Scott Campisi

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Mr. Zorn. You are a Godsend. I hope you never ever lose job as head coach of the Cowboys’ rival.
Now wouldn’t it be sweet to see Suisham extend the irony by driving a couple of 50-yarders into the throats of the Redskins to win a close game Sunday night?

Scott Campisi

So now you’re making Bill Belichick stand up and defend the fact that he tries to make the calls that give his team the best chance of winning? Seriously? You’ve got to be kidding me. He’s Bill Belichick for cryin’ out loud!!! Show some respect. At least take a more reasonable look at the possibility that he might have made the best available call. Here’s how it breaks down.

The Pats in recent years convert on 4th-down attempts about 60% of the time. And if they had made it on 4th down, they almost certainly would have won because after a 1st down they could have gotten rid of both of the Colts timeouts and run 50-55 seconds off the clock, even without picking up another 1st down. So if the Pats had converted that 4th down, then even if they just ran into the line 3 times and punted, the Colts would probably have gotten the ball around their own 25 with 1:05 or so on the clock, with no timeouts, needing a TD. That heavily favors the Pats.

So if the Pats have a 60% chance of converting that 4th down, then by choosing to go for it, they have at least a 55% chance of winning the game.

But what are their odds if they punt instead of going for it? Let’s see… The Colts would most likely have gotten the ball around their own 30. Have you ever seen Peyton Manning in a situation where he had 2:00 and 2 timeouts and needed a TD from somewhere around his own 30? Have you? How did that work out for him? How did it work out for the other team who had punted the ball to him? Just exactly how often do you think Manning fails in that situation? And how often does he score? I don’t have the numbers, but I’d bet he succeeds close to 90% of the time in that situation. The guy is amazing! But let’s be more conservative than that and say he only scores TDs on about 75% of those kinds of drives. Can you agree to that? And then consider that the Pats were playing without most of their their pass-rush threats: without Tully Banta-Cain (who had just been injured), without Jarvis Green, without Ty Warren. The Colts would have been able to protect Manning easily.

Hmmm… that means that if the Pats had punted, the Colts would have had at least a 75% chance of winning, but probably much higher. And the Pats would have had at most a 25% chance of winning, probably much lower. But if Belichick goes for it, the Pats have about a 55% chance of winning.

I realize these numbers aren’t perfectly accurate, but they’re not too far off. So I’m getting tired of hearing people say, “you have to force the Colts to prove they can drive on you.” I mean… didn’t those people watch the 4th quarter? In two of the previous three Colts possessions, they scored TDs on 79-yard drives in 2:04 and 1:49 without calling a single timeout. They had already proven they could drive quickly down the field on the Pats. The Pats didn’t need to see any more proof to know they didn’t want to give the ball to Peyton Manning.

And remember the Super Bowl from the 2007 season? At the 2:00 minute warning, the Pats had the lead, but Eli Manning had the ball at his own 28, with 3 timeouts. How’d that end? Yeah, that’s right, the lesser Manning led a 72-yard TD drive to win it. Why didn’t the Pats just stop him if stopping a Manning is that easy?

So here’s the bottom line. If the Pats had punted, they would have lost. At least in going for it they gave themselves a chance. The decision was that they could willingly give Manning the ball, or they could TRY NOT to give Manning the ball. It was the right call.

Scott Campisi

But his passes to WRs showed the game plan. He had 7 completions to WRs for only 41 yards. That’s less than 6 yards per completion on passes to WRs.

By my count, he only threw 3 passes to targets deeper than 12 yards. Two were in the 12-15 yard range, and were completed nicely. The other went deep and should have been an easy INT, but the DB dropped it. Vince did have a very nice 7-yard completion to a WR though; he spun out of trouble, rolling deeper and to his left, then flicked a perfect pass on a hookout to convert 3rd and 6. He also had a nice 6-yard TD on a fade that wobbled terribly but was placed perfectly.

Ultimately, his team’s 305 yards rushing made Vince’s passing pretty much irrelevant. But if the Jags had been able to stop the run and take away the short pass, then what would have happened? Really, we have no way of knowing for sure, so we’ll have to wait for the Titans to play a better team.

Scott

A quick look at his stat line for Sunday shows that he came up big with 2 enormous catches for 9 humongous yards. Oh, but one was in the endzone though… so let’s take a look at that. Romo dropped back, got in trouble, ducked and spun away, the dodged two other guys, then stood up, looked into the endzone, ran toward the line of scrimmage, then found Crayton, who was just then getting open from single coverage. Uh… they guy was covered well for about 6 or 7 seconds. The fact that he finally pulled away and caught a 5 yard TD pass is not exactly going to bring him resounding praise in the film room.

And what about that punt return. Did you see those tackles he broke, those tacklers he juked, the elusiveness he showed? Neither did I. He took about 2 steps to his right with no one in his face, then he ran straight up the middle of the field. It wasn’t genius on his part.

