Arkaign
Lifer
- Oct 27, 2006
- 20,736
- 1,377
- 126
I hate Monday morning quarterbacks. Every call that works is "of course, that was obvious" and every play that doesn't work is automatically a stupid call. If the play resulted in a TD they'd be claiming that they would have done the same thing because NE would be gearing up to stop the run. If Seattle handed off and got stuffed or fumbled the same idiots would be saying that the run was stupid and of course Seattle had to pass there because NE wouldn't be expecting the pass. Every play is a gamble and every play has a chance of backfiring. If the CB is 1/10th of a second later in recognizing the pick or lined up one step further outside or the pass thrown 1 foot further left then it's an easy TD and Carroll is a genius.
Eh, I don't agree.
There are PLENTY of cases where I'm watching a game, and a really stupid call is made and it works out despite all odds and common sense, but I still know it was a dumb call.
NE predictably loaded the box, but that still leaves plenty of opportunity to run the ball. Lots of time left, and the biggest weapons on that team are Lynch's and Wilson's legs on offense. He is not a great QB whatsoever for the type of play they called. As you noted, the ball was shot high and to the right of where it should have gone anyway. It was a playcall with a TON of downside if it didn't work perfectly.
Not every call that works is a smart call, and of course not every call that fails is a bad call.
Objectively, the call made in that game was bad. Not only that, but the decisions leading up to that point were horrendous.
Any student of the NFL knows that a hard running RB running plays pays dividends down the stretch if you commit to it. The defensive line gets worn down in almost all cases. We saw a textbook example of that this year with Murray for Dallas. Now Murray is not nearly as powerful as Lynch, but the Dallas O line is better, but the end result is the same. Early on you may see a lot of 2, 3, 4 yard gains, but often when 20+ runs have hit that line, you start to see him break into the secondary and start hitting 10+ yard runs.
At the very least, consecutive running plays take a considerable amount of time off the clock, as well as give the perfect setup for the keeper by Wilson for the edge rush when the defense stacks the box heavily. This is a setup that Dallas doesn't have because while Romo is 100x the pocket QB that Wilson is, Wilson is 100x the runner that Romo is.
But what happened when Seattle scored it's TD in the 3rd to go ahead by 2 scores? They were up 24-14 at that point. Next few series they continued to attempt low-margin passes heavily, which were the exact wrong plays to run. They took almost no time off the clock, and were the worst possible use of the opportunities given.
If you had to score the basic pros/cons of each team in regards to matchups, it's clear that trying a pass-heavy attack on NE was dumb as rocks considering that's Seattle's biggest weakness. They have a solid rushing game from both the QB and RB, they have good special teams, and they have good defense (that lessened considerably with the key injury early on vs the pass). The defense was called fairly decently though the bad offensive playcalling put them on the field for too long. The Zone was no longer fast enough to close in on the targets in the 4th quarter in an effective manner, so you saw a ton of Brady passes to targets where there was no defender within a crazy huge open space. Like candy from a baby at that point. The Seattle drives being long rush-heavy time wasters would have resulted in a fresher defensive set.
Nothing should take away from the Patriots playing an exceptionally solid and patient game. They put up 28 points on the Seattle defense despite two interceptions and a nearly complete lack of a rushing game.
On the Seattle side, the playcalling was overall terrible. Maybe worse than terrible, and it goes beyond that one supreme bonehead call. Wilson and his receivers are just not elite in the passing game. I'm sorry, but they're not. Sometimes great moments happen with them, but he is not Luck or Brady or Romo. He's a smart and fast guy who can put up competent numbers when he's in a balanced attack, but it has to start and end with the ground game. Period.