On Conference Championship Sunday, like many of you, I was
watching the NFC Championship Game. I
was with my family, and, before the Packers’ 3rd-and-goal play (down
by 8 points with slightly more than 2 minutes remaining) from the Tampa 8-yard
line on the Packers’ last drive, I wondered aloud, “If the Packers don’t get
any yardage here, will they kick a field goal?”
Before I had time come to my own conclusion, Aaron Rodgers threw
an incomplete pass on 3rd down, and Matt LaFleur sent out Mason Crosby
(whose full-on gray hair makes him look pretty good for an old NFL guy, I must
say) to kick the field goal. If you are
reading this article, I am sure you know all the details and have heard all the
arguments ad infinitum about this allegedly being a terrible decision. However, I was honestly 50/50 on what the
Pack should do.
When it comes to analytics and win-probability calculations,
it seems that the Packers’ decision to kick the field goal might have cost the
Pack one percentage point in win probability.
It depends upon which site’s metrics you are using. That said, I have a “5 Percentage Point” Rule
when it comes to analytics. I think
that, if two choices at a given moment in a game provide win probabilities
within 5 percentage points of each other, the coach should base his decision on
things like: flow of the game, how his team is playing, how the other team is
playing, what play calls the coach has in his pocket, and so on. Of course, outside of this “5-percentage
point” window, I say to stick with the analytics.
Thus, in the case of the Packers on Sunday, my thoughts in
favor of kicking the field goal were as follows:
1)
The Packers had already come up empty on three
consecutive goal-to-go plays from the 8-yard line and had also had to settle
for a FG on 4th and Goal in the first half. Put simply, though Aaron Rodgers should be
the NFL MVP, in the moment on Sunday, I did not think that he was going to convert
on 4th and Goal from the 8.
(Note: I am usually the king of “going for it” on 4th downs,
even dating back to Belichick against the Colts in 2009, but it is a different story
with 8 yards to go and minimal ground for the defense to cover.)
2)
Being down 8 is only a quasi-one-possession
game. Take this from any Giants fan, as
we saw the Giants score a TD down 8 against Tampa this year, only to miss the
2-pointer and lose the game. Anyway, the
Packers were less than 50% likely to score on the 2-point conversion, so that
premise makes it more enticing to play for two scores than if down 7.
3)
Yes, Tom Brady is the GOAT. However, I figured that, with the Bucs up 5
(assuming Crosby makes the FG) AND with Brady having thrown 3 second-half
interceptions, he would play much more conservatively than if he were to
receive the ball in a tie game with 2 minutes left. (That said, I didn’t bank on the Packers’
defense lying down on that drive.)
I
am not going to bother arguing the other side, because you heard that all last week.
I am also not saying that the field goal was definitely the correct decision. I am merely saying that I would have been OK
with LaFleur making either decision.
(Good luck with your losers in Losertown, LaFleur!) Plus, this situation caused me to reminisce
about other sports moments over time in which the sports-watching public has
bought nearly 100% into a narrative that I either do not believe or about which
I am on the fence. I am going to list nine
such moments/narratives here, ranking them in increasing degree of disparity
between what I believe and what the masses believe. It is just a coincidence that the Seahawks,
Rob’s favorite team, are involved with three of the nine. He will love some of what I have to say and
hate some of what I have to say. Nevertheless,
here is the list – I will show each entry as the narrative, followed by my
counterargument.
9) “Bill Buckner cost the Red Sox the
1986 World Series.” – This would have likely been #1 on the list if I had
written the post before 2004. However,
Red Sox fans became more rational about Buckner after Boston won the 2004 World
Series. Anyway, in Game 6 of the 1986
World Series, the Mets were down by 2 with 2 outs in the Bottom of the 10th,
with nobody on base. The Sox were one
out from a championship. Then, the Mets
put together three consecutive hits, with Kevin Mitchell scoring the tying run
on a wild pitch. Only then did Buckner’s
error win the game for the Mets.
If
Buckner makes the play and beats Mookie Wilson to the bag, the Red Sox and
their awful bullpen have to go to the 11th inning demoralized by the
fact that they had blown a lead with the champagne on ice. It is likely they would have lost the game in
the 11th or another inning. That
said, even with the Red Sox losing on Buckner’s error, Boston could have won
the World Series in Game 7, and the Red Sox led THAT game 3-0 in the 6th
inning before blowing the game. It was a
thrilling series for Mets fans, but it is a vast oversimplification to say that
Buckner lost the series for Boston.
8) “The Mets lost Game 7 of the 2006
NLCS to St. Louis because Carlos Beltran struck out.” – This one has maddened
me for years. This loss represents the
only instance of which I have ever heard in which fans blame a team’s loss on a
guy who made an out. Even with a great
on-base percentage, a player makes outs more often than he gets on base. Anyway, I attended Game 7, and the Endy Chavez
catch-turned-DP was one of the most thrilling moments of my life, but the 9th
inning and subsequent walk to the 7-train was one of the most depressing
moments. That said, as nearly 60,000 despondent
Mets fans filtered out of Shea Stadium that night, we knew that the Mets had
lost because Yadier Molina had hit a 9th-inning homerun off Aaron
Heilman. I am not writing this to encourage
Heilman to take heat. It’s the playoffs,
and someone has to win. Someone has to
lose. However, blaming the guy (Carlos Beltran)
who struck out to end the game (on a nasty curve from Adam Wainwright) will
always seem short-sighted to me.
7) “The Sabres were cheated out of the
1999 Stanley Cup because Brett Hull’s skate was in the crease.” – First off,
the “in the crease” rules back then were ridiculous. I still have PTSD from the 1997
Devils/Rangers series in which the Devils had goals disallowed in three
consecutive games because of having an inconsequential skate barely in the
crease. Anyway, I watched the Stars/Sabres
Game 6 in 1999 and saw Brett Hull score the Cup-clinching goal in triple-overtime. Watching the goal live, it looked legit. Watching the replay, we all saw Hull enter
the crease after the puck had entered.
We saw the puck bounce briefly out of the crease, after which Hull
brought it back into the crease and scored the goal. We then heard the broadcasters say after the
game that the rules (at the time) allowed a player with the puck in the crease
to remain in the crease if the puck briefly exits the crease, so long as the
player is bringing the puck back into the crease. It is a reasonable rule, given that the
player has not yet had time to exit the crease.
Anyway, any objective fan watching that game live felt like the goal was
legit, and it was. Thus, I feel that the
Stars legitimately beat the Sabres to win the 1999 Cup.
6) “The replacement
refs in 2012 were terrible. Look how
they blew the Fail Mary!” – For the first three weeks of the 2012 NFL season, a
contract dispute led to replacement officials refereeing NFL games. Honestly, I did not think the games suffered
as a result. Then, on MNF in Week 3, the
Seahawks won on a last-play Hail Mary from young Russell Wilson (in his third NFL
game) to Golden Tate. Never mind that
some people thought that Tate should have been called for pass interference, as
nobody ever calls pass interference on Hail Mary attempts. The main issue was that the Packers’ defensive
back caught the ball with his two hands and chest at the same moment that Tate
caught the ball with one hand. Yes, M.D.
Jennings, the Packer, had “more possession”, I suppose, than Tate, but, for my
entire life to that point (and since), we have all known that, if an offensive
player and a defensive player both catch a ball, tie goes to the offense. The receiver gets the ball. As every talking head lost his or her mind in
the days following that “Fail Mary”, I never heard a single person mention that
simple “joint-possession” rule that we all know. I do not think the rule has a clarification
that two hands and a chest count as more than one hand. Thus, I think Tate deserved the TD, as per
the rule, and I think that regular NFL officials would have likely made the
same call as the replacements.
Nevertheless, everyone used this moment to say that the replacement
officials needed to go; the NFL quickly settled with the regular refs; and we
have now been able to enjoy 9 years of ridiculing the regular refs again.
5) “Brandon
Bostick shouldn’t have tried to catch the onside kick with Jordy Nelson behind
him!” – Wow, back-to-back entries in which the Seahawks broke the Packers’
hearts. This one was with even more on
the line, as it was the 2014 NFC Championship Game (played in 2015). Anyway, a basic rule of onside kicks is that
teams employ players with good hands and want those players to try to catch the
kick. Well, on this onside kick, Brandon
Bostick jumped to catch the kick, which ultimately bounced off his head/chest
region. Somehow though, after the game,
the prevailing narrative was that Bostick should have tried not to catch the
ball but instead let Jordy Nelson (who was behind him) try to catch the
ball. This is literally the only time in
NFL history that I have heard people argue that someone on the “hands” team
should move out of the way of the ball to let someone else on his team catch
it. Onside kicks are bouncy and
random. If you have a chance to catch
the ball, you try to catch it. You don’t
dive out of the way. You can criticize
Bostick for not catching the ball (though I still chalk the result up more to a
random bounce than to Bostick making an error), but the criticism that he
should not have tried to catch the ball has always been silly to me.
