In Bill We Trust? ...not His Defense
By Scott Burks
Well look what we have here...
I'm sure by now everyone and their mothers
have seen the play call heard around the world. With his New England
Patriots leading the Indianapolis Colts 34-28, Bellicheat decided to go for
it on a 4th and 2 from his own 28 yard line with 2:08 left to go in the
game. Again, that's 4th down from THEIR OWN END OF THE FIELD.
Of course, they didn't get it -- disputed spot
or not -- and Peyton Manning drove his Colts the remaining 28 yards to score
a touchdown in the last seconds to win 35-34.
Now I'm not going to call Bellicheat an idiot
just because it is in vogue to do so. Having said that, I think he
blew it on two fronts:
-
poor clock management
-
no trust in his defense
He burned his time outs earlier in the second
half, meaning he did not have a time out to burn so they can use that to
challenge the spot of the football and to see if Kevin Faulk had possession
when he was across the 1st down marker. Moreover, by going for it
instead of kicking it away to force Manning to drive more than 28 yards to
score a touchdown to win it, Bellicheat sent a message to his defense that
he didn't trust them.
Former Patriots turned excellent NFL TV
analysts Tedy Bruschi and Rodney Harrison said that they as defenders would
not like the fact that their coach didn't trust them to win the game.
ESPN analyst Trent Dilfer ripped Bellicheat a new one on Sportscenter
immediately after the game.
Bottom line: a coach of his caliber should be
more efficient in clock management in a big game. That, combined with
his decision to go for it 4th and two, may have cost the Patriots any shot
of home-field advantage for the AFC playoffs.
I guess the "genius" labels are not going to
get tossed towards Bill Bellicheat for a while.
Go Back to
Home Page
