TheAgitator.com
Playcalling Snafu
Sunday, November 30th, 2003I’m watching my Colts play the Patriots right now.
I’m baffled. Down by 7 on the Patriots’ 14 yardline, 4th down, 3:30 left, and the Colts have just one timeout. They kicked a field goal.
I’m baffled. Why? If you don’t get the first down or a touchdown, you need a touchdown to tie, but you have them backed up deep in their own territory.
The Colts made the field goal. Now New England gets the ball on its own 25-30 yardline. The Colts still have to kick off, meaning they lost the time expired on one additional play. And you still need a touchdown.
Basically, you gave them ten yards and an extra play of clock time. All for three points, which still puts you four points behind.
Maybe they’ll still pull it out. But I have no idea why they kicked the field goal.
UPDATE: Jesus. Colts OC Tom Moore does this all the time. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve had first and goal inside the three and ran James up the middle every damn time. And didn’t score.
Good God, Tom. Three words: Play. Action. Pass. You had four downs to get two yards. You couldn’t play action on one of them?
Great game. But man, how frustrating.
Don’t worry–stay up and watch the Pacers kick butt in LA!!
I, too would have rather seen the Colts beat New England. It looks like the Colts can redeem themselves next week by beating the Titans… As a Chiefs fan, I know I would appreciate it if the Colts brought their “A” game to Nashville next Sunday. Not that the Chiefs need the Colts to make it to the AFC Championship, but since the geniuses who make these schedules made sure we don’t get to see any of the other hot AFC teams during the regular season, We in KC were kinda hoping that Indy would take care of them for us, so that the best team in NFL football (Chiefs) could meet the team with the hardest schedule (Colts) in the AFC Championship game.
It turns out that the field goal call was a good one because they had that opportunity to win at the end. Unfortunately the play calling at the end was very bad. With Ted Washington in the middle they probably should have either run outside or, as you said, run a play action pass. I wasn’t very impressed with Peyton’s management down there either. He would have had to call the first two plays (both runs up the middle) because they were in hurry up.
As a Dolphins fan I am pretty upset about this loss too.
I missed it all b/c CBS switched away, at first and goal and a minute to play, so we could watch the KICKOFF of the Charger/Chiefs game. No “game break” either . . .
As a Pats fan, I can’t say I feel your pain ;) However, since Manning and Harrison are on my fantasy team, I was quite happy to see a high scoring game with the Pats eeeking out the victory.
As a Tennessee fan, I’m probably the only one here who’s happy about this loss. Of course, now I just have to hope my team doesn’t flare out against the Jets tonight. With both McNair and Kearse possibly out, this might not be a good night for the Titans.
And Radley: I have to go with Bobby and say the FG was a good call. You say they would’ve had the Pats backed up in their own end, but the Indy defense had already given up 38 points – not exactly reason to have faith in them holding the Pats to a 3 and out.