Agreed. He’s a modern day Jeff Hostetler.
Three. Don’t forget Hostetler!
And maybe even four; the Phil Simms era was before my time. He played out of his mind in the Superbowl, but other than the 1986 postseason was Simms much better than league average?
He was probably in the better half of starting QBs for his era, but probably not a lot better than that. He only made the Pro Bowl twice (and one of those was in his final season). I remember when he was drafted, and Giants fans had huge expectations for him (he was the #7 overall pick). He was a starter for much of his rookie year (which was rare for QBs in that era); he was pretty mediocre early in his career, which likely doesn’t help his overall stats, either.
Pro Football Reference shows that the other QBs whose careers his most resembles are Jim Plunkett, Joe Flacco, Jim Everett, Roman Gabriel, Jim Hart, and Jay Cutler. A bunch of above-average quarterbacks, but not a Hall of Famer in the bunch.
It’s amazing, isn’t it? Romo is by far the better broadcaster, if you have to have an ex-Cowboy.
Don’t ask me to speak objectively about Phil Simms. I was nine years old in 1986. I had a VHS tape that went through the '86 season game-by-game that I watched so many times that the tape eventually wore out and broke. My lizard brain has one and only one important association for Simms, and it’s this:
Realistically? He was better than Hostetler, better certainly than Nick Foles. He was probably not as good as Eli Manning and never more than the 9th or 10th best QB in the league. But he’s still my favorite quarterback of all time.
(And by the way, one thing I will say about Phil is that he never once had a truly excellent (let alone great) wide receiver out there. He got two good years out of Mark Bavaro before Bavaro’s body broke down and other than that, it was dudes like Bobby Johnson and Lionel Manuel and Stephen Baker).
The Cardinals were good for a few years, from 2013 (3rd place in the NFC West but still 10-6, wow the division used to be strong!) to 2016 (they were divisional champions that year and made it to the NFC Championship as you said). They started to fall apart in 2017 (had a losing record) and this year they were statistically the worst team in the NFL. It’s crazy how fast a team can fall apart.
Don’t forget Jason Witten!
…Scratch that, let’s forget Jason Witten.
My favorite ex-Cowboys announcer is Daryl “Moose” Johnston, and by a pretty significant margin over Aikman and Romo.
There are some things that don’t show up in the stat sheet. You can look at a QB and say he threw 1 TD and two INTs but that doesn’t tell the story. It’s not just whether Foles threw INTs, but when he threw them. And we all agree that the last INT wasn’t really on Foles at all. He was driving his team down the field. Also, throwing down field into coverage, showing that willingness to be fearless and aggressive led to a pass interference penalty. Now that’s something that’s not going to impress most people, but his situational football, which is magnified in the playoffs, becomes a more important element of his overall performance.
I think the difference between Foles and Wentz is that, when he’s feeling well mentally and physically, a coaching staff can do more with Wentz than they can with Foles. Wentz is probably a better true pocket passer than Foles.
Like if he threw one that ended the game?
I know that’s not fair, that second int wasn’t his fault. But he threw one while the Eagles were driving in the second quarter. That interception led to the first points the Saints scored and changed the momentum of the game. Which should emphasize how amorphous discussing shit like “when he threw them” is.
That one drive against a prevent defense before the Eagles got to the red zone? Sure. They were driving the ball. Big whoop.
What about the 6 prior Eagles drives before that? Interception. Punt. Punt. End of half. Punt. Punt. Punt. The only reason that last drive could have mattered was because the Eagles D held and the Saints missed a field goal try.
This just reeks of pseudo-football crap. Giving credit to a QB for a DB being called for a ticky tack DPI? You really got to stretch for that. And Foles averaged 4.0 yards per attempt in quarters 2-4, which is really poor.
I like Nick Foles. He had a great run last year and is seemingly fun to root for. But the excuses that get made and the excitement that he engenders seems to blind people to his actual play. It’s like trying to talk about what a shitty NFL QB Tim Tebow was.
Or discuss rationally Colin Kaepernick.
I was impressed with the Chargers last game, sadly, it didn’t turn out the way I wished
I’m with you here…as a Raider fan. Foles has been very good when asked to come off the bench in high pressure situations.
In the Cowboys @ Rams game, the Cowboys were down by 15 when they scored a touchdown, pulling within 9 before the conversion attempt.
I’ve always held firm that the smart play in that kind of situation is to kick the PAT to pull within one score, which is exactly what they did and IIRC the commentators didn’t even mention it, or at least discuss it much.
