What they should have done once he caught the ball is not tackled Gronk and let him score. At least then you have some time to try to come up with a matching touchdown.
Yeah, but no one ever thinks of that during the play. You’re right, though. Once he was inside the 20 let him run free and score.
That would go against everything defense stan …
checks score
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That’s all you’ll ever be able to do is wish for it with Andy Reid as the head coach.
Lol, during that second half I told my wife, “If the Texans lose to Peterman someone will get fired Monday”. As it is, Bill O’Brien lives again.
Tannehill will be somebody’s backup next year.
Agreed, IF they can play consistently, which they have not done. That’s why I said it was so nice to see them string together games where they played well and had a punishing run game. I imagine they are going to get swept by the Rams, but they ought to be in contention for the wildcard.
This is how a Head Coach talks with the media about his “injured (?) Starter” when what really happened is injured or not the starter looked as atrocious in practice as he did against the Bengals and Patriots the two previous weeks, they know they are going to lose with him, so they go with the guy who doesn’t look like he’ll lose his mind in the pocket and start giving away turnovers for Touchdowns if there is even a little pressure.
http://www.espn.com/video/clip?id=24983822
EDIT- Oh and @rowe33 and @Lloyd_Heilbrunn, your man-crush Kaep wouldn’t lose his mind, he’d just take off after his first read was covered, or throw a bullet with no touch to his outlet guy for an incomplete pass. Hence he is starting for Nike.
It is not an over exaggeration. A long-held criticism of the NBA has been that you only need to see the final 4 minutes of the game because often it comes down to the last couple of possessions. The NFL has become as bad as the NBA in this case. In its desire to ban defense altogether, the NFL has come down to having the ball for the final drive.
Does anyone believe that when the ball was put in Brady’s or Ben Roethlisberger’s hands yesterday for the final drive that the outcome was not all but inevitable? 20 years ago the offense had to make good plays to win the game on the final drive. Now they just have to avoid making bad ones like dropped passes or penalties. If they can avoid doing dumb things in a 4 down situation they will score far more often than not. The refs swallow their whistles and the game is a track meet that it is surprising when the offense does not pull out that situation. Woe be to the team only up by a point or two, because if only a Field Goal is required you might as well quite now because that is a foregone conclusion.
The NFL has managed to suck much of the drama out of the game. If it is close, bet on whoever has the ball last.
Marvin Lewis has been an NFL head coach for 15 years and apparently has yet to learn how to effectively manage the clock. Yet another defeat to the hated Steelers snatched from the jaws of victory yesterday because the coaching staff couldn’t be bothered to call a single run play (with Joe Mixon, a guy who is damn near a 5 yard lock every time you hand him the ball) on their march down the field, thus scoring the go ahead touchdown but leaving nearly 1:20 on the clock for Big Ben to put the Steelers in FG range.
I get that you need to score. I get that you need to be able to rely on your defense to get the stop in situations like that. But come on, this is Bengals-Steelers, the games in which the bizarre, the impossible and the downright heartbreaking stuff happens EVERY TIME. Knowing that, and knowing your opponent, and knowing how important the win is to your season, why the fuck would you not call at least one run play on 1st-and-10 during that final march down the field? Why would you not reiterate to your receivers the importance of staying in bounds to eat time off the clock? It’s not like the Bengals were on their own 30 and scored on some botched coverage 70 yard catch and run…it was a methodical, pass-exclusive, multiple play series…that took far too little time off the clock. If a score puts you up by 4 or more, totally different story, but when a field goal can win the game…you play to eat the clock Marvin!!!
So we take on KC next…which means we will go from 4-1 to 4-3 in the span of two weeks, and the season will begin to come apart…again.
- The Bengals needed a touchdown to tie. A field goal would have done nothing.
- It is the Bengals so you should take any good fortune when you can get it. Try to burn off the clock and you will probably run out of time because Tim Krumrie’s ghost will break its leg and will be unable to get off the field in time.
They needed 6 to tie, the PAT put them ahead by 1. And while knowing that, they also knew that they had 3:30 or so to make that score, with two timeouts and the 2 minute warning to aid in clock management. That’s an eternity in football. There was absolutely no rush to score a TD quickly, especially knowing the Steelers still had all three of their own timeouts left and would only need a FG to win.
Proper clock management as a head coach says you get to the opponents side of the field ASAP, then start slowing things down with a rushing play on 1st and 10 to run time off the clock. The closer you get to the goal line, the more time you try to shave off. The goal wasn’t just to score, it should have been to score while only giving the opponent 30-45 seconds left to get into FG range. If the Steelers had only had 45 seconds on the clock after taking possession, they would have run out of time long before the penalty that negated 4th and long and handed the Steelers a first down in FG range (which they didn’t even need thanks to Antonio Brown and blown coverage).
It was classic Bengals game mismanagement.
Your anger is misplaced.
The Bengals crossed the midfield line at 2:20 to the Steelers 34.
They let the clock run to 2:00. Clock stops automatically.
Incomplete pass. Clock stops automatically.
23 yard pass. Let 30 seconds run off the clock.
Ran 7 yards out of bounds. Clock stops automatically.
Ran 4 yards into the end zone.
What time do you expect Lewis to save in that scenario? At most he could have taken maybe 15 more seconds after the 23 yard pass.
That was the point of running it into the end zone from the 4. Mixon happened to score on that play. Football is unpredictable and if the Bengals got down to the 4 and decided to run a play just to kill the clock, you never know what would happen on the next one. Maybe a fumble aka Byner / Bettis, a botched snap, a penalty or an interception. You never know and throwing away a play or two and then being unsuccessful in scoring altogether would definitely cost a coach his job.
As far as “the Steelers would have run out of time”, that is not borne out from the evidence. There is no way of knowing that because the whole game would have changed. After letting 30 second run off the clock during their first play, the Steelers went from their 31 yard line to the Bengals end zone in 37 seconds. So saying they would not have enough time to score is not necessarily the case.
Maybe. But say the incomplete pass (on first down) was a run (even for no gain) by Mixon instead with 25 additional seconds run off the clock. Or say on the 7 yard pass play the receiver stays inbounds and 25 seconds runs off the clock. Or instead of a 7 yard pass play you get those same 7 yards by running Mixon twice…and clock ticks the whole time. Then you force the Steelers to use timeouts, or they let clock run…either way the game situation changes when they receive the kickoff post-score.
I mean, I get it…they did what they needed to do to secure the score and the lead, and then sat back and trusted the defense to do it’s job. And against any other opponent, I wouldn’t have a problem. But when it’s Steelers-Bengals…every Bengal fan watching that game, in the stadium and at home, knew as soon as we scored that we’d already lost the game. Up 1 with 1:18 left, it was a forgone conclusion that the Steelers would at least reach FG range…
And if that wasn’t enough Bengal curse for one day…there is the claim that the winning TD was the result of an offensive penalty that should have cost the Steelers 10 yards and put them back out of FG range with 10 seconds left…
Whatever. It’s classic Bengals getting Bengaled.
If you really want to blame someone, blame the idiot who went out of bounds at the 4 and not Marvin Lewis. That incomplete pass was at the 34. That is no guarantee of scoring a TD from there.
As for the non-penalty, I am sure the Steeler fans on the board can sympathize. The Jesse James non-catch cost them the top seed in the playoffs last year.
It is just the classic Bengals being Bengals.
The MNF game is better than the game last night!
Wow the Niners are blowing this one.
Well that was ridiculous. I don’t know what GB was doing at the end though. Seemed bizarre to risk a pass with 6 seconds left and an easy FG to win it.
That, and SF completely forgetting how to defend the pass.
Yeah, I was surprised. If Rogers get sacked, or there’s a bad snap, or the pass gets picked off, etc., they don’t even get to kick the FG.
Upon reflection, this was the craziest Dolphins’ game since the hook and ladder game versus the Chargers.
Lots of parallels, with the kicker roles reversed.