Not totally obsolete, but not entirely in force any longer, either
My understanding is that, a few years ago, CBS and Fox got the NFL to permit a certain number of games per season to not follow the general rule, which was/is “intra-conference games are always are broadcast by the main network for that conference (CBS for the AFC, Fox for the NFC), and inter-conference games always are broadcast by the network of the visiting team’s conference.” (Games on other networks (NBC, ABC/ESPN, Amazon, etc.) don’t follow that rule anyway.)
I haven’t watched Preseason football for many years, and have watched a few games today with the sound off while doing some catchup work. Being in my office I am on Roku, with no ability to rewind.
But several times today I have seen Payton Manning lying flaccid over a bar in a busy place, while slowly becoming erect as a whole body.
The Falcons had 238 yards of offence in Week 1, and Bijan Robinson accounted for 173 of them (83 yds rushing, 90 yds receiving). He’s certainly a stud, but i don’t like his chances for a long career.
Offence wins games, defence wins championships conceding 37 points to a mediocre Panthers team is no evidence they will go 17-0 (or 20-0 depending on your definition of “season”).
If you were going to knee-jerk at this point that one team is going to be undefeated this season you have to go with the 49ers, they dominated the team that the media were already giving super-bowl rings to, or maybe the Seahawks who went 17-3 last season with all three losses by 4 points or less. (I doubt either of those will happen either)
The Lions - Saints game turned out to be pretty exciting. Much too exciting, if you ask me! I was hoping for a dominating game from my Lions to set the tone for the season.
And they were dominating-- for the first half. Lions were up by 3 touchdowns. Then the Lions’ offense stalled out in the second half and their defense let the Saints come back until the game was tied at the end of regulation and went to OT.
This is where it got interesting. The Lions had first possession in OT, and scored a touchdown with an extra point. Then the Saints scored a touchdown on their possession, and, with about 1:30 left in OT, decided to go for the 2 point conversion for the win, and didn’t get it.
At first I was surprised; why not take the relatively safe one point kick and live to go to sudden death OT? But thinking about it, it makes sense-- if the Saints had taken the safe one point to tie, the Lions had 1:30 to get to field goal range and win with 3. Even if the tired Saints defense kept the Lions from scoring (which they had done a lot in the second half!), there likely wouldn’t have been enough time for the Saints to get into scoring position. So getting the one point on their touchdown meant they were most likely to still lose or to merely tie once OT ran out. Their best chance to win was to try for 2. You play to win, not to tie, right?
It made me wonder though-- are there stats or guidelines for that sort of thing? I imagine it’s not an uncommon scenario, whether or not to go for 2 if you just matched a TD in OT. If there are 5 minutes left in OT, should you go for one and tie to stay in the game, and then hope to win in sudden death? What about if there’s two seconds left in OT-- do you settle for the one point then, to pretty much guarantee a tie and not a loss? Is there a ‘time left’ window where it makes the most sense to go for 2?
The Seahawks beat the Rams last year on a two-point conversion in overtime. That announcers said it was the first time that had happened to end a game. I don’t remember it happening again last season, so it’s still just a one-time occurrence.
I don’t know how many teams have tried and failed, as the Saints did yesterday. Overtime games aren’t all that common to begin with. Then you need the receiving team to score 7 points, then the other team to score a touchdown. I don’t know if that has happened enough times to really give useful stats on what the best course of action is.
Another factor to consider is the team’s record at the time. In the game last season, the Seahawks needed a win to move ahead of the Rams in the division standings. A tie would have left the Rams ahead. A team could be in a situation where a tie game secures a playoff spot, in which case it’s probably a better decision to kick for one point rather than try for two.
From a purely mathematical perspective, if there is any reasonable amount of time left on the clock (say, a minute or more), you should definitely go for two. If you make the two point conversion you win, so that is your win percentage. If you miss you lose, obviously. But if you kick you have to include both the odds you miss the kick (not zero) and the odds the other team gets a FG to beat you (also pretty high), especially with the new kickoff rules and since they will get 4 downs every sequence.
If there are only a few seconds left, then I guess it’s up to the coach - I’m not really sure how to value wins v. ties in the standings. Probably against a tough Lions team the Saints would take the tie.
The Saints had an apparent fumble return for a TD overturned because the quarterback’s arm was ruled to be in a passing motion when the ball was dislodged. Even though the ball went backwards. I don’t agree with the call, or the rule, for that matter.
The conversion rate on two-point attempts in the NFL has been consistently around 50% for years. Even with XPs now being effectively a 33-yard field goal attempt, the conversion rate is around 95%.
A tie officially counts as half of a win and half of a loss, so a team which finishes the season at 10-6-1 is effectively at 10.5-6.5, as far as playoff seedings and such.
And no matter the week, something that hasn’t been brought up is the coaches are going to be thinking “hey, we’ve been out here long enough, our players are gassed, we need to settle this game one way or another, rest up, and do it again next week”
I see Railer13 did link to the lateral play , so here are my thoughts:
The actual rule has been brought up here and there, but it’s hard to determine if it ONLY applies to when intentional grounding is at stake or not:
If contact by an opponent materially affects a passer after the passer begins his throwing motion, it is a forward pass if he passes the ball, regardless of where the ball strikes the ground, a player, an official, or anything else. When this occurs, intentional grounding rules do not apply.
There’s also the question as to when the “throwing motion” actually begins-when the QB starts to cock his arm, or when he starts to bring his forearm (and ball) forward?
Intent is a ridiculous standard to use here (is it used anywhere else in the rulebook?), as it is pathetically easy to come up with a situation where the subjectivity involved just completely muddles up the entire situation: WI he is throwing a screen in the flat, the receiver 89 degrees from where the ball is being thrown from. If the QB fooks up and actually was about to throw it at 90 degrees or more (a la Daryle Lamonica in the 1969 AFL Championship), then the “intent” involved would be that of a lateral–or does only what was going thru his cerebral cortex at that moment count, vs. what his muscles were about to do? Is the ref expected to be a mindreader? Or to have perfect knowledge of the biomechanics involved? WI the QB “thought” there was a receiver in a lateral position and tried to throw it to “him”?
Hopefully the Competition Committee quashes this silliness in the offseason, but this kind of play has happened before, and nothing was changed.
That seems pretty close, but I gave the Lions only a 10% chance of scoring - my assumption is it’s much higher than that. Under the old NFL OT rules the team receiving the kick scored on the opening drive 64% of the time (and that was with deeper kickoffs and not having to go for it on 4th down).
If you want to do more math, the breakeven point would be:
[ P(PAT) - P(LionsScore) ] * 0.5 = P(2Pt)
If we give the PAT 100% success rate:
0.5 = P(2Pt) + 0.5 * P(LionsScore)
Which I think means that as long as the odds of making the 2pt conversion PLUS the odds of the Lions scoring divided by 2 is above 50% you should go for 2.
To think that going for the PAT is correct you have to value a tie at more than half a win (which may be justified) AND assume your success rate on the conversion is low (OK, maybe…) AND assume that the Lions have a very low chance of scoring on the next drive.
, so here are my thoughts: