I still don't understand not wanting to score there. What if they fumble on the next play?
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 7 February 2012 15:44 (twelve years ago) link
you can kneel down 3 times and then kick. no danger of fumble, just remote chance of flubbing the kick. remote unless you are the cowboys, of course.
― Roberto Spiralli, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 15:45 (twelve years ago) link
just prevent NE from scoring, 'fraidy cats
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 7 February 2012 15:46 (twelve years ago) link
they mostly managed to
― iatee, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 15:47 (twelve years ago) link
everyone in new england seems to be in complete denial about the fact that this was a terrible loss (and yes i include myself)
― call all destroyer, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 15:49 (twelve years ago) link
terrible how?
― Roberto Spiralli, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 15:51 (twelve years ago) link
they should have won? they were ahead with the ball and a chance to ice the game?
i mean, if the giants led the whole time and straight up outplayed them you could be like yeah not terrible the gmen were just better. but on the whole it was a pretty terrible loss and i think there's a lot of rationalizing going on up here.
― call all destroyer, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 15:54 (twelve years ago) link
pats had a small lead but it's not like they were dominating in any sense
― iatee, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 15:55 (twelve years ago) link
no of course they weren't dominating.
― call all destroyer, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 15:56 (twelve years ago) link
so there's not really the 'tragic' aspect there. I mean I guess there is if you are a pats fan. but it's not like they blew a huge lead or lost to a worse team. they lost a close and fair game.
― iatee, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 15:57 (twelve years ago) link
might seem more tragic in retrospect if it's brady's last super bowl tho
― iatee, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 15:58 (twelve years ago) link
no not tragic but pretty bad and it seems like a lot of ppl here are surprisingly ok with it?
― call all destroyer, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 15:58 (twelve years ago) link
legacy implications may well be tragic, its true
What would have made me lol would have been if dude had stopped at the goal line and not kneeled, but just waited for a Patriot to actually tackle him. Since the D had been told "let him go in", how many seconds would go by before they realized "oh wait, he's not going in and time is still running off the clock"
― I spend a lot of time thinking about apricots (DJP), Tuesday, 7 February 2012 15:58 (twelve years ago) link
― iatee, Tuesday, February 7, 2012 10:58 AM (41 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
eh, he's won three! things get a lot more tragic in the nfl.
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 15:59 (twelve years ago) link
I was hoping he'd stop and pats players would try and push him in the endzone, that woulda been beautiful
― iatee, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 15:59 (twelve years ago) link
on the one hand i disagree with cad, because despite leading into the 4th, NE were the second best team and the turn was kind of inevitable. the giants played it perfectly - pats can't stop the short-mid passes and brady can't dump points on you if he only gets a handful of possessions and those from inside his 20. they put themselves in the best position to win. it's not like NE lost a 2 score lead or anything.
on the other hand, the loss is a piece of shrapnel moving towards my heart and rationalizing is like the complicated and unlikely iron armor keeping me alive, somehow, with magnets maybe.
― Roberto Spiralli, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 16:00 (twelve years ago) link
there was a quote from the nyg running backs coach who said they'd practiced situations like that and he was supposed to basically wait it out and force the other team to knock him in so it would have been an amazing stand off if that couldve materialized
― johnny crunch, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 16:00 (twelve years ago) link
i would totally agree with this except for the possession with the welker drop and branch miss. that was the chance to survive in spite of all the above.
― call all destroyer, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 16:02 (twelve years ago) link
yeah brady and the offense are getting some stick for not performing but they did okay in the circumstances. a TD drive in the 4th would obv have been the difference between okay and championship great. would championship years brady have completed one of those drives? maybe. altho his specialty was getting in FG range of course.
― Roberto Spiralli, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 16:12 (twelve years ago) link
brady was performing well during those drives, mostly
― iatee, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 16:13 (twelve years ago) link
I'm still secretly convinced that they'd have scored w/ 2 minutes and 2 timeouts so it's bb's fault
― iatee, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 16:15 (twelve years ago) link
patritos lb was just about to knock bradshaw into the end zone before he fell in
― mookieproof, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 16:17 (twelve years ago) link
btw, i read somewhere that conceding 5y for having extra defenders on the field to burn some time off the clock is a legit cheaty strategy devised by buddy ryan. i wonder if coughlin really did that on purpose. i didn't realize the clock wouldn't be reset on that play. i was furious.
