Pats vs Indy

[MaineDolFan]

Sorry, what book has the % of peyton manning scoring against a tired new england defense from their own 30 yard line vs. NE 30 yard line.  Sorry your hatred for belichik has made you a dumb results oriented fan.

1:  You can't whine to mods when you feel attacked but constantly post insulting items as this (^).  This isn't 1st grade.  Leave the insults at the door.  Try a little more tact, please.

2:  What the hell does "results oriented fan" even mean?  Yeah.  Winning is really overrated. 

[MaineDolFan]

Manning was basically shredding them at will. 

I don't agree.  Manning threw two INT's last night and the Pats held him to something like six punts, four of those were three and out situations.  A few balls Manning threw were real ducks and not picked out of pure luck. 

You punt, plain and simple.  Indy needs to get into the end zone, would have 80-70 yards to cover in two minutes and no time outs left.

You punt.

[MaineDolFan]

(credit:  Boston Dirtdogs)

[Dave Gray]

The Pats have a 70% 4th down conversion rate over the last 5 years.

That means that it's a 30% rate of failure.  I think the  odds were over 30 percent that between the punt return and the time left, Manning was going to drive down the field to win. 

I think he played the odds and played the strength of his team, as he saw fit.  In most cases, with most teams and AGAINST most teams, you punt.  But the Patriots are not most teams.  I credit Bellichek for being confident enough in his team to make the call.  You can't judge only on results -- Tepop is right.

[Phishfan]

^^^ And how many of those 4th downs were in the same situation? You can't play the odds if the situations are different or they aren't the same odds. Ole Billy boy cost his team the game.

[Dave Gray]

^^^ And how many of those 4th downs were in the same situation? You can't play the odds if the situations are different or they aren't the same odds. Ole Billy boy cost his team the game.

I'm guessing that the 2 yard conversions were even higher than when they were going for it on 4th and long.

[Tepop84]

1:  You can't whine to mods when you feel attacked but constantly post insulting items as this (^).  This isn't 1st grade.  Leave the insults at the door.  Try a little more tact, please.

2:  What the hell does "results oriented fan" even mean?  Yeah.  Winning is really overrated. 

  being results oriented is pretty bad.  for instance if i took a bet with someone that the next roll of a die will be a 6. A results oriented person will think it is a good bet if the roll is a 6 and a bad bet if it is 1-5.  whereas it is always a bad bet since over an infinite number of rolls i will lose 66% of all the money i bet.

[Dave Gray]

It boils down to this:

In my opinion --
1) More often than not, the Pats make that conversion, in that situation.
2) And more often than not, the Colts will drive the length of field for a score, if punted to....especially since they'll have 4 downs to convert.

Therefore, it's a sound decision to go for it, given 1 and 2.
If you disagree with either point, then fine.

[Sunstroke]

I had the Colts picked in that game, and was BEGGING the Patriots to please punt the ball. Do I need to break out drive charts and show you how ridiculously fast Payton can drive his team down the field? Especially since, in that situation, the patriots would have gone into prevent mode, opening things up in the middle. Peyton would have picked NE apart in those last 2:00/80 yards. Hell, he was slowing things down to kill more clock with the short field once he'd gone from the 29 to the 1 yard line in two quick plays.

I don't blame BB at all for that decision...I'd have done the same. I just wouldn't have passed the ball. I'd have power run either straight up the gut or off right tackle.

[Brian Fein]

That pass was a quick snap laser to a slanting reggie wayne.  There's no way the patriots could have stopped that play.  It was almost as if they had prescribed the short yardage play in the week's practices.

I still think you have to punt.  Lots can go wrong when driving 80 yards.  At the same time, the Patriots' strength is their offense.

Anyone think they actually converted the first down, though?  Looked like the spot should have been a LOT closer to the marker than they marked it.

[Fau Teixeira]

no .. with the bobble factored in and when he got possession, the spot was solid

[JVides]

I look at it this way:  you punt on your side of the 50, go for it on your opponent's side of the 50.  Giving Manning 2 minutes to drive 70 yards is risky business.  Giving him 2 minutes to go 29 1/2 yards is just begging for it.

I punt.  The Colts had 14 possessions.  They punted or turned it over on 9 of them and scored on 5.  For the game, they converted 35% of their drives.  Indy was down their best running back.  Their young wideouts weren't doing much (Garcon had 3 catches on 11 passes thrown his way).  I'd have punted, double teamed Wayne on every play, and made the other guys beat me.

Edit to Amend:  SunStroke, I don't think the Pats would have gone into prevent in that case.  They did that on the series before and Manning carved 'em up.  I could be wrong, but I guess they'd have gone after him.

[YoFuggedaboutit]

I agree with Maine and JVides.  I would've punted in this situation as well. 

[fyo]

As I've said in all the other threads where this has come up, I strongly believe Belichick made the RIGHT CALL to go for it. Coaches all too often call the CYA-play under the guise of "playing it safe".

Just now, I came across an actual calculation on the probabilities by the guys at advancednflstats.com (link below). Turns out, for the LEAGUE AVERAGE, the right decision would be to go for it... by a significant margin. And you can't convince me that the Pats had a below-league average chance of converting that 4th and 2. Similarly, you can't convince me that the Colts had a below-league average chance of scoring on a 70-yard drive with 2min left. BOTH of those factors increase the already significant advantage of going for it.

http://www.advancednflstats.com/2009/11/belichicks-4th-down-decision-vs-colts.html

If you really think Belichick should gone with a punt, please give some REASONING behind it, because the history of the NFL, the game at hand... not to mention my casual observance... all indicate that Belichick (however much I hate the guy) made the RIGHT CALL.

[Pats2006]

Its funny how many of you just cant admit that the pats are a good team. Bill makes a questionable call and I say "WTF just happened" and it turns into Pats suck, and then trying to compair them to the Phins (Apples to a bag of shit) I hate the dolphins but when we beat you, you didn't hear me saying how much they suck. Some of you were saying how your QB is a bag of ass and I was saying how he had a good game.

Well, I think its a 50/50 call. You can end the game if you can get the 4 and 2.  The best D is keeping Payton on the bench. Or you can punt it and hope they don't score, and the way the pats D was looking towards the end of the game I agree with Bills call. What I don't agree with is how they used there timeouts. Falk's call could have been challenged and the way it looked to me he had the 1st?