails to score a try in the last quarter, a lot of people would be critical of NZ for taking its foot off the gas. So I have no problems with either Belichick’s or Haley’s approach to that game. In fact, I applaud it. Personally, I like the idea that one should always strive to play one’s best game, no matter how much you are winning or losing by. It’s the best way of showing respect for that old canard – which I actually believe in – that “its not whether you win or lose [or, by extension, whether you’re winning or losing], but how you play the game.”
Yeah, that “never give up!” ethos borders on the absurd at times, with teams throwing a Hail Mary with one second left, and down by 24. But obviously the instant you start giving up in obvious losing scenarios, it starts to slide, so.
The Patriots played like shit, and have been playing like shit off and on all season, so there is no such thing as garbage time. I think the philosophy is to treat every possession like it matters and try to score a touchdown, because they’re not good enough to take plays off.
Hanacker
4666
I wish the Rams were playing like Patriot’s shit this year.
sluggo
4667
I can respect Haley making his team play the game to the final seconds, whether it’s trying to teach his team to never give up or punishing them for such a poor effort. I can even understand Belichick keeping his foot on the gas to the end, to a degree.
What I can’t wrap my head around is Belichick sending Brady back out into a 27-3 game with a few minutes left. That guy is your franchise. He gets hurt, the season is over. You’re making him run QB sneaks in garbage time? WTF?
And maybe KC calling timeouts didn’t actually provoke Belichick pushing hard on that final drive, but I can’t help but think that if KC lets the clock out, the Pats aren’t going to be quite as aggressive. It annoyed me that the announcers were debating whether Belichick was crossing a line without mentioning KC’s timeouts. To me, if you’re a good announcer, if you’re going to mention one, you have to at least acknowledge the other.
Brady puts himself in. If you ever listen to his interviews he says he wants to play every snap, whether they’re up 3 points or 30. He also says it’s his job to score points, as many as they can, to intimidate other teams and he doesn’t care if the rest of the league dislikes him for it.
I mean nobody expects a defense to stop sacking the QB or fighting for turnovers in garbage time. Why fault an offense for continuing to try to score?
Fixed that to show what happens when you don’t let the backups get some garbage time snaps.
sluggo
4670
Yeah, if I’m the coach, there are situations where I’m pulling my QB, regardless of what he wants. There comes a point where you can’t risk blowing your season for no reason, and as Brandon mentioned, it’s nice if you can get your backup a few snaps in case you need hiim for a few plays at some point.
I dunno Matt Cassell did well for himself when Brady missed a season.
And Manning certainly does not play garbage time, or even garbage games. The Colts used to throw a couple games a season resting Manning once they’d locked up the #1 seed.
My point wasn’t that they were bad picks, because they were, but that those players would have gone high in the draft regardless of the Lions picking them. You’re not suggesting that they wouldn’t have gone high in the draft, are you? Like Charles Rodgers would have have been a third round pick if Millen had grabbed him? I don’t think any of his WR picks were big reaches like Al Davis taking Heyward-Bey. They just seemed stupid because the Lions had so many holes to fill and Millen kept picking WRs. And I’m not trying to defend Millen – clearly a bad GM – but even the good ones make plenty of bad picks. Belichick has had a lot of draft busts over the last few years.
As to people like Kiper, they talk to the scouts. They have a pretty good feel for how teams feel about the players. They don’t know the exact order of the picks but the players they project as going in the first 10-15 picks usually do, or don’t drop too far from it. Kiper blew it on Claussen last year but he had him rated high because he was a QB who ran a pro style offense and the NFL is a QB league.
Yeah, keep your starter healthy and if you want to continue to score your rookie backup gets to throw some passes and get some experience. I don’t see any downside.
Shadarr
4674
No, I’m saying it doesn’t matter who else would’ve taken him. A bad pick is a player who doesn’t perform, and has nothing to do with what other people thought on draft day. A player doesn’t have to be a reach to be a bad pick. It’s the GM’s job to avoid busts, especially in the top 10.
And that brings it back to my original point, which is that the reason the Lions were able to stay bad for so long was by wasting top 5 picks on guys who couldn’t play. So where most teams who are down for a while end up with a core of talented players for the right coach to eventually come in and build around (eg Harbaugh in SF, Vermeil with the Rams), the Lions didn’t have that because Millen wasted their high picks on guys who couldn’t play.
To put it another way: If those guys would have gone early and been busts no matter what, they would have been bad picks for whoever picked them. So probably some GM was going to make a bad pick each of those years.
But Millen made bad picks MOST years.
Shadarr
4676
Exactly. Everybody makes bad picks. Alex Smith was a bad pick, as was Kentwan Balmer. The difference is that the Niners also drafted Patrick Willis, Vernon Davis, Joe Staley, Michael Crabtree, Mike Iupati and Anthony Davis, plus a bunch of good picks in lower rounds. Millen missed on so many picks the Lions probably would’ve been better off just going with the consensus.
Again, I think the issue is coaching. Calling Charles Rogers a bad pick when his collar bone exploded two years in a row seems a bit unfair. He was one of the most hyped WRs in recent memory. And weren’t Crabtree and Vernon Davis considered bad picks early on?
Point being that the rest of the team and the coaching situation make a huge, huge difference with how a player turns out.
I guess it’s hard to figure out if bad teams pick bad players or if bad teams make players bad, but given how much a new coach can make a difference I would argue that the second is probably more accurate.
Nawid_A
4678
Holy shit, Orton got released. I’m betting the Texans pick him up though the Bears would be interesting.
Lorini
4679
Wonder if they released him because of the Bears situation. Raiders play CHI next week, it would funny to play against Orton yet again on another team.
According to Pro Football Talk, the Broncos will save $2.5 mil. if Orton gets picked up. Since Elway has said that Quinn would play if Tebow gets hurt, that saves the Broncos quite a bit of money for a #3 QB. I’m assuming Weber gets promoted off the practice squad.