I’m not criticizing him; he did what he was supposed to do. I’m criticizing the so-called analysts who think this is a sign of what he can do when he’s got something to prove.

But this is a different situation. They’re 0-6. It would take a miracle just for these guys to finish at 8-8 and miss the playoffs by 2 games. They’re not going to the postseason. So why not find out what VY is?

If he really is what the Titans hope he is, then they’ve discovered the savior of the future. If he can’t get it done, then they know they can let him go and move on. If for some reason these next 10 games aren’t enough to prove it, then they should be the experience he needs to be able to prove it by the end of next year’s training camp. There’s no negative at all that can come from putting Vince in. They’ve got a free pass around the pitfall of how to get more experience for a young QB without risking a season.

I don’t believe for one minute that Kerry Collins is the problem, but they’ve got plenty to gain from seeing what VY is, and absolutely nothing to lose.

Scott

I loved the quote from DeMarcus Ware after the Cowboys fell to 2-2 in 2006: “It’s 2-2 now, so we got… what… eleven games left.”

I love Butch Davis’s classic quote on the Browns’ costly mistakes against the Bolts in 2003: “Take 17 points off the board and it’s probably a very different outcome.”

But I have to say Romo’s quote from Sunday is already one of my favorites. It wasn’t just funny, it was pretty clever.

They asked him what problem he was having (concussion, neck problem, shoulder…) because he looked like he was hurt after getting hit while running the ball on 3rd and 18.

First he made the usual kind of joke… “Yeah, I really don’t remember.” Okay… that’s a little smile, but then, coming back to re-answer the same question of what problem he’s having… Romo says, “Actually I just broke up with a girl recently.”

Oh, that one’s precious. He’s laughing at himself, at the media, at the world’s obsession with celebrities’ love lives. That’s definitely one to remember.

Scott Campisi

Updated Scores:

Speaking of QBs in that game… Did you notice Cutler had at least two INTs dropped and still threw four that the Packers defenders managed to hang onto.

Frightening indicator for the Cheeseheads: How do you win the turnover battle by 4 at home, and barely squeak out a 6-point win with late 4th quarter heroics?

Does either of these teams have a chance in the North against the Adrian Peterson show. AP put up 63.8% of his team’s net offense Sunday against the Browns.

And speaking of the Vikings/Browns, I tuned in to see what Brett Favre and Brady Quinn look like… and I still don’t know. As for Favre, he really didn’t have to throw much because the team had 225 rushing yards. He didn’t give me any reason to believe or disbelieve in his current level of ability. AP looked great though.
As for Quinn… he made one incredible play, rolling to his right in trouble, left his feet and slung the ball all-arm… and threw a perfect strike 30 yards on a rope. I rewound and watched it 4 or 5 times because I couldn’t believe he did it. But he didn’t do much else. He wasn’t throwing downfield except on the sidelines. That’s often a sign of a young QB who isn’t reading things well enough. On the other hand, it could have just been that the defense was taking that away. We’ll have to wait to see what Brady is.

Bills/Pats: Oh, God, the Bill/Pats game. It hurt me. I’m no Bills fan, but it hurt to see them let that game slip away… especially against the monster in their division. That game was so important and they had an 11-point lead with 2:10 on the clock. I heard Gruden say, after McKelvin’s fumble, that he should have stayed in the endzone for the touchback. I say no: he was fine to come out and tick the clock down to the 2:00 warning. That was all good. The problem was that he should have PROTECTED THE BALL! I’ll bet you that no one told him before the play to secure the ball. And why not, it was the only really important thing he had to do? That’s the mark of an inexperienced team.
It reminds me of a story Emmitt Smith told about the Cowboys’ game against the Houston Oilers in 1991 in what was at that time known as “The House of Pain” (for you young’uns that was the Astrodome. It was kind of an important stadium back in the day). Dallas had the game locked up, so they gave it to their workhorse, Emmitt Smith, to run out the clock. And he fumbled. After they lost in OT, he said that nobody in the huddle was saying anything about securing the ball. It was the only thing that mattered but nobody said it. That was an extremely talented, but underexperienced Cowboys team that got blown out of the playoffs by the Erik-Kramer-led Detroit Lions. The next year, that experience paid off and they turned in a pretty decent season.

Interesting Ironic Connections:

1. That next year, in the 1992 season, the Oilers blew a 35-3 playoff game lead to… the Bills, the very team that started me down this line of thinking.
2. And what’s more, it was those same Bills who got beat in the Super Bowl by the 1992 Cowboys.
3. The final score of the Bills/Pats game Monday was 25-24. If you’ll recall, the Bills pulled a similar stunt 2 years ago against the Cowboys in Orchard Park. You’ll recall the game where Romo turned it over 6 times, but the Cowboys won anyway. That final score was also 25-24, and the Bills were wearing their throwbacks in that game too. Maybe it’s the jerseys.