The Washington Redskins' Big Stupid Trick Play

Above-the-Post Comment: Lorien1973 observes:

Typical DC. It's retarded. No one understands it. It fails. But they keep doing it.

Thanks for rescuing this post and giving me some political cover!

Another one: Dr. Spank--

What impressed me most on that play was the pass protection. Solid B+

...

Conception: Weak. The sort of thing that works in high school.

Execution: Weaker.

The one thing I would say is that sometimes coaches get the idea, correctly, that they are getting the crap beaten out of them, that conventional plays will not work, and that something big and risky needs to be done to change the momentum, or else defeat is virtually guaranteed.

And I think a lot of the times coaches suppress this though and go with the safer move -- the field goal, the punt, etc. -- even though it's better to take a chance and do something that will get you, possibly, closer to a win. Instead, they do the thing that will keep the score "respectable." "Respectable" for a loss. Still a loss, but hey, no one will make fun of them too much on the next morning. The talk show hosts won't whine too much that they did the standard, safe, comfortable-with-defeat-as-long-as-it's-respectably-close play.

I mean, look at the stats for going for it on fourth down. Bill Bellichick doesn't go for it too much. Other coaches go for it too little. Because even though the safe play is he wrong play, it's the play that doesn't get your ass chewed out on talk radio.

That said: What a stupid play! See JWF for the full how-stupid argument.

I'd just argue the game really was getting out of hand, and was probably lost, and Zorn was right that he needed to do something to change the trajectory, or else he was on a glide path to a guaranteed loss. At least this gave him some sort of chance.

posted by Ace at 03:24 PM

| Access Comments