4th and 2 on the their own 30 - Discuss it here [merged 10x]

re: 4th and 2 on the their own 30 - Discuss it here (Merged 9X)

SVN said:

and we couldnt challenge it because we burnt all our timeouts ....having said that , the 3rd and 2 call shouldve been power run or at least QB sneak if you already know u are going for it on 4h down. even last yr BB's indecision cost a timeout which burnt us in the end.

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Welker called a timeout too.

Unless it came for the sideline, I think Brady should be the only guy calling timeouts.

re: 4th and 2 on the their own 30 - Discuss it here (Merged 9X)

We went into conservative mode to early beginnin at 4:30 left in the game We were clearly playing for a FG instead of trying to end it with a TD and that was the real start of this. Go back and watch that series. This team teh past few years cant win teh big one and I though ttonight we were going to reastablish ourselves instead we lose big. This loss will hurt us down the road as I don't this team thinks they can beat the Colts!

re: 4th and 2 on the their own 30 - Discuss it here (Merged 9X)

cmasspatsfan said:

But if they make it he's a free thinking genius. This board would be lit up with everyone calling him a genius, but most take the easy way out, this includes ex players and media and say its a bad call, its only bad if you dont make it, it was the right call in this situation, he plays the odds and this was the best odds to win the game, refs blew it and they absolutely cant eff up in that situation. Even though no one will blame the refs they'll blame BB cause it was a bad call, stupid call. IT WAS THE RIGHT FREAKING CALL AND HE MADE IT unbelievable.

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Not me. If they had made it, I would have breathed a sigh of relief and still called it a horrible decision afterward. It's a gamble and sometimes, when the gamble doesn't work, it comes back to haunt you. It certainly did tonight.

re: 4th and 2 on the their own 30 - Discuss it here (Merged 9X)

The spot was horrible. I don't mind going for it, but would have preferred taking a safety. Hand the ball to Faulk sprint back to the end zone. Hold and drag Colts defenders and waste as much time off the clock as possible. Do the free kick from the 20 and let Ghost pin them back to the 30 with 1:40 left on the clock.

re: 4th and 2 on the their own 30 - Discuss it here (Merged 9X)

Belichick himself didn't have a coherent strategy.

If he wanted to cede the TD he could have and given Brady more time. He didn't do this, he even wasted time stopping Addai at the goal line.

If he wanted to go on 4th down he could have ran it twice. Instead he wasted plays, including a 4th down play out of shot gun, eliminating the threat of run.

He didn't have a coherent strategy on this one.

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When Holmgren pulled that move he got creamed in the media.

That just shows you he DOES have faith in the D

re: 4th and 2 on the their own 30 - Discuss it here (Merged 9X)

ALso, it was inexcusable for Brady to call a TO after the KO return. In a tight ball game, you can't waste TOs like we did. What was the issue? Personnel? Right play call? Shouldn't we have that all figured out since we were receiving a KO? Another cause for concern. Our OC didn't have us ready and we wasted a TO.

re: 4th and 2 on the their own 30 - Discuss it here (Merged 9X)

The timeout just before it was dumb and the call to go for it was dumb too.

I don't care if you are Bill Belichick or Eric Mangini its still a dumb decision. There is far too much risk to losing out in that position. Even if you make it they still have timeouts and the two minute warning to try and make a stop.

re: 4th and 2 on the their own 30 - Discuss it here (Merged 9X)

rainmaker said:

The spot was horrible. I don't mind going for it, but would have preferred taking a safety. Hand the ball to Faulk sprint back to the end zone. Hold and drag Colts defenders and waste as much time off the clock as possible. Do the free kick from the 20 and let Ghost pin them back to the 30 with 1:40 left on the clock.

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Too much time on the clock to do that. It would have made no difference for it to be a punt to the 75 or a kickback (assuming we got that).

re: 4th and 2 on the their own 30 - Discuss it here (Merged 9X)

maverick4 said:

Belichick himself didn't have a coherent strategy.

