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Game Coaching: Strange Decision in the 4th quarter?

breakingbryan said:
Wow Lu is on a warpath in this thread. Ordinarily I love this type of call, but you have to question it now based on field position and.

There's tons of things to take into consideration, but if the coaches felt that we could prevent them from getting a first down, they would have been left with a long field goal. Yes their kicker is good, but he did miss one yesterday. If you think you have the advantage (for whatever x's and o's reason), why give the other team an extra play to work with? Be agressive and force the given, which would be a long field goal, as opposed to giving the other team 2 chances to make a first down. Bottom line is that they have an opportunity to get a first down either way. One is a higher probability of first down but they only get one shot. The other is lower probability, followed by an unknown one, and they get 2 shots at it. Take the known risk and hopefully force a long field goal that isn't a given.

But, I see the other side too. I think I would have made the same call though.
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No pun intended, huh?
 
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Disagree Lu. I think he reasoned that Jimbo would not go for it on 4th and I have to agree. I think he reasoned that we had one stop to make and then they would have tried a long FG and he hoped their kicker would miss again since their kicker had already missed one earlier. I too wasn't sure immediately but now I think that was the right call. I also don't know Jimbo's history in that exact situation. I feel that our D had to make the one stop and that was a better percentage than giving them two shots. Again, I'm assuming he thought they'd try a long FG which is iffy. However, I also probably would have backed them up if I was making the decision. But I do see his logic.
 
IMAG8RH8R said:
Disagree Lu. I think he reasoned that Jimbo would not go for it on 4th and I have to agree. I think he reasoned that we had one stop to make and then they would have tried a long FG and he hoped their kicker would miss again since their kicker had already missed one earlier. I too wasn't sure immediately but now I think that was the right call. I also don't know Jimbo's history in that exact situation. I feel that our D had to make the one stop and that was a better percentage than giving them two shots. Again, I'm assuming he thought they'd try a long FG which is iffy. However, I also probably would have backed them up if I was making the decision. But I do see his logic.
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On the bright side, if he did give it this kind of reasoning, at least we can now say we have a coaching staff that is capable of thinking a few things through?
 
Good thing Lu isn't a Falcons fan. Can't imagine the Mike Smith questioning that'd be going on. Or a Pats fan for that matter after they played the Colts a few years ago and Belichick made the same call.
 
sfcane2 said:
Good thing Lu isn't a Falcons fan. Can't imagine the Mike Smith questioning that'd be going on. Or a Pats fan for that matter after they played the Colts a few years ago and Belichick made the same call.
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FWIW, I agreed with Belichek's call at the time. It didn't work, but it fit with everything he does and what needed to be done on that 4th down. Maybe I don't make the same call, but I felt it was one those "choice" calls.
 
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Have to disagree with Lu here.. I remember the call and sort of being torn myself when the issue came up. I asked myself if he should have taken it, but quite frankly, in my gut I would have declined it too. This defense has failed on 3rd down too many times this season... our secondary is a mess. You put them back that far on second down, and they probably start throwing.... if Im Golden, that is the last thing I want. He was looking to hold them to a field goal and didnt want to give them the extra down to possibly end the game right there.

This call is a no brainer with a decent defense... but even though we played much better on D on Sat.... Manuel was starting to find some success through the air. Pushing them back there basically pushes Jimbo to start throwing, which is a bigger risk for us. Keeping it where it was at least makes Jimbo running a close to 50/50 proposition, since he was playing for the FG too.

That it betrayed a total lack of confidence in the defense is obvious.. but so what? It is what it is.... weve seen this defense falter on critical 3rd downs all year.... why dare Jimbo to throw it and possibly end the game right there, when leaving it as it was is just asking your defense to hold them for 1 more play.

I think Golden figured we could still come back if we held them to a FG, whereas a TD would have ended it. With our defense, that isnt a gamble I think I would have made either.
 
To bump this thread up a bit and reference another good coach making a decision that many think was horribly wrong:

Mike Smith yesterday in Atlanta. Didn't trust his defense to hold Brees and Co out of field goal range. Thought his team could get six inches. It didn't work out. He didn't make a panicked decision. ****, he called timeout to think about. But many think it was the wrong decision. By most accounts, he's a very good coach, to boot. These things just happen. It's a zero sum game. Somtimes you're right. Somteimes you're wrong. You're never right 100% of the time. I don't think you can take this one call and broad-brush paint Golden as a bad gameday coach. And for the record, I don't think that's what Lu is doing here. It will be interesting to see, as noted, how he handles other in game situations.

/agree with Smith's call
//not sure I agree with Golden's, but not sure I hate it, either
 
Since we're looking back at some of these 2011 threads today, I don't know what's scarier:

(A) That I called myself an "Al Golden fan" out of the sheer hope that what he was selling would become true, or

(B) I am disturbingly insatiable skeptic who was ****-worried about some of the data points we were seeing 4 years ago, or

(C) This exact type of inconsistent decision-making is happening nearly 4 years later, or

(D) All of the Above

We're in a scary place, people. I'll keep praying there's some kind of miracle turnaround to this cycle.
 
LuCane said:
Since we're looking back at some of these 2011 threads today, I don't know what's scarier:

(A) That I called myself an "Al Golden fan" out of the sheer hope that what he was selling would become true, or

(B) I am disturbingly insatiable skeptic who was ****-worried about some of the data points we were seeing 4 years ago, or

(C) This exact type of inconsistent decision-making is happening nearly 4 years later, or

(D) All of the Above

We're in a scary place, people. I'll keep praying there's some kind of miracle turnaround to this cycle.
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All of us who have been porsting together since the Coker years have been making the same **** posts at the same points each corch's tenure. It is scary.
 
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weownfsu said:
LuCane said:
Since we're looking back at some of these 2011 threads today, I don't know what's scarier:

(A) That I called myself an "Al Golden fan" out of the sheer hope that what he was selling would become true, or

(B) I am disturbingly insatiable skeptic who was ****-worried about some of the data points we were seeing 4 years ago, or

(C) This exact type of inconsistent decision-making is happening nearly 4 years later, or

(D) All of the Above

We're in a scary place, people. I'll keep praying there's some kind of miracle turnaround to this cycle.
Click to expand...


All of us who have been porsting together since the Coker years have been making the same **** posts at the same points each corch's tenure. It is scary.
Click to expand...

Exactly, you could probably bump a similar thread from 2004.
 
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