clearly it was the brilliance of Belichick not calling a TO and w/ the clock running down Seattle panicked and decided to throw.
As was the non-call on Mathews when he clearly shoved Arrington on a big catch that led to a TD. The refs let both teams play. I know, I know, we only talk about the calls that go the Pats way... sorry.
He might have quit on the game but I doubt it. I was saying to one of our kids at that point in the game why doesn't he call a time out like most of the rest of you probably were. But it could just have been his game calculation. He might have thought he had a better chance to take away the ball at that point (even though a small one) than have time on the clock for a probable 80 yard drive (and maybe 20 seconds). He put his faith in his defense I guess. BB has not always been right as we know. Of course that infamous game when he went on 4th and short in his opponents territory and didn't get it and because of that lost the game.
You're logic is twisted on this one--you're the one claiming it was an horrendous call yet you offer no explanation as to why a competent OC would make such a call except he was trying to outsmart the defense-- even though he is always trying to outsmart the defense! Furthermore, you state that BB was doing something else that was horrendous simultaneously yet you mock the suggestion of a relationship between the 2 events. The solution to this logic problem is easy and I was hoping you would make it independently. The answer is that Bevell's call was not horrendous.
people make bad decisions sometimes. BB made a bad decision and was saved by the Sea OC's bad decision. Humans play and coach these games.
Belichick didn't give up on the game, Rightly or wrongly he put his money on the D keeping the Seahawks out of the end zone, BTW, I also was yelling at the TV for him to use his TO's. As for the Colts game referred to above, he knew his defense had zero chance to stop Manning and knew he had to try to keep possession.
I think it's possible this was an Ernie move. Marshawn has 5 rushes from the 1 on the goal line and he was 1 for 5 with -1 yards total. I think they just chose to play defense. They were never going to get vertical passes on that defense after working with 0-5 yard completions all day long. If they were going to win it was going to be on defense and I think Belichick felt like he'd just let Seattle deal with the clock.
If BB called a time out, Seattle would have had all the time they needed to run three times at the end zone. After time ran down, PC needed to stop the clock without using his time out or risk not having time to use his three shots at the end zone. A pass was the answer, complete it's a td, incomplete the clock stops. Of course, there was that third possibility.....
Not calling the TO may have been calculated on the assumption that Lynch was going to bang it in on the play, so that TO's would be saved to use the middle of the field for potential game tying FG.
yeah but Seattle was going to let the play clock go down costing them 40 secs. Call the TO and make them run it in and save 30+ seconds.
I think the TO would have been called if he did not score, to avoid the run down of the clock The more I think about it, the more I think Belichek took a calculated risk that a quick run to Lynch would take the least amount of time and the Pats would have the ball and two TOs and about 22 seconds left. Sea. gave no indication of bleeding the clock @ that point. IIRC, they quickly got off hte snap. For all we know, maybe the Pats were going to let Lynch score on a run anyway, since the score would've been 31-28 and they could've tied with a FG.
But the reality was that Seattle didn't use the clock. After Lynch's run to the 1, they snaped the ball very quickly with about 28-30 seconds left. If Lynch had scored, it would've taken about 5 seconds. If not, I'm sure we would've seen a NE time out. But once Seattle came out quickly in the shot gun, there was no need to call TO, unless Wilson took a long time at the line before snapping. If they did, Belichek could've easily called time out. But they snapped it very fast, and the rest was history.
USA Today has an article out this morning which brings up a pretty good point. If Seattle had run the ball right there, they would have had to use their final time out and that would have ensured that 3rd and 4th down would be passing plays. That's actually a pretty good point. And a better scenario for that defense in my opinion than giving the offense 25 seconds to go down the field and win the game.