If he wanted to cede the TD he could have and given Brady more time. He didn't do this, he even wasted time stopping Addai at the goal line.

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Well, at long last we agree. The two decisions are clearly logically inconsistent, in my view.

Additionally, wouldn't you rather have the ball, down 1, with 1:45 left, than be up 6 but to have Manning at the 30 with 2:00 left??? Clearly, you would want the first scenario right??? If BB is going to go outside of the box, he should go all the way. Manning definitely in his head in a big way.

re: 4th and 2 on the their own 30 - Discuss it here (Merged 9X)

cmasspatsfan said:

But if they make it he's a free thinking genius. This board would be lit up with everyone calling him a genius, but most take the easy way out, this includes ex players and media and say its a bad call, its only bad if you dont make it, it was the right call in this situation, he plays the odds and this was the best odds to win the game, refs blew it and they absolutely cant eff up in that situation. Even though no one will blame the refs they'll blame BB cause it was a bad call, stupid call. IT WAS THE RIGHT FREAKING CALL AND HE MADE IT unbelievable.

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No, I would have said it was a bizarre call, what if he didn't make it?

Since we didn't, we got to see what would happen.

re: 4th and 2 on the their own 30 - Discuss it here (Merged 9X)

maverick4 said:

Dude please stop trying to rationally justify why going for it on 4th on your own 30 was a good call. It really cheapens and lessens your entire history of posts here.

We could argue percentages all we want, but forcing Manning to score a TD from his own 30 as opposed to our own 30, is a much superior choice to the percentage of converting that 4thd own.

One could make the same rational justification for punting against a much lesser QB. Going against Peyton makes even less sense to give him a short field when leading by less than a TD.

If Belichick wanted the ball last he could have let the Colts score much earlier and given Brady more time. If Belichick really wanted to go for it no matter what, he should have ran the ball on 3rd and 4th down. Instead, he simply screwed up and didn't follow any coherent strategy.

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I disagree. I think the percentages of the Patriots converting that 4th and 2 or stopping the Colts from 28 are greater than the percentage chance the Patriots stop the Colts from, say their own 30. One reason I strongly believe this is that the Patriots would have played a very soft zone until the Colts got down to around our 30 anyway. We would have needed a turnover to win the game either way (again, just my opinion), we were not going to prevent Manning from moving the chains and eventually scoring a TD when he had 4 downs (instead of 3) to get things done.

re: 4th and 2 on the their own 30 - Discuss it here (Merged 9X)

letekro said:

Why should he have confidence in them? The game has changed folks. If you give Manning the ball with 2:20 left, with a TO and the 2 minute warning, at home, I like his odds every time. I like his odds against the Pats, the Steelers, whoever you want. It's not an indictment of our D. Our D line was decimated. We had no pass rush, they had no chance against a hot Manning. On the other hand, we had our offense playing great. They were called on to get 2 yds. They had two plays to do it, and they failed.

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This clown has no clue, his shtick is to automatically (and weakly) support any Belichick call made.


If Belichick truly did not trust his D and wanted to win with his offense, he would have let the Colts score much sooner and given his offense more time to get into FG position.

Instead, he used an incoherent strategy where he tried to stop Addai on his goal line, and did not run it twice to convert that 4th down, instead using a predictable shot gun play.

re: 4th and 2 on the their own 30 - Discuss it here (Merged 9X)

The timeout just before it was dumb and the call to go for it was dumb too.

I don't care if you are Bill Belichick or Eric Mangini its still a dumb decision. There is far too much risk to losing out in that position. Even if you make it they still have timeouts and the two minute warning to try and make a stop.

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But worst case scenario they get the ball back deep in their own territory with under a minute left and no timeouts.

re: 4th and 2 on the their own 30 - Discuss it here (Merged 9X)

pwes said:

Even so you can admit that there were better ways to handle that call than passing in shotgun.

