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Thanatos

Do you go for it as the Ravens on 4th and 1?

  

16 members have voted

  1. 1. Do you go for it as the Ravens on 4th and 1?

    • Yes, go for the win.
      2
    • No, play it safe and go for OT.
      14


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So, we all just saw it.

 

Baltimore has the ball on the Patriots 14 yard line. :15 left, and 1 timeout. They are down 23-20, a FG ties the game, and it would be a 32-yarder.

 

Do you go for it, or do you play it safe and kick the FG?

 

I say its a no-brainer, you kick the FG. If you miss the 4th and 1, you lose. Even if you get it, you only have 1 more play most likely, (assuming 4-5 seconds for the play, then calling a timeout, leaves with :09 or so).

 

The way the Ravens defense had frustrated the Patriots, I think you kick the FG.

 

You assume your kicker can make a 32-yarder. If you don't assume that, he has no business being your kicker.

Edited by Thanatos19

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It's not playing it safe to give the Patriots another shot to win. You're riding momentum, so put the petal to the metal and win the game. If you miss the field goal, which they did, you lose the game. If you make the field goal you still have at least a 50% chance of losing. Otherwise you go for it, and don't leave any doubt in your mind whether you win it or not. You're in the Patriots place, do you really think going into OT is in your favour? End the game with the ball in your hand, win or lose, you earned your outcome.

 

With all those weapons against the Pats Defense, I would have taken a shot at the endzone, or just had Boldin run a 4 yard hitch.

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I'd probably go for the FG... Who could predict Cundiff missing a chip shot?

 

But then again... Flacco already threw one game winning TD, why not let him do it again.

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Because of the way the Pats red-zone D was playing and the fact that they had pressure on Flacco all game long I think kicking it to play for OT was their best choice. Hope you get a FG in overtime and put the game in the hands of your best players on defense. The way things were going in that final quarter I just find it hard to believe they were getting a TD at any time.

Edited by Shotgun

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You kick the field goal because it's a chip shot (or should have been--lolBillyCundiff). But more importantly, you don't have to make this decision if Lee Evans catches the football.

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You kick the field goal because it's a chip shot (or should have been--lolBillyCundiff). But more importantly, you don't have to make this decision if Lee Evans catches the football.

This. :yep:

 

Lee Evans dropping that ball was even bigger choke job than Cundiff missing wide left.

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As you certainly know, Ravens kicker Cundiff shanked a 32-yard field goal attempt in the final seconds of the game. The colossal flub, one that will certainly cost Cundiff his job, comes at the end of a season in which the Ravens kicker failed badly to connect on field goals by modern-day standards: he hit just 28 of 37 (75.7%) kicks all year, one of the lowest rates in football.

 

He’s struggled his entire career to hit over 80 percent, about the low end of expectations in this day and age.

Edited by RazorStar

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In the 4th quarter this season, he hadn't missed. He was clutch when it mattered the most.

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So what? Let's take a look at those field goals then, see if they really mattered. If you aren't making more than 80% of your field goals, I don't trust you in a clutch situation, regardless of what other stats you spin. If you can;t stay on a team for more than 4 years, I don't trust you in that situation. If you were out of the league for 3 years at one point in your career, you cannot be trusted to make that kick.

 

Game 1 vs. Pittsburgh

30 yard field goal to go up 35-7. Not clutch, nor difficult.

 

Game 2 vs. Tennessee

29 yard field goal to be down 23-13. Not clutch, nor difficult.

 

Game 5 vs. Houston

33 yard field goal to go up 19-14. Not really clutch, nor difficult (14:49 left in the 4th)

40 yard field goal to go up 29-14. Not Clutch, somewhat difficult, but should make it. (2:00 left)

 

Game 7 vs. Arizona

25 yard field goal to go up 30-27. Somewhat Clutch, but not difficult.

 

Game 11 vs. San Francisco

39 yard field goal to go up 16-6. Not Clutch, somewhat difficult but should make it. (3:14 left)

 

That's it for fourth quarter kicks. He only had one kick that would really qualify as a clutch situation, and even then he had a fallback since the game was tied at the time. None of those 4th quarter kicks were less than 40 yards, and if you're in the NFL, anything 40 or shorter has to be near automatic. Considering all of the above indicators of his level of play, could you really say that you have confidence in Billy Cundiff to make that kick? He's never been in a clutch situation of that level, and he doesn't have the fallback of a Gary Anderson type of season to fall back on. When you're beating your opponent so thouroughly like the Ravens were, you don't rest on your laurels. You knock them the fuck out before they go Rocky on you.

