To kick or not to kick, that is the question

What were your thoughts about Bill's decision to kick a 56 yard FG in the rain with 50 seconds left?

  • Good decision

    Votes: 33 11.4%
  • Bad decision

    Votes: 69 23.8%
  • Preferred going for it but was ok with kicking

    Votes: 118 40.7%
  • Preferred kicking but would have been ok with going for it

    Votes: 19 6.6%
  • Either decision was acceptable - just too bad

    Votes: 50 17.2%
  • Other

    Votes: 1 0.3%

  • Total voters
    290

OurF'ingCity

Member
SoSH Member
Apr 22, 2016
8,469
New York City
Sorry to beat a dead horse but my point (again) is that this is the process that happens every game and I know with other teams and I bet with every decently-coached team in the league. The coach will consult with special teams coach (and the kicker either directly or through the special teams coach) what distance the kicker has confidence making.

If the coach doesn't trust the kicker and/or the ST coach, the coach is going to get a new kicker and/or ST coach.

If Harbaugh gets an indication from Justin Tucker and/or the special teams coach that Tucker is good from the 55 yard line, once Harbaugh gets to the 55 yard line, he's going to strategize as if Tucker is going to make that. He's not going to wonder if Tucker took into account conditions or the condition of the field (etc.). And Tucker apparently is always correct.
I dunno, this seems hard to believe for me. A good kicker is always going to be supremely confident in his kicking ability, unless he has an injury, so the distance a kicker feels confident in making is always going to be at the very top end of that kicker's range. The job of a coach certainly requires taking into consideration that input, but only as one data point. I'm sure if BB had polled the offense before fourth down and asked them how confident they were in converting the fourth down, to a man they also would have said they were very confident, feeling good, etc.

Input from the special teams coach is a bit different because he will presumably be more realistic about the kicker's abilities. So I do assume that the coaches collectively determined the yardage from which a kick made sense, I just don't think Folk's confidence played a massive role in that decision (obviously if he had told them he definitely couldn't hit from that yardage, his input would have played a bigger role).
 

tims4wins

PN23's replacement
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
37,070
Hingham, MA
I dunno, this seems hard to believe for me. A good kicker is always going to be supremely confident in his kicking ability, unless he has an injury, so the distance a kicker feels confident in making is always going to be at the very top end of that kicker's range. The job of a coach certainly requires taking into consideration that input, but only as one data point. I'm sure if BB had polled the offense before fourth down and asked them how confident they were in converting the fourth down, to a man they also would have said they were very confident, feeling good, etc.

Input from the special teams coach is a bit different because he will presumably be more realistic about the kicker's abilities. So I do assume that the coaches collectively determined the yardage from which a kick made sense, I just don't think Folk's confidence played a massive role in that decision (obviously if he had told them he definitely couldn't hit from that yardage, his input would have played a bigger role).
Game situation matters too. BB isn’t trying that FG on the opening drive of the game.
 

axx

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 16, 2005
8,126
I guess it was a miracle that he came that close?
That's kind of what I am trying to say. Bill prefered doing that (with some odds that the Bucs get a score on the backside) compared to trying to pick up the first and getting closer.