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Yeah, and I don't think we would have gotten the spot even with a review either.

re: 4th and 2 on the their own 30 - Discuss it here (Merged 9X)

At the end of the day this tiem really hasn't beaten any solid opponent this year. Atlanta is our biggest win and there not looking so hot as of late.And against the 1 top team we have faced we fold. I will pull for this team until the very end, but my expectation of a deep playoff run is now over. They showeed me tonight that they aren't that team that can close out or win these big games. I don't think we score that many points again against Indy in the playoffs, BB plays teh Colts scared now.

re: 4th and 2 on the their own 30 - Discuss it here (Merged 9X)

cmasspatsfan said:

When Holmgren pulled that move he got creamed in the media.

That just shows you he DOES have faith in the D

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No, if he had faith in the D he would have punted.

His strategy was not consistent.

If he had confidence in his D he would have punted.

Instead he went for it on 4th and failed.

Then, he went all out and stopped Addai on the goal line, which makes no sense since he already showed he didn't trust his D.

Also, if he already knew he would go for it on 4th down, why not run it two straight times... or at least run the 4th down from under center so the threat of run was there.

re: 4th and 2 on the their own 30 - Discuss it here (Merged 9X)

Originally Posted by maverick4
Dude please stop trying to rationally justify why going for it on 4th on your own 30 was a good call. It really cheapens and lessens your entire history of posts here.

We could argue percentages all we want, but forcing Manning to score a TD from his own 30 as opposed to our own 30, is a much superior choice to the percentage of converting that 4thd own

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But making two yardsa with THIS offense is a better bet. So if your wrong does that cheapen your posting history, if your wrong are you a contrarian clown?
If you want to debate the call thats one thing please leave out the hyperbole.

re: 4th and 2 on the their own 30 - Discuss it here (Merged 9X)

It was a mistake to go for it (I understand the gamble but not worth it), it was a mistake to pass only 5 yards when you need 4.5 yards, it was a mistake to use timeouts willy nilly (NEVER do this)....and it was a mistake not to just F'N give Indy the TD and get the ball with some time left on the clock. Just about every time NE opened up the O to move the ball, we moved it easily. Why not, when Indy got it to the 10, just give them the TD then move down for a FG shot????? What, we couldn't get 50 yards in 50 seconds??? If you don't trust your D to stop a 70 yard Indy TD drive, why trust them to stop indy at the 10? I was screaming on Indy's first red zone run of that last drive "let him score! Let him F'N Score!". We made the tackle just short of the goal line. Super move! Guaranteed TD and Guaranteed to run out the clock. What a calamity of judgment errors. This is not to take anything away from Indy cause they did what they had to do to win (that's exactly what you are supposed to do). However, let's not hand the game to them with that many mistakes in judgment. The BB and TB should be kicking their own ass for some of the unforced errors in judgment they made. How big is this Jets game now????

re: 4th and 2 on the their own 30 - Discuss it here (Merged 9X)

lack of a proper power running has dogged us for a while now. And even if we have a running game like to pass from the shotgun. We shouldve run on 3rd and 2 andthen if it was inches then run again on 4th and inches.

re: 4th and 2 on the their own 30 - Discuss it here (Merged 9X)

SCPatBoy said:

At the end of the day this tiem really hasn't beaten any solid opponent this year. Atlanta is our biggest win and there not looking so hot as of late.And against the 1 top team we have faced we fold. I will pull for this team until the very end, but my expectation of a deep playoff run is now over. They showeed me tonight that they aren't that team that can close out or win these big games. I don't think we score that many points again against Indy in the playoffs, BB plays teh Colts scared now.

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Agreed.

Colts had 5th string defenders out there and we still lost.

Manning was not sharp for the most part and we still lost.

Our defense is not as good as we all think they are. I knew playing the two scrub teams inflated our defensive stats, but I didn't realize how awful we could be. Those td drives by the Colts in the 4th quarter were jokes. It was like they weren't even being defended. It could be a our DC, but what the hell, they sucked.