More specifically, I would treat it exactly like a substitution. Run up to the ball and hold the snap, make your announcement. Look to see if defense is substituting/scrambling. If yes, wait for match up. If no, release the snap.
Divisional Round Weekend
- Thread starter BigSoxFan
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I thought the defense was only given the grace to sub if the offense was subbing players, that such hold wasn't expected or allowed if the offense didn't sub in players.
This isn't the players or teams' fault, though. This is the NFL and the five or six networks they have separate money dollars deals with to air games, and the obvious priorities for "number goes up" ratings and income.
The "fiasco" with only airing the KC/Miami game on Peacock - a gambit to get Taylor Swift fans to sign up - is the tell.
They don't want or need sunk cost long time area football fans. They want certain demographics that aren't "just" these fans. They want younger dudes that toggle between Fanduel and their fantasy teams at the B-dub watching every game on every screen. The ones that are checked-out, bored and moneyed tourists in the stands and luxury boxes at the Super Bowl. The ones that host SB parties primarily to watch and rank the commercials and the halftime show. They want casual, crossover, non-football fans.
You even saw CBS trying to make fetch happen with the pre-game intro positioning Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes as this generation's Brady/Manning. It was absurd. That might have been for the Area Fans.
But the oversaturation of Mahomes and Kelce and Taylor Swift was the primary narrative that CBS wrote going into the Bills/Chiefs game, which the telecast director followed like a Mad Lib, and it wasn't for football fans watching the game. It was for people that are far less invested in the laundry.
Yeah that's the current procedure I'm just saying what I would have changed instead of making the rule change that ineligibles have to be within the tackles or whatever they changed. I feel like the ineligible/eligible thing is more akin to a substitution anyways, since you don't know what position any of the players out there are until the Referee makes his announcement.
It's a matter of recognizing the formation and determining who's eligible or not. Although that's not exactly obvious in the NFL.
The thing is you still need to account for that ineligible player. If the offense has numbers they can run a quick screen to that side and don't forget that "ineligible" player can catch a lateral.
The thing is you still need to account for that ineligible player. If the offense has numbers they can run a quick screen to that side and don't forget that "ineligible" player can catch a lateral.
I am apoplectic all over again @dhellers and others who were saying there was an agreement in place. @DennyDoyle'sBoil ?
“Not a gentleman’s agreement,” Bowles said Monday. “They were in field-goal range, they had 12 seconds calculated after using that timeout to come back from it, then we would’ve been down 11 points, it’s kinda pointless. You kinda know when the game is over. The game was over.”
No, Todd. It was like a 47 yard field goal. Kickers can miss. And there were 36 seconds on the clock.
“Not a gentleman’s agreement,” Bowles said Monday. “They were in field-goal range, they had 12 seconds calculated after using that timeout to come back from it, then we would’ve been down 11 points, it’s kinda pointless. You kinda know when the game is over. The game was over.”
No, Todd. It was like a 47 yard field goal. Kickers can miss. And there were 36 seconds on the clock.
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I think what he's referring to is what his calculation was at the start of the Lions' drive. Which is fucked up because it wouldn't have been 12 seconds. The Lions could have run the clock out. A kneel down takes 2-3 seconds. If you take the step backwards, it's 3 to 4 seconds. So, what the Lions should have done is:
1:33 first down, kneel. Bucs call time out.
1:30 second down, kneel. 2-3 seconds for the play, 40 seconds for the play clock.
:48 third down, kneel. 2-3 seconds for the play, 40 seconds for the play clock.
:05 fourth down. Roll out and throw the ball away.
So, I can see Bowles' point at the beginning of the series, and it's a completely rational decision to me not to call the time out after the first or even the second play. It's a useless act. I understand the "make 'em play it out" idea, but teams don't fuck up victory formation.
But if there was no agreement, once the Lions fucked up on third down, you absolutely have to call time out. To me, the Lions' fuck up is the far more significant one. If there was no agreement, that was as boneheaded as decision as you'll ever see. Just an absolute brain fart that could have cost the game.
It's also bad the Bowles did not capitalize. Best guess is that he was on the sideline taking off his gear and never imagined that the Lions would fuck up that bad. But that's not an excuse. The game is not over until it's over.