Years ago I remember getting into a spirited debate here on the dope about whether you should go for 1 or 2 in this kind of situation. Several people were adamant that you should go for 2, which on its face seemed absurd to me. Their reasoning was that “if you miss it and are still down by 9, at least you know how many more scores you need.” As if recovering multiple onside kicks was a reasonable proposition. Those people were totally insane, IMO.
Anyway, since that game situation has come up in a playoff game, would anyone like to argue for the “go for 2 first” strategy?
(I think VarlosZ may have been the one leading that argument, and he doesn’t post here anymore, but I’m almost positive he wasn’t the only one. I remember thinking that the board had gone insane, as opposed to just one guy.)
What was the timing on that? Was their only chance to score, onside kick, score, with one of those scores needing to be a 2 point conversion?
Then going for 2 at first is fine, probably slightly advantageous. The game is over when you miss your two point conversion. Delaying that potential failure gives you the illusion that you were closer to winning (we weren’t out of the game until the last minute!) but the end result is the same - you need one conversion, and if you miss it, game is over either way. So if you take it early, and miss, well, then the game is over and you’ve got a few more minutes left in the game. That feels bad. Because you want to give your fans hope until the very end. But that’s just incorrect intuition on the part of the viewer. Either way, the two point conversion has to be made on one of the touchdowns, and if it fails on either one, you lose. It doesn’t matter if you lose with 3 minutes left or 30 seconds left.
So why do it first? Two reasons. One is that getting it gives you the option to go for the game win at the end (by attempting a second 2 point conversion) instead of the tie, depending on how you feel about how gassed their defense is vs how effective your offense is being. And two, in the event of a penalty on the two point conversion attempt, like a false start, then you can line back up for an extra point and try the 2 point attempt on the second score, instead of trying to convert 2 points from 7 yards out.
I don’t know the specifics of what you’re referring to in a previous thread, but I’m basically willing to say Varlos was right, whatever he said. I’ve never known him to be wrong in matters of strategy.
He was (and you are) wrong in terms of strategy in that situation. Did you watch Cowboys/Seahawks? Did you think the Cowboys made a mistake by going for 1 after their last TD?
The main problem with your analysis is the difficulty of the next score. If you miss the 2, you now need 2 scores instead of 1. That means your next drive will be much more desperate and less likely to produce a score than if you were only down by 8 and could focus all your effort on a single drive.
If you need 2 onside kicks, the game is already lost.
This year it’s lost if you need one. The new rules make it so unlikely to succeed they might as well eliminate the play from the rules.
Indeed. IIRC, in recent years, the conversion rate on onside kicks had been something around 20%. This season, it was down to 8%. I suspect that there’ll be yet more tweaks to the kickoff rules for next season, as they likely realize that that’s just too low of a percentage.
I think you’re inventing a win condition that isn’t plausible and then assigning it to the other side of the argument. I’m not talking about recovering two onside kicks. I’m already declaring that a loss. Going for the 2 pointer early is still the generally correct strategy disregarding that.
Looking at the stats on the Cowboys/Rams game, the Cowboys scored their last TD with 2:17 on the clock. I don’t know what the timeout situation is, but I’m assuming for simplicity’s sake that if the Rams get the ball back the game is over.
So the Cowboys just scored a TD and are down by 9. They have to make a 2 point conversion either now, or after their next touchdown, in order to tie the game.
If they go for the 2 point conversion after the first TD and fail, the game is practically over, and they lose. Under a 1% chance of winning at that point.
If they go for the PAT, and then execute the two point conversion on the second TD and fail, the game is over, and they lose.
Either way, if you fail the 2 point conversion, regardless of when you take it, you’ve lost.
The former scenario has a slightly higher chance of success, simply because you have more information earlier about what you need (and conserve time for a potential third TD) but we’re talking about fractions of a percent chances of winning. This is the miniscule chance of the two onside kick recoveries that I’m willing to, declare an almost certain loss. Both scenarios almost always result in a loss. But if there is any advantage to be had, it’s by the earlier 2 point attempt. But this is what I dismissed at the top of my post for simplicity’s sake. I’m just saying that if there’s an advantage to be had here, it’s gained by going for 2 early.
So, then, why not take the one that gives you more options? If you go for the 2 point first, you can change your mind and kick a PAT if you get a penalty on the 2 point conversion attempt. Think of it this way: you get a false start on the 2 point attempt the first try. So you change to a XP and put off the 2 point for later, because having to go 7 yards instead of 2 is a bigger difference in win chance than choosing to go for the two early or late. But if you kick the PAT first, and go for the 2 second, and commit a false start, then you have to go for the 7 yard 2 point conversion, you have no choice. This alone I feel should be intuitive and compelling.
