McCarthy's mistake was not realizing the Seattle offense was coming to life. And the Packer bend but don't break was playing into its hands.
McCarthy's mistake was not realizing the Seattle offense was coming to life. And the Packer bend but don't break was playing into its hands.
Bud Adams told me the franchise he admired the most was the Kansas City Chiefs. Then he asked for more hookers and blow.
HOFer
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.Originally Posted by pbmax
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.
It's such a GOOD feeling...13 TIME WORLD CHAMPIONS!!
That all true, but the problem I have is that he wasn't in a dangerous or precarious spot. There were no Seahawks near him. I still haven't seen a good replay that shows a wider view so I can't say for sure, but going down like that seems way to cautious with that much time left. I contend he may have even scored and sealed the game. I believe trying to advance (or even score) was well worth the chance given the situation.
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
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.
Last edited by vince; 01-19-2015 at 12:15 AM.
He could have gotten more yards and it might have made a big difference. But it was't the same leverage point as the other six catastrophic things that happened.
Bud Adams told me the franchise he admired the most was the Kansas City Chiefs. Then he asked for more hookers and blow.
It was just another mistake the Packers made at the end of the game. hindsight is 20/20 and I think if the Packers offense actually tried to move the football downfield after the interception I don't think anyone would give a shit about Morgan Burnett taking a knee. It was dumb, to much time left, but nobody would see this as the turning point of the game.
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.
After a night's sleep, I'm thinking the kneel down was huge, and not just symbolic. With open running lane, they took decisive FG off board. I blame Peppers.
You can blame anyone you want to and sure he could have set up another scoring opportunity, but Rodgers and the offense could have done that on their own as well. Everyone sucked and made terrible mistakes.
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.
Bud Adams told me the franchise he admired the most was the Kansas City Chiefs. Then he asked for more hookers and blow.
And ultimately, that didn't matter either, because for whatever insane reason, Wilson made two absolutely perfect throws to end the game
"Never, never ever support a punk like mraynrand. Rather be as I am and feel real sympathy for his sickness." - Woodbuck
Lynch got about 3 first downs just running. Wilson got one at least.
Sure, balls that were just missed earlier started landing in receivers hands. But without first downs, it doesn't matter if you are more accurate.
Bud Adams told me the franchise he admired the most was the Kansas City Chiefs. Then he asked for more hookers and blow.
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.
"Never, never ever support a punk like mraynrand. Rather be as I am and feel real sympathy for his sickness." - Woodbuck
Hayward got beat pretty badly by Baldwin. It was a good throw, but Hayward was trailing that pretty badly. They're probably lucky that didn't go for six right there.
And then they went cover 0.
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.
They had to move the ball to get into position where Wilson' accuracy cost them. Lynch's catch and the OT touchdown were both after several running first downs.
Not to mention that even the four man line with Clay was getting pressure that disappeared late in the 4th Q.
Bud Adams told me the franchise he admired the most was the Kansas City Chiefs. Then he asked for more hookers and blow.
I blame him only for not recognizing that his greatest tactical advantage was removed when he tapped the breaks. Too concerned with the clock, he altered the edge they had the entire game.
Bud Adams told me the franchise he admired the most was the Kansas City Chiefs. Then he asked for more hookers and blow.
^^^ relax, I was just kicking around the self- contradictory nature of the phrase - not the sequence of the game. If you're accurate, you get first downs and win - most of the time
"Never, never ever support a punk like mraynrand. Rather be as I am and feel real sympathy for his sickness." - Woodbuck
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