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I completely agree. It was a MASSIVE fuckup by BOTH teams. Just completely inexcusable. A 15 year old playing Madden would have done better.
Yeah I think the Lions' mistake is worse. They gave TB the chance to force a crazy ending. I think Bowles wasn't paying a ton of attention at that point because he never expected them to screw up that badly.
I agree the Lions' mistake was worse, but for Bowles to not be paying attention... I mean, as soon as the Lions took their 2nd knee with time left on the play clock, I was starting to post about it on SoSH, text my dad and brother, and scream at the TV. Why wasn't HE paying attention?!
Josh Allen isn't in the same conversation as Mahomes (or Brady, or Manning). He's definitely been the nail to Mahomes' hammer in the same way that Manning got flattened by Brady every year for the first 5 years of their rivalry, but left unsaid is that while he kept losing, Manning was a 6x pro bowler, 3x all-pro and 2x MVP before finally breaking through and beating Brady in 2006. He would've unequivocally been the best player in the league, were it not for him always losing to Brady and the Pats.
Josh Allen has always been slightly more promise than performance. 2 pro bowls and 0 all-pro appearances in 5 years as a full-time starter...Josh Allen is Philip Rivers, not Peyton Manning. Lamar Jackson (2 MVPs without much playoff success) is a helluva lot closer to Manning.
Cundiff- worst miss of the 3
Bass- second worst
Norwood- a miss, but not a horrific kick.
I have a sick satisifaction of going on athletes social media pages after they have massive blunders and seeing what the world is saying about them.
To be fair to Bills fans - a majority of the messages were gamblers and people who had money on the game.
I'm sure there are reasons not to do this, but shouldn't he -- or the Bills' FO -- run a list of all the names, twitter handles, addresses (if the sender provided them), of those that make threats? Anonymous internet cowards need to be made to wet their pants more frequently.
He unwittingly baited the Lions into complacency by not taking the timeout after first down. It would have been sort of brilliant, but he had obviously mentally checked out at that point. What I really can't believe is that there weren't any assistants, any players screaming at him about it. NO ONE was paying attentionI? That's why I assumed the stadium scoreboard must have been wrong. f I were a Bucs player I would have called the timeout myself.
Seriously.
Again, the Ravens did something very similar in 2014. They let the Pats kneel on 1st and 2nd down, then called timeout after 3rd. The difference was the Pats (shocker) correctly ran the play clock down every play. The Ravens still ended up with a hail mary opportunity, but if the Pats were as dumb as the Lions, they'd have had much more time.
The lesson, as always, is Bill Belichick is smarter than Dan Campbell, and John Harbaugh is smarter than Todd Bowles.
News at 11.
Yeah, my assumption in the game thread was that there had to have been a nod to just call it. We've seen that before. I can even remember once when the camera caught Belichick signaling the opposite coach.
By far the most common situation where that happens is when the timeouts are absolutely irrelevant. Like if there are 50 seconds left and a team has a time out, it won't call it to make the other team snap three times instead of twice. We've seen that a lot. The coaches start running across the field with 30 seconds left, even though they could call the last time out just to make the other team do a kneel down one more time.
With the news today that there was no nod or agreement, I'm pretty floored by how bad Campbell or Goff fucked that up. It makes me wish that Bowles had been on top of it because that would have been all time epic.
Frankly, even if there had been a nod, imo the Lions forfeited that understanding when they kneeled with so much time left on the play clock, because now you're putting the other coach in a situation where he looks clueless.
Not only did the Lions fuck up, they fucked up TWICE. Second down, ran the play w/13 seconds left on the play clock. Third down, ran it w/6 seconds left. If Bowles used his time-out at that point, the FG attempt or whatever else the Lions decided to run would have come off between 25-30 seconds.
I still remember Francesa's pronunciation of his name. Sounded more like Tard Bulls. Perhaps appropriate.
36. That's when they snapped it on 3rd down. 36 seconds.
If they missed the FG, the Lions would have had 30 seconds from their own ~37 yard line. That's already hail mary range. Or you could throw it once for 15-20 yards, spike it, and get a ~40-45 yard hail mary instead.