Additionally, you will go into the second TD with the ability to tie (XP) or win (2 point) the game, your choice. XP first only allows for a tie.
Or, let me try it another way way. I think this is an impractical argument, because the likelihood of winning in either case is so low, but I’m illustrating it to demonstrate the logic of it.
You have 2:17 on the clock. You just scored a TD. You go for a 2 point conversion. You fail. Now you know you need to get 2 more scores in order to win the game.
Or the second scenario. You went for the PAT. You drive down for another TD. There’s, say, 15 seconds left on the clock. You go for the 2 point conversion. You fail. Now you know you need another score - the same knowledge you had in the above example - except now there’s 15 seconds on the clock when you found out instead of 2:17, limiting your options.
Again, since both of these cases are a miniscule chance of winning, this is not the basis of my argument. I’m just trying to say that you don’t get an advantage by finding out later whether you succeed or fail in the 2 point conversion.
Here’s where you may be going wrong. It feels wrong and counterintuitive to you to basically lose the game at 2:17 instead of 0:15. “You gotta give your guys a chance until the end” is the intuitive response. But that’s not actually what’s really going on here. What’s going on is that you will need to attempt a 2 point conversion regardless of whether it comes earlier or later. If you fail either time, you lose the game. So failing at 2:17 is the same thing as failing at 0:15, even if it feels different.
Let’s say that going for 2 is a 50/50 chance, a coin flip, for simplicity. If you go for two, you flip the coin. It comes up heads. Great, you completed a necessary step towards winning the game. Or it comes up tails, you lose. But you have to flip that coin at some point, either this TD or the next one.
Waiting to go for 2 on the second attempt is basically flipping the coin and not looking at it until 0:15, when you score that second touchdown. That’s when you find out if you got heads or tails. It feels more intuitive to put off knowing whether you’ve lost or not until the end of the game, but it doesn’t actually make any difference. If it was tails, you lose whether you flipped it after the first TD and looked, or waited until the second TD to see what the result was.
The only actual differences work in favor of the earlier 2 point attempt. Being able to change strategies in the event of a penalty is a significant factor. Being able to go for 2 2-point conversions and flat out win the game if the defenses are worn down at that point and you don’t want to risk being on defense in overtime.
There’s no way in which going for the 2 point attempt second gives you an advantage. It feels more intuitive, because finding out whether you’ve lost or not comes at the end of the game instead of at 2:17, but it doesn’t help your chances to win.
This is sort of like the Monty Hall problem. It’s hard to explain the correct answer to someone who isn’t seeing it the way you are. Varlos is a poker player, and so am I - you have to be able to understand how to break up strategic decision into their game theory components. It gives you a different perspective on problem solving and how to separate the intuitive from the logical. This is the sort of decision that is simple for a poker player by counterintuitive for most people.
Down 15 and scoring a TD, going for two is generally correct, although the margin is quite small. It’s a pretty minor point, especially considering that coaches won’t even go for 2 after having been down 14, which is a much larger mistake. 538 has a pretty good analysis:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/when-to-go-for-2-for-real/
You’re right that if you go for 2 on the first TD, and miss, then your chances of winning are very small. However, if you wait, focus on a single drive down 8, and then miss the 2, then your chance of winning is even smaller; zero, if you’ve used up the whole clock.
To add one more thing:
Think about this: what makes that next drive so desperate? Because now you know you need an increasingly improbable series of events to win. You need to preserve as much time as possible to allow this possibility to come to fruition, even if it’s like a 0.2% chance. Once you fail the 2 point conversion - in either scenario - your chances of winning become very slim.
But imagine, for a moment, that you knew you’d fail your 2 point conversion. Would you rather know that with 2:17 left to go, down by 9, or with :17 left, down by 2?
Or, just to make the point even more clear, let’s imagine you score the second TD as the clock runs out rather than with 17 seconds left.
In the first scenario, you fail the 2 point conversion at 2:17. You know now that you need 3 scores to win. It’s desperate, and highly unlikely that you will win. But you conserve as much clock as you can to facilitate this long shot.
In the second scenario, you know it’s all going to come down to whether or not your 2 point attempt ties or not. You’ll probably actually deliberately run down the clock so that if you do tie the game up, the other team can’t score a quick FG on you to win it.
In the first scenario, you find out that you need 3 scores with 2:17 left and can plan around trying to make that longshot. Call it a 0.2% chance of winning.
In the second scenario, you don’t find out you need 3 scores until after you make your second score and the clock is at 0:00. The game is over. 0% chance of winning.
Every way you look at it, going for it first gives you better odds or better options than going for it second.