Re: Defending Belichick...
I guess he figured "either way we're screwed" because he knew the D was gassed and was unable to stop them from scoring in 4th quarter.......might as well go for it.....to me it is still one of the dumbest decisions I remember BB making.....
How the #$*#@($* could the defense have been gassed?
First, the Colts only had the ball for 24 minutes and change the entire game, so the Pats' D wasn't exactly overworked (22 and change at the time of the notorious 4th down fail by the Pats).
Second, the Colts' offense (thus, the Pats' defense) was only on the field for just over 5 minutes in the fourth quarter.
Third, in-between the Colts' first and second TD of the 4th quarter, the Pats had two possessions sandwiching a Colts turnover (that Colt possession lasted a whopping 10 seconds). The Colts scored with 12:14 left in the quarter, ran one offensive play (Peyton INT) at the 7:54 mark after the Pats had the ball for 4:12, and then they started their 2nd TD drive with 4:12 to go. That's essentially an 8-minute *game-time* break...which, with TV commercials, etc., was more like about a 15-20 minute break in real-time. Then the Colts scored their 2nd TD in just 1:49. In other words, when BB made his decision to go for it, the Pats' D had been on the field in the 4th quarter for a grand total of 4 minutes, 3 seconds, with about a 20 minute real-time break mixed in.
I mean, how can these professional athletes that didn't actually expend much energy up til then and had just gotten basically a 20 minute rest, have been *gassed*? Makes absolutely no sense. Certainly the Colts' D in the 4th quarter, despite playing the same guys (they didn't make many substitutions), despite having been on the field for 35+ minutes, despite being on the field for 8:49 of that 4th quarter up til that point, still made all the plays they needed to make. They were flying all over the field. *THEY* weren't "gassed".
The Pats were gassed in 2006 because they were on the field a ton in the 4th quarter, half the team had the flu, and the temps in the Dome were cranked up a little. This year? I don't buy that excuse for one little second. If it's actually the true story, then the Pats' conditioning coaches should be fired on the spot.