Having no running back in during the situation is stupid. Make the defense sell out against the run. Having an empty backfield, and then a receiver in motion was telegraphing the play. Throw a RB in there and fake to him and it might work.
Well, my casual glance at the standings indicates that parity isn’t much of a factor this year. At THIS site fully 9 teams have a greater than 87% chance of getting in the playoffs (for 12 slots), and that site hasn’t been updated for this week yet. I remember several recent seasons where tons of teams were going down to the wire to get in, but this year all slots may be wrapped up before the final week.
Now, all this being said, if I’m Mike Tomlin I start working on a play from the same formation in which I fake the handoff to the receiver and then toss a pass to a tight end who’s on the opposite side of the field from the side the receiver is heading to.
Of course, you could also run the ball up the middle!
I loved the field goal there, but hated the subsequent onside kick.
(IIRC) 47 seconds left in the game and 3 timeouts, you’re on the 30 or so with a 4th & 10 and your offense is a bit shaky at best. Fail to convert a first down and it’s game over, and 4th & 10 is a low percentage situation.
Instead, kick a FG, then kick deep. Hold them to a 3 & out with your 3 timeouts, making them punt. You should end up with the ball around your own 40 yard line with around 30 seconds left and no timeouts, needing only 25 yards to get into game-winning FG territory.
But if you onside kick, even if you hold them you’ll be starting from your own 20 and have no shot. Of course instead of holding them they let up a TD run, but still, their strategy in trying the onside kick after the FG was flawed. The FG itself I have no problem with.
On an aside, maybe it’s just me, but do backs just try to “pound it in” these days? I don’t think I’ve seen any backs try to go “over the top” on short yardage in a long time. I seem to recall in the 1980s, backs went over the top all the time. Have backs gotten too big for that anymore? Has this gone the way of the barefoot kicker?
I saw LT on Nightline, or 60minutes, or whatever show it was and they showed a clip of him going “over the top”. His wife and the coaches cringe whenever he does it because it supposedly makes him extrememly vulnerable to injuries.
The Pittsburgh play wasn’t a reverse. It was an end-around as much as anything.
If Ward had handed it off to a player going the other way, that’s a reverse. Not a double reverse, as some announcers call it.
The Reggie Bush “fumble” that blew the game for them against TB was a reverse.
Also, Pittsburgh had to go for it there not because going for it on 4th is usually a correct decision, but because they were down by 3 scores at that point, and on the 1.