THE INTERCEPTION BY BURNETT

[pbmax]

But when have you ever seen a db slide immediately after a pick with that much time left? We were only up 12 and they had all three timeouts. I would call it pretty boneheaded and extremely vaginal. You can't be THAT afraid of fumbling the ball after an interception

I agree he should have tried to advance it. But even of he gains another 25 yards, does that change the game?

Fumbling it would have. It wasn't good, but it wasn't devastating.

[Harlan Huckleby]

I agree he should have tried to advance it. But even of he gains another 25 yards, does that change the game?

Fumbling it would have. It wasn't good, but it wasn't devastating.

this is about right

[King Friday]

I agree he should have tried to advance it. But even of he gains another 25 yards, does that change the game?

Um, yeah. We would've easily been in Crosby's FG range.

That said...I don't mind him sliding. It is up to McCarthy and the offense to make sure Seattle doesn't get the ball back with the capacity to win the game. McCarthy apparently felt that meant running the ball and getting blown up repeatedly for losses simply in an effort to eat up clock and avoid a turnover. It was conservative...and it gave Seattle a chance. I don't like the conservative call when you have the best QB in the NFL on your squad and a bunch of beat up Seahawk secondary players. If you are the Bengals...hell, yeah, be conservative. If you have Rodgers, you try whatever you think is necessary to ENSURE you win the game.

run-run-run-punt wasn't it.

[yetisnowman]

I agree he should have tried to advance it. But even of he gains another 25 yards, does that change the game?

Fumbling it would have. It wasn't good, but it wasn't devastating.

Seriously? Every bit of yardage has the potential to change the game, especially 25 yds. And maybe he scores. Maybe we kick a field goal after he returns it to the 30. Maybe even if we punt after the pick the extra yards he picks up allows us to pin them deeper. You just don't know. I gauge how stupid something was, based on the fact that I've never seen it before. You don't slide in that spot unless you have enough time to kneel the clock out. Otherwise guys would always just slide after making picks if there was any chance of being tackled on the return and fumbling.

[pbmax]

Seriously? Every bit of yardage has the potential to change the game, especially 25 yds. And maybe he scores. Maybe we kick a field goal after he returns it to the 30. Maybe even if we punt after the pick the extra yards he picks up allows us to pin them deeper.you just don't know. I gauge how stupid something was, based on how I've never seen it before. You don't slide in that spot unless you have enough time to kneel the clock out. Otherwise guys would always just slide after making picks if there was any chance of being tackled on the return and fumbling.

I agree that a return might have been all those things. It could also have resulted in a turnover. But it wasn't catastrophic. Possession was back where it needed to be. It was a net good. You can't call net plus catastrophic. Missed opportunity.

[King Friday]

I agree that a return might have been all those things. It could also have resulted in a turnover. But it wasn't catastrophic. Possession was back where it needed to be. It was a net good. You can't call net plus catastrophic. Missed opportunity.

Playing to simply avoid the "catastrophic" seems like a sure way to always lose big games. Often, games are won because teams take CHANCES that may end up to be catastrophic.

To me, football is like playing the stock market or playing blackjack. You ain't going to win big if you don't risk big. The greatest teams have historically been those who have been able to take advantage of those moments more than other teams. If you seek to avoid those moments, it will be to your detriment over the long term. Football is not a game easily wrapped up in advanced metrics like baseball. This game is violent. This game is emotional. If you try to "avoid the catastrophic", you lose your edge.

That is PRECISELY what happened to Green Bay today. They lost their edge, and the game swung enormously after that.

[vince]

Playing to simply avoid the "catastrophic" seems like a sure way to always lose big games. Often, games are won because teams take CHANCES that may end up to be catastrophic.

To me, football is like playing the stock market or playing blackjack. You ain't going to win big if you don't risk big. The greatest teams have historically been those who have been able to take advantage of those moments more than other teams. If you seek to avoid those moments, it will be to your detriment over the long term. Football is not a game easily wrapped up in advanced metrics like baseball. This game is violent. This game is emotional. If you try to "avoid the catastrophic", you lose your edge.

That is PRECISELY what happened to Green Bay today. They lost their edge, and the game swung enormously after that.

I'm quite sure I'm not going to change your outlook, so the only thing I can suggest if you're looking for some truth is to call up some football coaches and see what they think of your stock market analogy...if they agree that taking risks is the key to winning in football. I bet most would love to share their philosophical perspective of the game.

Since you laid out your philosophy I'll lay out mine and you can see how they compare and contrast.

I think football is about gaining (and keeping) control (of the ball, score, clock) not taking chances and risking giving it up. The better players execute, the more control you'll gain.

Risk taking in football means taking progressively bigger chances because you're otherwise unable to gain and/or running out of opportunity to gain the control you must have to win. You don't leave control to chance if you can help it and unlike the stock market or gambling on card games, bigger risk doesn't equal bigger reward in football, even though bigger risks become progressively necessary for the team lacking control because there are limits to how much control can be acquired. There's only one ball, a touchdown is only worth 7 and there are sixty minutes max before a winner is declared. Greater risks, while necessary as the team with poorer execution becomes increasingly desparate for control, deliver diminishing returns not increasing due to the ceiling on the benefit that can be gained and the likelihood that a bigger cost will be incurred with poor execution.

