Yesterday, I mentioned some of the poor performances from last weekend’s NFL games. Today I want to add one performance to the list and to comment on another game where it appears to me as if the coaching staff quit on the season.
The additional sour performance from last weekend came last night from the Patriots in their loss to the Dolphins. From the opening possession, the Pats seemed a step slow; when defenders filled a hole, they hit the runner but did not bring him down; when defenders covered receivers, they were always a foot short of knocking the pass down; when Brady threw to receivers, he did not hit them in stride. Those are the sorts of “misses” that normally do not happen to the Pats’ they did last night, and they kept on happening for four quarters of the game.
Anyone who watches NFL football even semi-regularly knows from experience that this sort of performance is atypical for the Pats. In today’s world of over-reaction to the last datum available, I await the cries that announce the demise of the Pats as an NFL powerhouse based on last night’s stinkeroo of a game.
The other game that needs commentary – I should have put it in yesterday’s rant but got sidetracked in my thinking and did not – is the Skins loss to the Chargers. I will give you a flavor of how bad the Skins’ performance was by quoting the first two sentences from Liz Clarke’s gamer from Monday’s Washington Post:
“The Washington Redskins’ latest defeat – a 30-13 throttling at the hands of Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday – didn’t turn on one ill-advised play-call, one bad quarter of football or even a glaring deficiency on one side of the ball.
“It was a game in which the Redskins were never competitive.”
Every word of that opening to the game report is absolutely accurate. However, there is a subtle happening in the game that leads me to conclude that the coaching staff recognizes the very glaring flaws of this roster and that the coaching staff has checked out on the season. Let me take you to the fourth quarter of this shellacking.
- The Chargers lead 30-6 with less than 3 minutes to play. Bashaud Breeland intercepts a pass from Kellen Clements at the Skins’ 5-yardline and returned it all the way for a TD. The clock showed 2:36 left in the game and the score was 30-12.
- Let me be clear; that play did not endanger the outcome of the game. Nevertheless, the ONLY strategic call for the Skins at this point is to try for a 2-point conversion.
- The Skins trail by 18 points; if they are successful with a 2-point try, they make the game a 2-possession game; all they would have to do – tongue firmly in cheek at this point – is to recover 2 onside kicks, score 2 TDs, convert two more 2-point tries and the score is tied. Hey, they had all 3 timeouts and the 2-minute warning on their side…
- The coaching staff sent out the kicker who made the score 30-13 meaning the game remained as a 3-possession game.
There is an old adage that goes:
- “Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
I guess I could interpret that coaching decision as “stupidity” in the sense that no one though quickly enough in the atmosphere of utter defeat to see the opportunity to make this a 2-possession game that would eventually wind up as a loss anyway. My problem with doing that is that Jay Gruden has been the coach in DC for 4 years and while I do not think he is one of the elite coaches in the NFL, I also do not think he is too slow-witted to have noticed. I think, rather, that he and his fellow-coaches just wanted to get out of the stadium and back home because this lackluster performance stacked on top of the previous week’s pabulum performance against the Cowboys convinced the coaches that this season is over and that this roster is just not adequate to compete for a playoff slot.
If I am correct – and I hasten to add that I cannot read minds – then the Skins’ coaches have either “quit” or they have “come to grips with reality”. Feel free to take your pick…
I mentioned above with regard to the Pats’ loss last night the current fad of taking minimal data and over-reacting to it by wildly extrapolating it. There is another example of that making the rounds now; it involves the trade of Giancarlo Stanton to the Yankees. This “analysis” purports to have divined the inner workings of a grand conspiracy whereby Derek Jeter – former Yankees’ captain – made that deal solely for the purpose of making the Yankees stronger. This “conclusion” is a classic example of a conspiracy theory in that it takes the results of an improbable event and concludes that the only reason the improbably event could possibly have occurred is due to some sort of clandestine deal.
- Memo to these Conspiracy Theorists: Derek Jeter was born in 1974. No, he was not the one on the grassy knoll… That guy was John Wilkes Booth.
Finally, here is an item from Brad Dickson’s column, Breaking Brad, in the Omaha World-Herald:
“A Tennessee State player has been kicked off the team for punching his coach on the sideline during a timeout. ‘OK, next time I tell you guys to go out and hit hard perhaps I need to be more specific’.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………