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Post here when coaches do something you disagree with (5 Viewers)

I'm still mad at Sean McDermott despite winning the game.

The scenario is that there is about 3 minutes left to go in overtime.  This is a must-win game.  For all practical purposes, a tie is equivalent to a loss and will end any hopes you have of making the playoffs.  You have fourth and 1 at your opponent's 40 yard line.  This is obviously a situation where you should go for it, but McDermott punted for reasons known only to him.  

He was bailed out by friendly play-calling by the Colts (who were playing for the win, not the tie, despite being nowhere near playoff contention), a circus catch by a WR they just signed a few weeks ago thrown by their third string QB, and a walk-off TD run a few plays later.  But that was one of the single worst coaching decisions I have ever seen made by a Bills coach.  Let that statement sink in a moment.  

 
IvanKaramazov said:
I'm still mad at Sean McDermott despite winning the game.

The scenario is that there is about 3 minutes left to go in overtime.  This is a must-win game.  For all practical purposes, a tie is equivalent to a loss and will end any hopes you have of making the playoffs.  You have fourth and 1 at your opponent's 40 yard line.  This is obviously a situation where you should go for it, but McDermott punted for reasons known only to him.  

He was bailed out by friendly play-calling by the Colts (who were playing for the win, not the tie, despite being nowhere near playoff contention), a circus catch by a WR they just signed a few weeks ago thrown by their third string QB, and a walk-off TD run a few plays later.  But that was one of the single worst coaching decisions I have ever seen made by a Bills coach.  Let that statement sink in a moment.  
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Not disagreeing with the rest of your analysis, but that's really all that needs to be said.

 
ghostguy123 said:
The falcons NOT going for 2 up 12 with less than 6 minutes to go seems rather stupid 
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Came here to post exact same thing. What good does being up 13 do you? Especially with Ficken at kicker, you want to make the Rams have to hit their XPs.

 
Rove! said:
Going for two too early in the game is always dumb....
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Given that expected value from 2pt vs 1pt attempts is basically the same, it's hard to say either is obviously stupid outside of game situation (ie, where one option clearly improves your chances and the other does nothing).

 
zftcg said:
Given that expected value from 2pt vs 1pt attempts is basically the same, it's hard to say either is obviously stupid outside of game situation (ie, where one option clearly improves your chances and the other does nothing).
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Pretty sure some economist did some fancy math that suggested going for 2 100% of the time is more value, as is 100% onsides kicks, going for it on 4th down, and so on.  Basically a no traditional special teams concept.  There is a HS coach in Little Rock, AR that applies this idea and wins all the time.  The higher you go in football, the more risk averse coaches are so it may never stick in college or the pros, but the idea has been applied.

 
zftcg said:
Given that expected value from 2pt vs 1pt attempts is basically the same, it's hard to say either is obviously stupid outside of game situation (ie, where one option clearly improves your chances and the other does nothing).
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This

 
Mularkey clock management at the end of the first half against NE was just abysmal.  TEN is down 21-7 with the ball and they get a false start penalty with 1:21 left and 2 timeouts.  TEN chooses the 10 second runoff which was fine, but then they wait 10 seconds to snap the ball, and then they run a short pass play that gains three yards and call a timeout resulting in 0:50 left on the clock.   Then on the next play a penalty on NE give TEN a first down.  Fast forward to 4th and 1 and TEN calls their last timeout with 0:25 seconds left with ball on NE 46 yard line.  They have no timeouts left and decided to go for it which is also fine - HOWEVER THE PLAY CALL SUCKED!!! It was literally the worst choice of all their options.  They ran the ball and lost 5 yards.  There was literally zero upside to running the ball there... best case scenario is you get a first down but you still aren't in FG range.  Just terrible.