Therefore, the essence of football is the quest to eliminate risk taking, not do more of it.

[Harlan Huckleby]

Therefore, the essence of football is the quest to eliminate risk taking, not do more of it.

This is only true if you correctly evaluate ALL the risks. Playing too conservative - simply playing the odds all the way - can cause your players to lose confidence. Football is about emotions first. Psychology matters, not just odds of decisions on a spreadsheet.

[yetisnowman]

This is only true if you correctly evaluate ALL the risks. Playing too conservative - simply playing the odds all the way - can cause your players to lose confidence. Football is about emotions first. Psychology matters, not just odds of decisions on a spreadsheet.

The decision to take calculated risks in play calling is always up for debate. Especially late in a game. There is no debate about the Burnett play. It wasn't a play that just wasn't executed or a player that made a physical error. He willingly slid down for no good reason with the game still in doubt. How many interceptions result in a fumble loss for the intercepting team on the return? That's like choosing to be not kick field goals because you are afraid of the kick being blocked and run back for a TD.

[LEWCWA]

This is the big thing to me. I have a feeling when that happened, it woke up a defeated team. They saw this shit and got pissed off! They were on their sideline seething "these fuckers think the game is over"! They left everything on the field the last 5 minutes. You can't play football that way or anything else for that matter....It obviously carried over to the defense as well....totally different team after that!

[pbmax]

Therefore, the essence of football is the quest to eliminate risk taking, not do more of it.

Not entirely. Eliminating risk is a winning strategy for the more talented and better team. Its a terrible strategy for lesser teams. For evenly matched opponents, you have to accept risk where you have a tactical advantage to get an edge.

The Packers found that tactical advantage on defense and on Offense (between the 20s).

By changing the strategy, McCarthy was confident he could eliminate risk and not give up a game changing tactical advantage. That turned out not to be true. Yes, five different things had to go wrong, but by surrendering the advantage, he left himself at the mercy of his opponent's strengths. As soon as Burnett was in Cover 2, Wilson and Lynch were a part of the game again.

[mraynrand]

As soon as Burnett was in Cover 2, Wilson and Lynch were a part of the game again.

And ultimately, that didn't matter either, because for whatever insane reason, Wilson made two absolutely perfect throws to end the game

[vince]

Not entirely. Eliminating risk is a winning strategy for the more talented and better team. Its a terrible strategy for lesser teams. For evenly matched opponents, you have to accept risk where you have a tactical advantage to get an edge.

The Packers found that tactical advantage on defense and on Offense (between the 20s).

By changing the strategy, McCarthy was confident he could eliminate risk and not give up a game changing tactical advantage. That turned out not to be true. Yes, five different things had to go wrong, but by surrendering the advantage, he left himself at the mercy of his opponent's strengths. As soon as Burnett was in Cover 2, Wilson and Lynch were a part of the game again.

You have to take risks when you don't have control of the ball, score and clock. The Packers had that. In retrospect, you can say that McCarthy/Rodgers should have taken more risks because he should not have expected his players to execute and maintain control of all three. As it happened it took a historically unique sequence of unbelievably bad execution to lose that control at the very end of the game. If you wanna blame McCarthy for not foreseeing that unbelievable series of events - everyone of which had to occur in the worst possible way in sequence - then that's anyone's prerogative but I don't think that has any basis in realistic expectations. You'd have to have been a psychic to foresee all that shit. I can't blame him for having confidence in his guys to not achieve the worst possible outcome repeatedly in such short succession as what occurred at the end of that game.

[Maxie the Taxi]

By changing the strategy, McCarthy was confident he could eliminate risk and not give up a game changing tactical advantage. That turned out not to be true. Yes, five different things had to go wrong, but by surrendering the advantage, he left himself at the mercy of his opponent's strengths. As soon as Burnett was in Cover 2, Wilson and Lynch were a part of the game again.

This is truth and the essence of the argument.

By choosing to run out the clock and not pass (or make a serious attempt by other means to make a 1st down and win the game), Stubby not only played into Seattle's strength, but he chose to put the game on the back of our problematic defense rather than on the back of our offense, which has been and is the strength of this team.

Moreover, we had three downs to make a first down, something we would be in total control of. Stubby's change of strategy insured that the fate of the game would be decided by the chance bounce of the football on an onside kick.

This is not 20/20 hindsight. Anyone watching the game knew there was plenty of time to score and that to win, Seattle would have to recover an onsides kick.

This certainly was in the back of my mind at the time.

[yetisnowman]

I agree that a return might have been all those things. It could also have resulted in a turnover. But it wasn't catastrophic. Possession was back where it needed to be. It was a net good. You can't call net plus catastrophic. Missed opportunity.

I think we can agree that him fumbling the return was significantly less likely than all the other scenarios I mentioned. You can't play defense afraid of fumbling interception returns. Yes the play was a net good. But you don't just concede a good play for a potential game clinching play. In my opinion

[King Friday]

You don't slide in that spot unless you have enough time to kneel the clock out.

That is the problem...the Packers DID think they only had to take a knee to win the game. It was a tragic and flawed decision to put the result of the game on the shoulders of your prevent defense and error-prone special teams...instead of your $20M QB and vaunted offense.

Herm got it right...you play to WIN the game. Run-run-run-punt with 5 min left in the game and only up 12 on the road is not playing to win, but playing not to lose.