A lot of dumb stuff happens during football games, even at the NFL level. I’ve chronicled quite a few dumb things here on my blog. But today’s blunder from Sean Payton will surely rank up there as one of the dumbest things I’ve ever witnessed during an NFL game.
The Saints were down 20-10 and had just kicked off to the Browns; twelve minutes remained in the 4th quarter. The Saints had a chance to force a three and out. Colt McCoy dumped off a third down pass to one of his receivers; Darren Sharper dove to make a play at the ball but missed. It seemed, however, that Sharper had touched the receiver, making him down by contact; but the receiver scrambled off for a 12-yard-gain and the first down. Sharper protested to the refs, but to no avail; however, Sean Payton and his staff saw what happened and got ready to challenge. But wait—there’s a flag on the opposite side of the field, well away from the play. From where it’s thrown, it could only seem to be defensive holding or something similar. Sure enough, Malcolm Jenkins had been whistled for illegal hands to the face, a five yard penalty that is also an automatic first down.
At that point, Sharper’s tackle became completely irrelevant. Sure, he actually did make the tackle, but an upheld challenge by the Saints would only lead to the Browns’ acceptance of the penalty. And it’s not as if there were tons of yards at stake; the difference would be 1st and 10 at the 36 or 1st and 10 at the 29. Obviously if the receiver had run for a touchdown a challenge would be the proper call; and obviously, had there been no penalty, a challenge would have been the smart thing to do. Continue reading ‘sean payton’s dumb fourth quarter challenge’
I could say that things haven’t been going too well for the Saints this year. But that’s only relative to the success of last’s year 13-0 start and Super Bowl title. Relative to most of the Saints’ history, a 4-3 start is pretty damn good. But it’s also incredibly disappointing. Sure, the Saints’ offense hasn’t been anywhere near good as it’s been since the arrival of Sean Payton and Drew Brees. But the defense has been excellent; they haven’t scored the TDs or forced the turnovers that they did last year, but teams are having a very tough time scoring on the Saints. The Saints are 4th in total defense (measured in yards/game), an impressive stat. And the offense isn’t all that bad; they’re 7th in yards per game. Let’s look at the Saints’ three losses: a missed field goal in overtime against the Falcons; two pick-sixes against the Cardinals, and two more today against the Browns. Against Arizona and Cleveland, the Saints played excellent defense, keeping those teams’ rookie quarterbacks in check without too much trouble. But in both cases the turnovers killed the Saints. And the responsibility for those turnovers, while undoubtedly shared by players and coaches alike, ultimately rests with one man: the guy throwing them. Drew Brees is turning around to see the other team returning his passes for TDs almost as often as Jarrett Lee did for LSU in 2008. (Brees has thrown four so far this season; Lee had seven that year.)
I realize QBs are going to have bad games. It happens. Teams are obviously doing a much better job of adjusting to the Saints’ attack than they did last year. What bothers me about Drew Brees is the way he talked during the post-game press conference. (Transcript available here.)
Consider this quote:
“Any time you give up two defensive touchdowns, where you turn the ball over and that results immediately in a touchdown, you don’t even give your defense a chance to get out on the field and defend. When it happens once, you probably have about a 20% chance of winning after that. If it happens twice, you might as well throw it out the door. We have now had, in those two losses, four touchdowns scored against us where the offense turns the ball over and the defense scores. What is so frustrating is in both of those games if you take those touchdowns away, the defensive touchdowns, we score more points than they do.” Continue reading ‘drew brees not owning up to his mistakes’
It’s a common sight in a football game: the quarterback realizes that he won’t be able to get a play off before the play clock expires, so he burns a timeout to save the five yard penalty. There are other, similar situations where this happens. In virtually all cases, a team (whether on offense or defense) burns a timeout in order to save five yards.
I’m not sure if anyone has really crunched the numbers on this to determine when it’s a good idea. My guess is that an offense probably should call a timeout on 3rd-and-inches in a crucial situation rather than give up five yards. But the garden-variety first quarter 1st-and-10? Again, I’ll change my mind if someone shows me the numbers, but my guess is that holding on to that timeout in case you need it at the end of the half is better than using it just to save five yards. This is even more likely to be true in the NFL, where the clock doesn’t stop after a team picks up a first down; a two-minute drive is extremely difficult if a team doesn’t have any timeouts remaining.
Perhaps I’m wrong and a team should use its timeouts to avoid a delay of game (or similar penalty) on 1st-and-10. But clearly, there are times when a team shouldn’t. They punt from their own 30 on 4th-and-20. Surely a timeout wouldn’t be worth the five yards of field position when you’ve already resigned yourself to giving the other team the ball?
But perhaps the one situation that would most call for not taking the timeout occurred in today’s Saints-Bucs game. Even though I’m a Saints fan and the Bucs made a silly mistake, as a lover of football and hater of stupidity it pained me to see such idiocy occur. Continue reading ‘stupid timeouts’