Bill Belichick’s fourth down decision was not bad coaching, and furthermore, it wasn’t even one of the top-five worst calls of the week. I’ll present these coach’s awful attempts at doing their jobs in descending order for a semi-suspenseful feel.
5. Rex Ryan for not benching Mark Sanchez – The New York Jets have lost five of their last six and the defense is not to be blamed. Sanchez has thrown 11 picks against five touchdowns during this stretch. This is the future face of the franchise. Ryan is doing everything he can to make the small percentage of the New York population, that stayed off the Giants Super Bowl bandwagon and still actually cheers for the Jets, to lose confidence in Sanchez before he even has a chance. Put Kellen Clemens in. Best thing that happens is he starts winning again. Worst that can happen is Clemens tanks the Jets and Sanchez gets a second chance at being the golden boy.
4. Eric Mangini for allowing the Browns to play – Really now, Mangini should have forfeited. And I don’t just mean this game. He should include this season, his job and his paycheck to reimburse the die-hard fans that stuck by this group of athletes in Cleveland, that almost looks like a football team, but is much worse.
3. Jeff Fisher and Mike McCarthy’s goal line challenges – As a Titans fan, I went crazy when Fisher dropped the red flag on a catch that clearly didn’t break the plane when the game was still close against the Bills. The only thing worse on the field than that challenge was Terrell Owens’ childlike attitude over his mediocre talent. Of course, not to be outdone, McCarthy makes the same call in another close game against Dallas about three hours later. I can only assume once Fisher got home and put on his Manning jersey, in anticipation of the late game, he bribed McCarthy into making such an absurd call look commonplace.
2. Tony Sparano’s premature timeout – The Buccaneers looked as if they had sealed a second straight win until Chad Henne and Miami drove in the final seconds to set up a chip-shot, go-ahead field goal. But Sparano called his last time out with 10 seconds left. He was not under pressure from the play clock, nor was he trying to avoid any substitution penalties. Sparano simply left free time for the Bucs to run two plays after the field goal. Granted, it’s the Bucs, but it was an unnecessary call that could have cost Miami a game they couldn’t afford to lose.
1. Jack Del Rio having any influence over Maurice Jones-Drew’s kneel – Here’s how football works: if your team scores more points than the other team, then your team wins. Somewhere along the line, Del Rio must have forgotten to explain that concept to his star running back who took a knee at the goal line when his team was losing to the New York Jets in the closing seconds. The play ran down the clock and allowed Josh Scobee to kick the game winning field goal.
But before Scobee could do that, the ball had to be hiked, the holder had to put it down, and Scobee had to get some elevation over the reaching Jets hands. One of these go wrong a lot more often than you think, just ask Tony Romo.
And now back to the main event. Belichick trusted more in his offense than he did in his defense. That’s not surprising given that he has Tom Brady and the Colts have Peyton Manning. Now the only thing Belichick can be criticized for is if he knew he was going for it on fourth down the entire series. He should have run it on third down to at least pick up a yard and make the ensuing play easier.
Even so, he mixed fourth down up by staying away from predicted target Wes Welker and hitting Kevin Faulk who has reliable hands and was having a strong rushing game. Faulk had only caught one other pass that night making him the sleeper choice. The call was good, the play was better, but the result just didn’t happen, and one out of nine other times that this would have worked.
The Patriots defense still had a chance to stop Manning, who had to get a touchdown to win. They couldn’t-further proving that punting on fourth would have only delayed the inevitable.
The Colts are a better team than the Patriots right now. Belichick’s coaching can’t change that fact. If anyone needs to blame anything on bad coaching, please refer to the list above but stop ignorantly attacking a courageous coach’s risk.