Agreed - there are chances for something even greater happening - like a fumble at the snap, penalty, blocked kick, return kick, etc. It's insane that Bowles/Tampa didn't even bother, it's the playoffs!
Baker has a cannon of an arm, so a Hail Mary/PI is defintely on the table at the 37 yard line.
That's on Goff. What a story flip it would have been. We thought Buffalo got quiet fast. Half of Deteoit would have been incapacitated.
If Bowles calls it, I think Campbell has to kick. Badgley probably makes it -- he's been pretty good this year (not many attempts though) and it's a dome. So, the Detroit angst would probably have resolved quickly -- still, if he had missed, that would have been something.
This is exactly what I was saying last night - when everyone was piling on me for saying the game was over anyway.
Crazier shit has ABSOLUTELY happened in the playoffs.
Bowles conceded the game and it is IN-EX-CUS-A-BLE.
Exactly. Belichick employed a scheme that had been run that same year by Detroit and a college team, all perfectly legal. Harbaugh’s douchiness came after Brady dunked on him in the post game press conference. That’s what led to deflategate.
Let's just say that we've all been there; that something has agitated us to the degree that we couldn't let it go. So, there's a bit of schadenfreude involved with keeping the one who's upset continuing to post. That's how I read it, at least. That, and others trying to get the conversation over with.
Fair, I agree, we have all been there. But this is a weird one to me. The coach conceded a playoff game down by a single score with the chance to get the ball back with 30 seconds left. That feels really, really, out there to me.
I tend to believe what was said earlier ... that neither he nor his staff realized how badly the Lions were screwing it up and it got away from them. He wasn't going to throw the Lions under the bus in his PC today; so he tried to explain it away.
People make mistakes at critical moments. Jackie Smith doesn't catch the ball. The side judge and back judge miss the PI call in the Saints game. It happens
I totally agree with you. This should be the lead story of the news cycle. I'd be apoplectic if my team's coach did this.
Campbell admits Lions mucked it up
https://www.freep.com/story/sports/nfl/lions/2024/01/22/dan-campbell-detroit-lions-kneels-tampa-bay-bucs-todd-bowles/72317008007/
Bills gonna Bill in any language.
Wide right.
The music city miracle.
13 seconds.
Wide right part 2.
They find new and inventive ways to blow playoff games.
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IMO there's a less than 1% chance they fire him. The Pegulas seem very content with just "not sucking" with the Bills, and McDermott gives them that. He's a good coach, IMO, but they really should've canned him after 13 seconds. And once he got to stay after that, I'd be shocked if he gets let go this offseason. They need a fresh mind/voice in that locker room. I'd love an offensive minded coach, but I just don't see it happening.
Bowles not calling a time out there at the end is a fireable offense. It’s not beyond the realm of possibilities that a team could fumble in victory formation, and it wouldn’t be unthinkable for something crazy to happen if the Lions do some “snap the ball to the punter and have him run around to kill the clock” play. You simply cannot concede a one score game in that situation.
extremely unlikely that the Lions turn it over, but not impossible nor unheard of. Even if it’s a .0001% chance, you have to use your timeout. Just awful awful coaching.
In a 3 score game, go ahead and concede. But down 8 in a playoff game? I’d be livid if I were a Tampa fan.
extremely unlikely that the Lions turn it over, but not impossible nor unheard of. Even if it’s a .0001% chance, you have to use your timeout. Just awful awful coaching.
In a 3 score game, go ahead and concede. But down 8 in a playoff game? I’d be livid if I were a Tampa fan.
Hard for me to understand someone who lived through 2003 and everything that led up to it taking delight in the suffering of another fan base.
A friend of mine was at the game and said there was a sound in the stadium after Bass missed the field goal that he had never heard at a sporting event before. It was something like a collective sigh groan after an entire stadium who knew the game was over but still secretly held out a small hope for a miracle watched the ball slice wide right. Nobody was even that upset. Mostly just numb. Bills fans aren't entitled; you clearly have never met one. We are whatever the word for that noise that day was. Sports are stupid and I hate that I care so much about something that doesn't matter. I'm rooting for Detroit's fans the rest of the way.