Week 14 schedule:
Vikings @ Cardinals (Thursday)
Cardsthe end of that Bears game was painful to watch, with the overly-conservative play calling and rampant clock wasting. they're on the 17-yard line on 1st down, with 1:23 to go and 3 timeouts left. they don't even TRY to score a touchdown, and only try minimally to advance the ball. all of this points to them seeing a field goal as a sure thing, when there was no good reason to believe so.
after San Fran's last timeout, our moves with a fresh set of downs are:
- a run that looks like its primary goal is to stay in the exact middle of the field, rather than gain yards.
- let ~35 extra seconds burn off the clock before calling time-out.
- QB taking a knee and losing a yard.
- FG attempt on third down.
i can see why they don't wait til 4th to kick, but the two previous decisions were inexcusable. Gould hasn't been automatic this season, and his troubles include a miss from 40 yards in the same game. 26 yards would be a chip shot; 36 yards is not. why the Bears didn't try to advance the ball to make the kick closer (if a first down and a TD came in the process, that'd be a bonus) boggles my mind.
instead, the play callers treated the 36-yarder as a foregone conclusion, showing no faith in the offense. while the unit had been weak at scoring points given they were repeatedly handed great field position, they moved the ball plenty: 364 yards in total offense, with 170 of that in rushing. i can understand not wanting to let Jay Cutler put the ball in the air (though an endzone shot where he throws it away unless a receiver is WIDE open should be harmless), but the rushers (Forte, at least) are pretty damn sure-handed. a kick puts the ball in the air, too; nothing is guaranteed. were they really that afraid of a RB fumbling?
make no mistake, Gould blew it at 0:02. but i was already cringing for the previous ~1:10 of regulation due to asinine playcalling.
Jim Cramer has a quote about investing, "Recklessness disguised as prudence", that seems fitting here.
Situational football is underrated... but the good teams make the most with that. It's the difference between winning and losing and it's not a random occurrence when some teams fail at it when it matters most and repeatedly do it.
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