I didn’t want to hijack the stall, baby, stall! thread but it got me thinking about something I’ve always wondered about. Say it’s the final minutes of a game and you’re nursing a small lead. Neither defense has been able to stop the other team all game long. Let’s say the score is something like 45-40 and it’s looking like whoever has the ball last is going to win. At this point, the clock is as much your enemy as is your opponent. Does it ever happen that the defense just goes ahead an lets the other team score so that their offense can have the ball last? I mentioned this once to a friend who is a much bigger football fan than I am and he looked at me like I was insane.
I’ve reported this for a move to the Game Room.
I personally have never seen a defense deliberately allow the other team to score, but I’ve seen games where doing that would have been the right strategy. It comes up especially where the offense can run the clock down and win with a field goal, because short field goals are 99% successful in pro and upper-division college football. You’re better off allowing an early touchdown and getting the ball back.
However, the strategy typically isn’t used, even when it should be used, just because of the psychology of football players and coaches. Defenses get amped up all week to try an annihilate the opposite offense, and it’s hard to turn that off on a dime in the final minute of a close game.
No. You woudn’t let you opponents get the score anywhere near a point where they could win. You have no idea what will happen next. Even with huge leads it’s rare to allow a team to score even to avoid injuries. And frankly, outside of kid’s sports, it’s just not sporting to give up points.
I’ve seen it done on at least one occasion-oh the defense will make a pretense of it, but they let the guy score. It could involve the difference between having say 20 seconds & no timeouts left to go down and kick the field goal you need to retake the lead (or tie), vs. having close to 2 minutes and all your timeouts to get a touchdown.
There have been quite a few real game examples of “elective safeties.” Wikipedia has a rundown of some.
As for touchdowns, if you’re already behind it is hard to see how allowing a touchdown would ever improve your situation. If you have a 1 or 2 point lead, time is running out and the other team is in easy field goal position and could otherwise run down the clock for a last second field goal then maybe, I guess. Not many coaches are going to obviously take that gamble, though.
Thanks. That was what I was looking for.
That’s probably a better example of what I’m talking about. They are in FG position already but are just burning the clock so they take the lead with no time left.
I tried to think of a situation but…
I cant think of any scenario that would benefit your team to let the other team score a TD to save clock time, although I have seen this situation at least once. You cant force a team to kick a FG if they want to run the ball and eat clock.
If your ahead by any amount with 2 min to go…run out the clock.
If your behind by any amount with 2 min to go…get the ball back.
If they score and are still behind…run the clock out.
If they score and tied…Score more points.
If they score and are ahead…you need to score a TD or FG to tie or win.
There is is no guarantee that you will score…especially if you need to score TWICE to win, if you gave them another 7.
Yeah, right strategy in hindsight but in real time I guess you never know. Thanks.
University of Florida allowed a team to score, to get the ball back to allow QB John Reaves to break the NCAA all time passing record. It’s called the Gator Flop.
But it wasn’t a strategic move to try to win the game…
-D/a
This strategy is used quite a bit in arena football
I just listed one. Sorry that I can’t remember any specific examples, but I know I’ve seen it. It’s true that the offense has to cooperate (and forgo the cinch TD), but more often than not they might just say the hell with it and run it in anyway.
I just saw it happen in our California State Championship game.
Team A was leading by 6 points. Team B was on their 1 foot line first and ten. No way they were going to stop them. About a minute to play in the game. Team A allowed B to score a touchdown to get the ball back. Team A figured that even if B went for 2, Team A could still kick a field goal for the win.
Why waste precious time trying to stop a team as many as 4 times (downs) and probably run out the clock in doing so?
Of course, it didn’t work out. Team A lost.
I think that is the only scenario.
That’s what I was thinking. If there’s a situation where Team B thinks it’s to their advantage to let Team A score, Team A probably doesn’t want to. Nothing stopping them from just running the ball down to the one-yard-line and out-of-bounds. Then try to time it so you score and don’t leave any time for Team B to answer.
I think Terrel Owens did that in a game…knelt down on the 1 and not score intentionally to ice the game, keeping the other team off the field for the remainder of play time.
I forget the score though.
That was Maurice Jones-Drew who knelt at the 1. In my opinion, Terrell Owens is too stupid to actually think of something like that.
As for the original question, I think that I’ve seen teams try the strategy. It can work if team A is down by 1 point, and team B is close to scoring a TD. Then team A lets team B score to go down by 8. Then team A at least has a chance at a TD and a two point conversion for the tie. I don’t think that I’ve ever seen it work though.
Someone might remember more but I remember a player completely past the secondary catching a pass and instead of running directly into the endzone ran to about the 1 yard line than then followed it the width of the field and then stopping near the far sideline waiting for the defense to catch up and then only entering the endzone when the defense was about to tackle him. All to burn a few more seconds off the clock. And still score the TD. That showed incredible presence of mind because the natural instinct for any player is to get into the endzone as directly as possible.
That might be DeShaun Jackson on a game winning punt return last year.
Deliberately conceding a safety is not unheard of. While not the same thing, it’s an example of handing the other team points as part of a larger strategy. It’s more widely accepted than deliberately conceding a touchdown, perhaps because the benefits are more obvious and less dependent on probabilities.
The first example I could find in a quick search was from November 3, 2003, when the New England Patriots deliberately gave up a safety while trailing to the Denver Broncos in the closing moments of the game.
It worked, and the Patriots won.