 
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Steeler said:
Mularkey clock management at the end of the first half against NE was just abysmal.  TEN is down 21-7 with the ball and they get a false start penalty with 1:21 left and 2 timeouts.  TEN chooses the 10 second runoff which was fine, but then they wait 10 seconds to snap the ball, and then they run a short pass play that gains three yards and call a timeout resulting in 0:50 left on the clock.   Then on the next play a penalty on NE give TEN a first down.  Fast forward to 4th and 1 and TEN calls their last timeout with 0:25 seconds left with ball on NE 46 yard line.  They have no timeouts left and decided to go for it which is also fine - HOWEVER THE PLAY CALL SUCKED!!! It was literally the worst choice of all their options.  They ran the ball and lost 5 yards.  There was literally zero upside to running the ball there... best case scenario is you get a first down but you still aren't in FG range.  Just terrible.
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It was like they couldn't make up their minds. Just pick a strategy and stick with it.

Also, as Romo pointed out, you simply can't run the ball on 4th down there

 
Why didn't Mularkey challenge the spot?  There was nothing to lose.  If you are too unprepared to call a play on 4th and short, then buy some time with the red flag and the timeout you're about to burn.  He could've called his dumb play either way.

The ineptitude is off the charts. 

 
kOOk said:
Why didn't Mularkey challenge the spot?  There was nothing to lose.  If you are too unprepared to call a play on 4th and short, then buy some time with the red flag and the timeout you're about to burn.  He could've called his dumb play either way.

The ineptitude is off the charts. 
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Under 2 minutes.  Cant

 
I posted something similar in the game topic. That was mind-bogglingly bad. All of it. The 4th & 1 time-out was the worst. At least I thought it was the worst until they ran the ball.now THAT was the worst.   :doh:  

 
Steeler said:
Mularkey clock management at the end of the first half against NE was just abysmal.  TEN is down 21-7 with the ball and they get a false start penalty with 1:21 left and 2 timeouts.  TEN chooses the 10 second runoff which was fine, but then they wait 10 seconds to snap the ball, and then they run a short pass play that gains three yards and call a timeout resulting in 0:50 left on the clock.   Then on the next play a penalty on NE give TEN a first down.  Fast forward to 4th and 1 and TEN calls their last timeout with 0:25 seconds left with ball on NE 46 yard line.  They have no timeouts left and decided to go for it which is also fine - HOWEVER THE PLAY CALL SUCKED!!! It was literally the worst choice of all their options.  They ran the ball and lost 5 yards.  There was literally zero upside to running the ball there... best case scenario is you get a first down but you still aren't in FG range.  Just terrible.
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He's a crappy coach of a very mediocre team

 
Hot Sauce Guy said:
I posted something similar in the game topic. That was mind-bogglingly bad. All of it. The 4th & 1 time-out was the worst. At least I thought it was the worst until they ran the ball.now THAT was the worst.   :doh:  
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It boggles my mind how many coaches / teams waste timeouts because they have their heads up their keister.

Both games yesterday had both losing teams wasting timeouts.

I can only imagine what's going thru the coaches head:

4th and one ... LETS GO FOR IT ... ok wait a minute while I look up a good play .... hmmm ... lets see now .... maybe this one .. no wait ... this one ..

Yeah, this is the play. Oh, their in nickle defense? FIDDLESTICKS ... New play ... this one ... OH NO ... the PLAY CLOCK .... TIMEOUT!

So many coaches are so unprepared for "situational football". This is their job. This contributes to winning or losing. How can they be so clueless?

Do they just not value timeouts? 

 
Bossman said:
It boggles my mind how many coaches / teams waste timeouts because they have their heads up their keister.

Both games yesterday had both losing teams wasting timeouts.

I can only imagine what's going thru the coaches head:

4th and one ... LETS GO FOR IT ... ok wait a minute while I look up a good play .... hmmm ... lets see now .... maybe this one .. no wait ... this one ..

Yeah, this is the play. Oh, their in nickle defense? FIDDLESTICKS ... New play ... this one ... OH NO ... the PLAY CLOCK .... TIMEOUT!

So many coaches are so unprepared for "situational football". This is their job. This contributes to winning or losing. How can they be so clueless?

