Hey, what a SUPER Wild Card Weekend, am I proper? We’d not have seen nice NFL soccer, or nice officiating, and even nice decision-making from gamers and coaches alike, however we did see loads of chaos. And, as everyone knows, chaos is the place the actual enjoyable begins — except your workforce is the one fumbling round at nighttime regardless of the tough glare of the nationwide highlight. However with apologies to Vikings, Dolphins, and Ravens followers, let’s check out a few of yesterday’s truly-terrible-but-als0-kinda-hysterical game-ending selections.
Gotta get the play in, Mike
We’ll begin with the primary recreation of the day, Dolphins – Payments. Might Miami survive and advance with out Tua? Is Josh Allen the following Patrick Mahomes? Is that this lastly the yr the Payments Mafia will get their final reward? Properly, possibly. And this one was so much nearer than it in all probability ought to have been, thanks to 3 turnovers from Allen. Nonetheless, America waited, breathless, on the sting of its seat… as Miami head coach Mike McDaniel inexplicably let a minute expire with out getting a play in. Look:
So what did McDaniel should say for himself afterwards? Reader, he said this:
“There was some crowd noise that needed to do with mishearing some studying of digits of the wristband. There was some points throughout the huddles of communication and attending to the road of scrimmage.
“And there’s the excuse that you simply don’t use, that could be a actual compounding variable, that there’s a a number of quantity of various individuals within the huddle, the place speaking — whenever you’re in a pleasant routine, or possibly there’s a gaggle of offensive linemen which might be being communicated to by the identical individual. When you might have flux like that, it occurs, it shouldn’t occur as a lot because it did.
We had been deploying a gaggle of gamers for the first-and-10 name. It was articulated that, no, it was fourth down. That miscommunication — that’s all of the stuff that you simply do on this enterprise. You by no means cease discovering the issues which you can enhance on. And it was a bit of the rationale why had been unable to come back out with a victory. Nevertheless it positively wasn’t the one cause.”
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That’s really more of a description of what happened than an explanation, but okay. The worst part was that McDaniel said all of this while still wearing a truly terrible Dolphins’ hat, which I get was supposed to look distressed and edgy, but just wound up looking like several people had sweated in it multiple times. Yarg.
Kirk Cousins: Never not conservative
Up next, we have the Vikings and Giants, and kudos to our Jon Hoefling for calling this one accurately. The Vikings by no means regarded nice (although Kirk Cousins actually played pretty well), however at no level did they give the impression of being worse than on the ultimate play:
So, there’s no means this was the precise play name, proper? This needed to be a verify down. And when you’re going to verify down on a play that has your entire season driving on it, what do you even have Justin Jefferson for? Looks like the time to let one fly and hope Jefferson grabs it was within the remaining seconds of a recreation with the postseason on the road, no? Alas. It doesn’t even matter how nicely Cousins performed on Sunday — that is the one play anybody goes to recollect.
Here’s what Cousins had to say:
“Yeah, it was only a shell learn there. I noticed single-high (protection) and tried to work Justin (Jefferson) and didn’t be ok with placing it as much as Justin. And after I went to progress, I simply felt like I used to be about to get sacked. I felt I needed to put the ball in play. I couldn’t go down with a sack.
So I simply kicked it out to T.J., and I had thrown in need of the sticks on a couple of events within the recreation and going again a couple of weeks. I simply felt like throwing in need of the sticks isn’t the top of the world, and it was clearly tight protection. However I felt like I used to be going to go down and take a sack and put it out.”
Comprehensible, I suppose, however you possibly can’t dance round post-win shirtless in big chains after which take the secure choice when it issues. Cousins has all the time had a repute for being too conservative by half (on and off the sector), and Sunday’s resolution isn’t going to vary anybody’s thoughts.
Lastly, we convey ourselves to the ultimate Sunday recreation, Ravens – Bengals. All of us knew Lamar Jackson was on the bench for this one, which was the supply of some disappointingly low-key beef amongst former gamers. Nonetheless, even with out Jackson on the sector, Baltimore had an opportunity.
What the hell was John Harbaugh doing?
Head coach John Harbaugh was off to tough begin in Ravens – Bengals, having been an entire jackaass to sideline reporter Melissa Stark earlier than halftime:
Harbaugh’s unhealthy day continued, along with his workforce going into the huddle TWICE throughout the remaining minute of the sport, trailing 24-17. Not solely that, Harbaugh left TWO time outs on the board till there have been solely 8 seconds remaining within the recreation. After which Harbaugh took a trip with the clock already stopped. What within the identify of all that’s holy…
Guess what occurred? THEY RAN OUT OF TIME. QB Tyler Huntley heaved one in the direction of the heavens that Baltimore virtually got here down with. Think about what they may have finished in the event that they’d truly, oh, I don’t know, used a trip to reset and name in a play? Have we not reached the purpose in American soccer the place children spend years studying clock administration by way of Madden? Isn’t there anybody on Harbaugh’s employees below 40?
Anyway, right here’s what Harbaugh had to say:
“We needed to save lots of the timeouts for the purple zone. The factor that killed us was the holding penalty. That knocked us again. The thought was, we needed to maintain these timeouts to throw the ball. So, we tried to pop a run there, we had been gonna name a timeout after that, and we’d nonetheless have a run/go choice. We needed to attain with out giving the ball again. We predict we’re going to get within the purple zone, we predict it’s going to be a sure variety of performs, and we’re going to work proper all the way down to the top of the sport. Fairly than rating with 30, 35 seconds left, you give them an opportunity to go kick a area aim on the finish.
“So, I feel we performed it proper. Didn’t work out within the sense that after that, we had incomplete passes. Should you full the passes, you get the ball within the purple zone, you name the timeouts. So, I feel that at an elementary stage, you possibly can say, ‘Ah (expletive), they need to have used the timeouts.’ However we had the timeouts labored proper.”
Within the iconic phrases of J. Peterman, that definitely is loads of phrases. I don’t actually know what to say besides that nothing about that remaining minute “labored proper,” there’s no means Harbaugh goes to persuade anybody it did, and saving your timeouts for the purple zone solely works when you can truly get to the purple zone.
I can’t wait to see what tonight brings.
