What represents a coach having faith in their defense and/or what represents a bad choice in regards to what your team can do? A sports radio guy in town here said that a Bengals field goal in the 4th quarter showed that Marvin didn’t have faith in his defense. In truth, it was likely the right call. It made the game two possessions, and got the quickest most easily attainable points to drop one possession from the score.
But, if it was a 4th and 1 from, say, the Indy 30 (which it wasn’t), would going for it be considered a lack of faith in a team’s defense to get the ball back? It seems like the contrary … that by making an aggressive call on offense, you can show faith in both sides of the ball. You show confidence that the offense will get the yard, but also that your defense can make a stop should it not work and get that “three and out” that your defense will be called to do.
(This is really all more of an argument for punting in the “bubble zone” where a long field goal and a conversion would be compared, or going for it would be considered aggressive, but I would simply argue that being aggressive is often more of a sign of confidence then it is concession that you cannot do something)
And then there was today’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback, where the author (Gregg Easterbrook), quickly becoming a favored writer due to his mix of wit and intelligence, he proposes that wild card teams should be seeded and the best records should make the playoffs, regardless of conference. I don’t necessarily like that idea, because a team’s record can be decided to a point luck, and there should always be great consideration for sanctity of the conference. You are trying to decide the champion of your conference after all!
My idea would be that any team to make the NFL Playoffs must have a winning record, unless there are not 12 teams with 9 wins. Then, you just go with the next best. Conference seeding would apply, but if a 10-6 team in the AFC would be the third wild card (which doesn’t exist), and there would have been an 8-8 team make it to the NFC playoffs, that AFC team then jumps over and plays in the NFC playoffs. Whether you’d make that AFC team jumping the automatic lowest seed (#6 most likely), or whether you’d then rate them by their record is a matter of personal preference, I don’t know the right answer, but it’s an idea to make sure that if you do have a 12-team playoff, you have 12 winning teams, and, you’d have a setup where 9-7 can be good enough if the conference merits that.
Should such a situation come up this year, I might map it out in a future blog post. Truthfully, I’d love to see this in the NBA or NHL, but the nature of their leagues is that .500 is always playoff-worthy, so they’d have to cut teams, which wouldn’t break my heart, but will never happen, because of money.
There’s my sports idea of the day for ya.
[b]After the fact edit: Gregg disagreed to a degree[/b]
Even with NFL Clubs Having Dozens of Coaches and Scouts Earning Many Millions of Dollars and Doing Nothing but Football Full-Time, Teams Fail to Notice Really Basic Stuff: Now it’s Indianapolis 31, Cincinnati 13 early in the fourth quarter, and the Bengals face fourth-and-7 on the Lucky Charms’ 10-yard line. A really basic thing you should know about the Colts is that they score a lot. That means you’ve got to score a lot to beat them. Here Cincinnati trails by 18 in the fourth quarter. A field goal makes the margin 15 — which might be overcome, but only if you prevent the Colts from scoring again in the game. Up to the point of this decision by Marvin Lewis, the Colts had scored on five of six possessions while recording 23 first downs. Is there any reason to think their offense will suddenly lurch to a dead halt? So you’ve got to try for the touchdown here; getting a touchdown at this juncture was Cincinnati’s sole hope of a comeback. Boom goes the field goal, and the Bengals never threatened again. It was obvious at this juncture that Lewis was more concerned with containing the margin of defeat than going all-out to win. Want another example? Trailing 31-16 with 11 minutes remaining, Lewis had the Bengals punt from midfield. When it was 34-16 with 16 seconds remaining and it did not matter in the slightest whether Cincinnati tried for the first down or started square dancing, then Lewis went for it.
I think the statements above are more prevalent for the PUNT, now that I do my homework. Yes, a punt there shows a lack of faith on BOTH sides of the ball. Offense can’t get a conversion they have to get, and the defense needs a longer field. There, show faith in the offense, give ‘em a shot, and if you do believe your defense can stop them, have the faith that they can bail you out.