― Roberto Spiralli, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 16:20 (twelve years ago) link
yeah you should be able to reset the clock if the penalty's against the other team
― iatee, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 16:22 (twelve years ago) link
tho apparently they didn't do it on purpose?
doing it like 5 times in a row would be such an awesomely dickish way to win the super bowl
― iatee, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 16:23 (twelve years ago) link
if the penalty is before or at the snap it should be a no-brainer. crazy rule.
― Roberto Spiralli, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 16:23 (twelve years ago) link
patritos fans should be fine w/ legit cheaty strategies
― johnny crunch, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 16:24 (twelve years ago) link
there must be some kind of unsporting conduct penalty that the officials can impose to avoid a situation like that.
― Roberto Spiralli, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 16:25 (twelve years ago) link
i am referring to iatee's idea obv
cf dudes playing madden online who are losing and run offside on the last play over and over so the game doesn't end
― Roberto Spiralli, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 16:26 (twelve years ago) link
Putting more than 13 men on the field would probably qualify as a "palpably unfair" act, which the refs have significant latitude to punish. The lesson here, as always, is to have plausible deniability.
― mookieproof, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 16:27 (twelve years ago) link
that's very interesting
― iatee, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 16:28 (twelve years ago) link
that's from the end of the grantland story, which discusses the origins of the strategy as well: http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7545771/the-patriots-giants-super-bowl-rematch-disappoint
― mookieproof, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 16:29 (twelve years ago) link
also a lot of things that are 'palpably unfair' are just things that haven't been accepted as 'acceptable strategies' (like icing the kicker, etc.) bradshaw stopping at the 1 yd line could also be palpably unfair.
― iatee, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 16:30 (twelve years ago) link
xp oh aye, that is where i read about it. did not see the footnote tho. fuck you grantland footnotes.
― Roberto Spiralli, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 16:31 (twelve years ago) link
fuck you grantland footnotes.
― am0n, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 16:42 (twelve years ago) link
if i was a pats fan i'd be pretty broken up about this cuz really that brady to welker play should be all but automatic...
otoh, not to get all bill barnwell in this bitch, BUT the giants did recover three fumbles that legit bounced on the ground for like 2 seconds at a time... and that can't really be blamed on the pats
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 7 February 2012 17:02 (twelve years ago) link
but yeah, brady should've closed it out
the welker miss, the branch miss (altho i thought kenny phillips tipped this?) and the awful hail mary were pretty big flubs
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 7 February 2012 17:03 (twelve years ago) link
it's not like the Giants lucked into a win, you guys
when opportunity presented itself, the Giants executed more often than New England, ergo they won the game
― I spend a lot of time thinking about apricots (DJP), Tuesday, 7 February 2012 17:25 (twelve years ago) link
they didn't really play better or worse than the pats overall and teh score was close enough that you can argue that they 'lucked into a win'. footballs bounce pretty unpredictably, one small thing here or there woulda turned the score around.
― iatee, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 17:28 (twelve years ago) link
teh score
that doesn't mean they didn't 'deserve' the win, they played well against a good team. sorta like the niners game. but yeah, luck generally does play a huge role in close games. sorta ruins the narrative to accept that, but I think it's hard to argue w/.
― iatee, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 17:33 (twelve years ago) link
IMO if the Giants got lucky with anything, it was Brady gifting them 2 points right at the beginning of the game. That wasn't the winning margin but I think it gave them momentum/belief that sustained them throughout the game, even after the Pats went up 8 points on them.
― I spend a lot of time thinking about apricots (DJP), Tuesday, 7 February 2012 17:38 (twelve years ago) link
that rulebook article was v v interesting.i'm shocked that welker missed that pass. blame the mustache.
― ELI OWNS YOUR HUSBAND (forksclovetofu), Tuesday, 7 February 2012 17:38 (twelve years ago) link
I don't think that safety has anything to do with luck! that was a decision made by brady and a play made by the giants. whereas the ball not bouncing into gronk's hands on the last play of the game = there is an element of luck here.
xp
― iatee, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 17:39 (twelve years ago) link
"lucky" should have been in quotes; I pretty much agree with that was a decision made by brady and a play made by the giants
― I spend a lot of time thinking about apricots (DJP), Tuesday, 7 February 2012 17:40 (twelve years ago) link
a lot of those onion predictions basically came true!
― ELI OWNS YOUR HUSBAND (forksclovetofu), Tuesday, 7 February 2012 17:41 (twelve years ago) link
yeah also the nyg offense is not motivated or influenced by the safety at all, except maybe on the ensuing free kick a little. it was just a quirky lil thing. when the pats had scored 17 str8 pts the giants were not thinking, but we had that safety!
― johnny crunch, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 17:42 (twelve years ago) link