Do they just not value timeouts? 
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I’ve never even done it in Madden. I’ve never played anyone in Madden who coached as poorly as the Falcons did at the end of the gameor the Titans did at the end of the half. 

Just horrific execution. 

 
Hot Sauce Guy said:
I’ve never even done it in Madden. I’ve never played anyone in Madden who coached as poorly as the Falcons did at the end of the gameor the Titans did at the end of the half. 

Just horrific execution. 
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I think great coaches are like great chess players ... thinking three moves ahead.

A great coach will already know if they're going for it on 4th and 3 .... when it's still 1st down. 

These coaches yesterday just seemed to be winging it, play by play. Must be so frustrating as QB or any player on those teams.

 
Bossman said:
I think great coaches are like great chess players ... thinking three moves ahead.

A great coach will already know if they're going for it on 4th and 3 .... when it's still 1st down. 

These coaches yesterday just seemed to be winging it, play by play. Must be so frustrating as QB or any player on those teams.
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I agree.

In fact, I think that had Atl just let Ryan run the offense when they were first and goal at the 9 they would've won

 
Bossman said:
It boggles my mind how many coaches / teams waste timeouts because they have their heads up their keister.

Both games yesterday had both losing teams wasting timeouts.

I can only imagine what's going thru the coaches head:

4th and one ... LETS GO FOR IT ... ok wait a minute while I look up a good play .... hmmm ... lets see now .... maybe this one .. no wait ... this one ..

Yeah, this is the play. Oh, their in nickle defense? FIDDLESTICKS ... New play ... this one ... OH NO ... the PLAY CLOCK .... TIMEOUT!

So many coaches are so unprepared for "situational football". This is their job. This contributes to winning or losing. How can they be so clueless?

Do they just not value timeouts? 
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I’ve said it a million times, but I can’t believe every NFL team doesn’t have a guy whose sole responsibility is time management. They make billions and pay players and coaches millions, have coaches and trainers for everything imaginable, but don’t have a guy who manages the clock/time outs despite these issues coming up in almost every game I watch. It’s insane. 

 
Cowboysfan8 said:
I agree.

In fact, I think that had Atl just let Ryan run the offense when they were first and goal at the 9 they would've won
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I agree with that totally. 

When they go no huddle & Ryan runs things he’s done well in the past. He could have made better decisions than the OC on that series for sure. 

 
fred_1_15301 said:
tjnc09 said:
I can't post fast enough every time Todd Haley calls some stupid ####
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Yup and the decision to onside kick it was brutal
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I will defend the onside kick. Based on how poorly Pittsburgh's defense played today, the ~10% chance of recovery was worth the risk.

It's true that Pittsburgh was able to stop Jacksonville after the onside kick, but that was only because Jacksonville was already in field goal range (partly due to the 5-yard penalty on the kick). Does anyone really believe that Jacksonville still would have run 3 straight run plays up the middle if Pittsburgh had kicked off?

 
[scooter] said:
I will defend the onside kick. Based on how poorly Pittsburgh's defense played today, the ~10% chance of recovery was worth the risk.

It's true that Pittsburgh was able to stop Jacksonville after the onside kick, but that was only because Jacksonville was already in field goal range (partly due to the 5-yard penalty on the kick). Does anyone really believe that Jacksonville still would have run 3 straight run plays up the middle if Pittsburgh had kicked off?
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if they didn't, then Pittsburgh might have had more time...

 
[scooter] said:
I will defend the onside kick. Based on how poorly Pittsburgh's defense played today, the ~10% chance of recovery was worth the risk.

It's true that Pittsburgh was able to stop Jacksonville after the onside kick, but that was only because Jacksonville was already in field goal range (partly due to the 5-yard penalty on the kick). Does anyone really believe that Jacksonville still would have run 3 straight run plays up the middle if Pittsburgh had kicked off?
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I disagree.  Despite how bad the Steelers played on D, the odds of recovering the onside was still lower (probably significantly) than the odds of the Steelers forcing a 3 and out (especially when you know the Jags will be conservative).  Dumb, dumb, dumb.