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I wouldn't go for it. I would go for the FG 100% of the time. With the way Wilfork and the linebackers played, I don't take a chance. It was a fucking chip shot.

  • Upvote 1

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Why would anyone think to go for it in that situation. 15 seconds remaining and you want to go for it on 4th down with the game on the line? With that situation no matter who my kicker is, I'm kicking the field goal and going into over time. But let's not forget to mention that we have a guy who was a pro-bowl kicker. And quite honestly it wasn't even his fault that it was botched.

 

Harbough should have called a time out. They had one left and the clock was winding down. Why he didn't call for a time out and give special teams the time they needed to set up for the kick is absolutely BEYOND me. That's just a bad coaching decision. Because of them being in a hurry the snap was off, and even the hold was a little off.

 

Brady and the Patriots would have had time for MAYBE one play down field, which would have been a hail mary if they tried to get anything off and it would have been knocked down as usual.

 

If you have the Ravens defense, you ALWAYS trust your defense.

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This. :yep:

 

Lee Evans dropping that ball was even bigger choke job than Cundiff missing wide left.

 

To be fair the defender helped knock it out of his hands. It wasn't just Lee dropping the ball, if he wasn't defended against it would've been a catch. He just needed a better grip on the ball. He missed out on his chance to be a hero in Baltimore when many are already frustrated with him for dropped passes. I still think he can be a valuable part of this team.

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There's no excuse for a missed FG, but at the same time...there's no excuse for a dropped ball. Realistically, the smart decision was the one they made with the FG. Running on Wilfork and the rest of the Pats...would not be a good idea whatsoever.

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That's it for fourth quarter kicks. He only had one kick that would really qualify as a clutch situation, and even then he had a fallback since the game was tied at the time. None of those 4th quarter kicks were less than 40 yards, and if you're in the NFL, anything 40 or shorter has to be near automatic. Considering all of the above indicators of his level of play, could you really say that you have confidence in Billy Cundiff to make that kick? He's never been in a clutch situation of that level, and he doesn't have the fallback of a Gary Anderson type of season to fall back on. When you're beating your opponent so thouroughly like the Ravens were, you don't rest on your laurels. You knock them the fuck out before they go Rocky on you.

 

Okay two things with this.

 

The stat they showed right before the kick, (which pretty much sealed that he was going to miss it :p), was that he was 16/16 on 4th quarter kicks less than 40 yards long.

 

Secondly, if you don't trust your kicker to make a 32 yard FG then there is no way he has any business *being* your kicker. Why put the game in the hands of your offense? They're not your strength. You leave it to defense to stop the Pats a couple times in OT.

 

You're not resting on your laurels, you're keeping the game going. In this kind of situation where your defense has done well against Brady, you do NOT go for it. No way. The only way you go for it in that situation is when the score is something like 53-50 and you haven't stopped them all day, and they haven't stopped you all day.

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Yes you are. When you're dominating the Patriots on both sides of the field like the Ravens were, you want the scoreboard to say the same thing. It's not the common thing to do, it's risky, but you settle the game when you play aggresively, and your loss isn't cheapened by some idiot kicker. And Billy Cundiff really has no business being an NFL kicker, but the Ravens recently lost a long time stud in Matt Stover and haven't found an effective replacement. Sometimes you get lucky and grab a UDFA who can do work, or you just end up like the Cowboys who dump kickers every 3 years (Cundiff, Folk, Buehler... soon to be Bailey).

 

It's better to live on your feet than die on your knees, or however that saying goes.

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Again, what people are arguing here is that Billy Cundiff screwed up the kick. Did anyone notice the amount of time he had to set up? I will continue to say that the fact Harbough didn't use his time out is what SHOULD be questioned here. Cundiff literally had 8 seconds or so to get on the field and set up to take the field goal. When the ball was hiked it was hiked in an "Oh shit we are running out of time" moment. It was a low snap, and the hold was almost dropped. Hell, the laces weren't even fully facing out. Billy Cundiff makes that kick 99.9% of the time!

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