I don’t think your first link goes where you think it does.
As for Tampa, treating professional adults like college kids is the main reason why Greg Schiano is back to working in college and not the NFL.
Because the Redskins also have an opportunity score on that play. It wouldn’t have made a difference in the game or in the playoff picture - but it’s one of those things that if it’s in the rules, you do it. There’s too much gambling on the NFL to not do everything strictly by the book so as to avoid any implication of impropriety.
I reported it and asked for it to be fixed shortly after posting it, but you know what the Mods are like here.
Here’s the link I meant:
The Giants knelt down because that’s the sporting thing to do there. Similarly, if you’re blowing out the opponent late in the fourth, and you get into the red zone yet again, you run it on fourth down instead of kicking a field goal.
We’re not online all of the time. I fixed your link.
Merged two threads.
It was a joke, since Loach is a mod too.
How do explain games like these?
There are a few things going on in those:
- Some of those games were already lopsided before the fourth quarter
- In at least one (the Bengals game at #2 on that list), late turnovers made the score look even worse
- Games between bitter rivals (see the Bears / Packers game at #4), where the winning team may not care to let up on the gas
It’s rare that a team will keep running up the score late in the game, but not entirely unheard of. And, yes, there are occasionally coaches / teams who don’t believe in letting up, or that running up the score is poor sportsmanship (or don’t care).
Also, with NFL playoff qualification tiebreakers using point differentials, there’s sometimes a semi-legitimate reason for it.
Well, half that list is from games 40 years ago.
There are only two “recent” ones – within the past 20 years – which may be the textbook definition of “the exception that proves the rule.”
When teams run up the score, it’s unsportsmanlike. That’s why it’s very rare, but not unheard of, in the NFL. There are tons of examples of teams not running up the score when they could, but relatively few examples of pouring it on.
My google-fu is on-point tonight. I remember citing examples for this argument several years ago, and here it is.
I had said that during blowouts, when the winning team gets into field goal range late in the fourth they don’t kick field goals, because that would be running up the score. (Unsportsmanlike.) Instead, what they do is hand the ball off and run it up the middle.
Someone asked for a cite, so I just went through the games that season looking for blowouts. The evidence of teams doing exactly as I describe was quite easy to find, enumerated in the linked post.
I don’t know. I saw the list of what had to happen for the Buccaneers’ to make the playoffs. Washington getting a 2-point return on a blocked kick might have still been a difference maker at that point.
Eh, it’s a pretty rare situation, but I would say the thinking is less “lets not run up the score and just hand the ball over” and more “lets just go for 1st and end this game.”
In your third example, that was definitely a calculated move. The kick could potentially be blocked and returned for a touchdown. Then the Chiefs would only need an onside kick followed by a field goal. Rare and difficult, but easier then having to march down field from the 18th.
It could not be returned for a touchdown. The would only get two points for that.
I’m referring to Ellis’s example. A field goal can get returned for a touchdown.