 
Arodin said:
[scooter] said:
I will defend the onside kick. Based on how poorly Pittsburgh's defense played today, the ~10% chance of recovery was worth the risk.

It's true that Pittsburgh was able to stop Jacksonville after the onside kick, but that was only because Jacksonville was already in field goal range (partly due to the 5-yard penalty on the kick). Does anyone really believe that Jacksonville still would have run 3 straight run plays up the middle if Pittsburgh had kicked off?
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if they didn't, then Pittsburgh might have had more time...
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True, but that assumes that Pittsburgh's defense would have been able to step up and stop Jacksonville, which they hadn't been doing a very good job of for most of the game. 

 
Not sure how obviously stupid anyone else thought this was, but after the intentional grounding I think it was a no brainer call to kick the FG right then and there based on the time left.  If the kick the FG and recover the onside they have like 20 seconds left to try for a TD.  

Maybe equally stupid for Ben to not just throw it into the end zone hail mary style.  

 
fred_1_15301 said:
[scooter] said:
I will defend the onside kick. Based on how poorly Pittsburgh's defense played today, the ~10% chance of recovery was worth the risk.

It's true that Pittsburgh was able to stop Jacksonville after the onside kick, but that was only because Jacksonville was already in field goal range (partly due to the 5-yard penalty on the kick). Does anyone really believe that Jacksonville still would have run 3 straight run plays up the middle if Pittsburgh had kicked off?
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I disagree.  Despite how bad the Steelers played on D, the odds of recovering the onside was still lower (probably significantly) than the odds of the Steelers forcing a 3 and out (especially when you know the Jags will be conservative).  Dumb, dumb, dumb.
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But those two scenarios do not have equal value.

The first scenario is "Pittsburgh has the ball at their ~45 yard line with 2:18 remaining, plus 2 timeouts and the 2-minute warning".

The second scenario is "Jacksonville is about to punt from their ~30 yard line with ~1:45 remaining; Pittsburgh has 0 timeouts".

Based on how poorly Pittsburgh's defense played today, I'll take a 10% shot at the first scenario every time.

 
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[scooter] said:
But those two scenarios do not have equal value.

The first scenario is "Pittsburgh has the ball at their ~45 yard line with 2:18 remaining, plus 2 timeouts".

The second scenario is "Jacksonville is about to punt from their ~30 yard line with ~1:45 remaining; Pittsburgh has 0 timeouts".

Based on how poorly Pittsburgh's defense played today, I'll take a 10% shot at the first scenario every time.
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I disagree but I don’t have the numbers on me so I’ll just leave it at that

 
ghostguy123 said:
Not sure how obviously stupid anyone else thought this was, but after the intentional grounding I think it was a no brainer call to kick the FG right then and there based on the time left.  If the kick the FG and recover the onside they have like 20 seconds left to try for a TD.  

Maybe equally stupid for Ben to not just throw it into the end zone hail mary style.  
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I think that if there's more than 25 seconds left, you can justify going for the TD. That will leave you with ~15-20 seconds after the onside kick, which is just enough time to throw a 20-yard pass to get out of bounds. That's a much better proposition than having to throw a hail mary to score a TD.

Another issue is that the Steelers didn't realize that the clock was still running after the grounding penalty, so they wasted even more time. If they could have snapped the ball immediately, then it might have made sense to go for the TD in that situation.

 
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zed2283 said:
In before the Sean Payton challenges.
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Seriously. Both were low chance of success with only medium leverage (ie, would have been nice to win, but weren't crucial). You can't waste all your challenges on a single drive with 8 minutes to go before auto-challenges kick in.

 
I've been harping on this since almost the beginning of the thread, but if you're down 14 in the fourth and score a TD, the numbers overwhelmingly favor going for two. Steelers were in that situation twice today and kicked both times.

 
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