Faith In Your NFL Defense and Playoff Seeding
What represents a coach having faith in their defense and/or what represents a bad choice in regards to what your team can do? A sports radio guy in town here said that a Bengals field goal in the 4th quarter showed that Marvin didn’t have faith in his defense. In truth, it was likely the right call. It made the game two possessions, and got the quickest most easily attainable points to drop one possession from the score.
But, if it was a 4th and 1 from, say, the Indy 30 (which it wasn’t), would going for it be considered a lack of faith in a team’s defense to get the ball back? It seems like the contrary … that by making an aggressive call on offense, you can show faith in both sides of the ball. You show confidence that the offense will get the yard, but also that your defense can make a stop should it not work and get that “three and out” that your defense will be called to do.
(This is really all more of an argument for punting in the “bubble zone” where a long field goal and a conversion would be compared, or going for it would be considered aggressive, but I would simply argue that being aggressive is often more of a sign of confidence then it is concession that you cannot do something)
And then there was today’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback, where the author (Gregg Easterbrook), quickly becoming a favored writer due to his mix of wit and intelligence, he proposes that wild card teams should be seeded and the best records should make the playoffs, regardless of conference. I don’t necessarily like that idea, because a team’s record can be decided to a point luck, and there should always be great consideration for sanctity of the conference. You are trying to decide the champion of your conference after all!
My idea would be that any team to make the NFL Playoffs must have a winning record, unless there are not 12 teams with 9 wins. Then, you just go with the next best. Conference seeding would apply, but if a 10-6 team in the AFC would be the third wild card (which doesn’t exist), and there would have been an 8-8 team make it to the NFC playoffs, that AFC team then jumps over and plays in the NFC playoffs. Whether you’d make that AFC team jumping the automatic lowest seed (#6 most likely), or whether you’d then rate them by their record is a matter of personal preference, I don’t know the right answer, but it’s an idea to make sure that if you do have a 12-team playoff, you have 12 winning teams, and, you’d have a setup where 9-7 can be good enough if the conference merits that.
Should such a situation come up this year, I might map it out in a future blog post. Truthfully, I’d love to see this in the NBA or NHL, but the nature of their leagues is that .500 is always playoff-worthy, so they’d have to cut teams, which wouldn’t break my heart, but will never happen, because of money.
There’s my sports idea of the day for ya.
[b]After the fact edit: Gregg disagreed to a degree[/b]
Even with NFL Clubs Having Dozens of Coaches and Scouts Earning Many Millions of Dollars and Doing Nothing but Football Full-Time, Teams Fail to Notice Really Basic Stuff: Now it’s Indianapolis 31, Cincinnati 13 early in the fourth quarter, and the Bengals face fourth-and-7 on the Lucky Charms’ 10-yard line. A really basic thing you should know about the Colts is that they score a lot. That means you’ve got to score a lot to beat them. Here Cincinnati trails by 18 in the fourth quarter. A field goal makes the margin 15 — which might be overcome, but only if you prevent the Colts from scoring again in the game. Up to the point of this decision by Marvin Lewis, the Colts had scored on five of six possessions while recording 23 first downs. Is there any reason to think their offense will suddenly lurch to a dead halt? So you’ve got to try for the touchdown here; getting a touchdown at this juncture was Cincinnati’s sole hope of a comeback. Boom goes the field goal, and the Bengals never threatened again. It was obvious at this juncture that Lewis was more concerned with containing the margin of defeat than going all-out to win. Want another example? Trailing 31-16 with 11 minutes remaining, Lewis had the Bengals punt from midfield. When it was 34-16 with 16 seconds remaining and it did not matter in the slightest whether Cincinnati tried for the first down or started square dancing, then Lewis went for it.
I think the statements above are more prevalent for the PUNT, now that I do my homework. Yes, a punt there shows a lack of faith on BOTH sides of the ball. Offense can’t get a conversion they have to get, and the defense needs a longer field. There, show faith in the offense, give ‘em a shot, and if you do believe your defense can stop them, have the faith that they can bail you out.