Quote Originally Posted by vince View Post
Those rules haven't changed yet as far as I know, passing era or not. But as you say the game has passed us old school 2d guys by so catch me up if that's wrong.
Vince, I applaud your creative use of statistics to verify what my eyes have seen and my ears have heard over the last 10 years: Stubby is old school and a damned good head coach. Whether or not your statistics prove whether or not the "New School" passing strategy to get 1st downs and points in the fourth quarter is inferior to the Old School strategy of literally running down the clock, and whether or not Stubby would be the greatest coach in NFL history if he was "New School," IMO, is still an open question. But why beat this dead horse?

You write: "The basis of your argument is that all 'failures' are equal - and you equate a no-gain running play late in the game with a game-changing on-side kick doink off the head?"

No, in fact, this is not the basis of my argument. All I said was that failure to execute is a "simple fact of life." Failures can happen anytime on any play and that they shouldn't be used to "justify one strategy to the exclusion of another." Yes, Davis dropped a 1st down pass. But that failure doesn't make passing again on 2nd down a foolish play.

On the play immediately prior Davis returned a punt 50 yards to the Lions' 30 yard line -- FG scoring position and a possible game clincher. Packer special teams penalties resulted in a minus 50 yards in field position and loss of scoring position. If the Packers had gone on to lose, which failure would have had "game-changing magnitude?" You can't control when and where a failure will occur, which is another reason, I would argue, that you shouldn't "sit on a lead."

Now, after all the discussion in this thread, maybe someone can explain to me what Stubby accomplished by running Starks into the teeth of eight Lions in the box on 2nd down with 6:31 to go in the game other than running 38 seconds off the clock and making 3rd down way more difficult to convert? If Arod can complete a 9 yard pass to Starks on 3rd down with the Lions defense playing back, why couldn't he have completed it on 2nd down? And wouldn't that have put the players in a better position to succeed on 3rd down?