4) “The
Bills lost the Super Bowl to the Giants because Scott Norwood’s kick went
wide-right.” – No, the Bills lost that Super Bowl because one of the best
offenses in NFL history played conservatively on the last drive, as coach Marv
Levy and QB Jim Kelly settled for a 47-yard field-goal attempt by a guy who had
not made a field goal of that length or longer the entire season. Seriously.
People act like Norwood Finkled a chip shot to cost the Bills the Super
Bowl, but that is not the case. When a
team loses a Super Bowl because the team asks someone to do something he has
never done during the entire season, do not blame that guy for being
unsuccessful. Blame the people (Marv
Levy, Jim Kelly) who put that guy in that position.
3) “The Astros
are horrible, horrible, evil cheaters, and they should be stripped of their
World Series crown!” – Ah, the good old days of January 2020, when this was the
biggest issue on all of our minds!
Seriously though, baseball players have been stealing signs for time
immemorial. When I played, we tried to
steal signs. MLB players try to do
it. It is part of the game. Technology is part of the game now too. Thus, when I first heard about the Astros’
scandal, I shrugged my shoulders and said, “I kinda assumed that most teams
were trying to do stuff like this.”
I don’t like all of the outrage along the lines of, “Yeah,
stealing signs is fine, but everyone knows that it’s too far if you are using
cameras to do it!!!” Really? That is quite an arbitrary endpoint if you
ask me. That is like stealing beer from
the liquor store and criticizing the guy who is robbing the place of liquor at
the same time. Simply put, if teams have
been stealing signs forever, and there is more technology than ever, why wouldn’t
players be trying to use technology to steal signs?
Moreover, to give Carlos Beltran a second shout-out in this
post, am I really expected to believe that both the 2017 Astros and 2018 Red
Sox used cameras to steal signs but that, when Beltran moved from the 2017
Astros to the 2018 Yankees, he did not try to input some type of sign-stealing
apparatus with the Yankees too? I
certainly don’t buy it. I believe that every
team has been doing some semblance of what the Astros did but that the Astros
were simply better at it. This actually
analogous to how I feel about Bonds, Clemens, Sosa, McGwire, and A-Rod compared
to everyone else who was taking steroids at the time.
2) “Grady
Little should have taken Pedro out!” – I watched pretty much every inning of
the 2003 Red Sox’ playoff run. I was a
senior at Colgate, and my three roommates were all avid Red Sox fans. Thus, I was rooting incredibly hard for Boston
that year, and I knew first hand what an incredible dumpster fire the Red Sox’ bullpen
was. That is why I understood why Grady Little
took the approach of pushing Pedro deeper than he usually went in games because
it was Game 7 of the ALCS against the Yankees.
I understand him saying, “I’d rather go down swinging with a tired Pedro
than a fresh Scott Sauerbeck.” Similarly
to the LaFleur situation, I am not saying that Little definitely made the right
move; I am just saying that I think one could rationally defend Little’s
move. The sad thing though was that
nobody defended Little, and it has always bothered me that Pedro didn’t defend
Little. I feel like almost every other pitcher
in history would defend a manager for leaving him in for longer than he should
have, but Pedro was silent.
Anyway, as I watched Game 7 and watched Mike Mussina preside
over the Yankees’ comeback, I feel confident in saying that, had Little gone to
the pen a little earlier, the Yankees would have won the game anyway.
1) “How do
you not give the ball to Marshawn there???” – Well, if I didn’t anger Rob
enough with #3, this should finish him off.
Like with the LaFleur call, I ask myself, “What was I thinking in the
moment that the play happened?” Well, in
the case of Super Bowl XLIX, the Seahawks need one yard for a go-ahead
touchdown, when the Pats’ Malcolm Butler pulled off the most famous
interception in NFL history. As I
watched the play live though, I actually shouted, “Touchdown.” It looked like Wilson had thrown a touchdown
to a wide-open Ricardo Lockette, but my eyes deceived me into missing Malcolm
Butler making a perfect break to intercept the ball. Everyone else on the Pats’ defense thought
the Seahawks were running the ball. This
is why I credit Butler for winning the game, rather than Pete Carroll and Darrell
Bevell for losing the game by calling a pass.
People act like it was a given that Marshawn Lynch would have
scored a TD if Seattle had run the ball on that fateful second down, but the
Pats were clearly stacking the box against that possibility. I know that some people say that Seattle
should have run to try to take more time off the clock, but Seattle was down by
4. Down 4, the Seahawks had to worry
just about scoring a TD and let the clock fall as it may. If Lynch had been stopped on second down,
Seattle would have now had two chances with the pressure intensifying to score
a TD. Instead Carroll and Bevell made
what I thought was a good play call, but Malcolm Butler made an even better
play.
And there you have it.
Ten generally accepted sports narratives that I do not buy!
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