Final 12 seconds & Hail Mary

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Pats24

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Thoughts on how the Pats could have avoided the Hail Mary at the end of the game, and allowed us all to breathe a bit easier.

So, with 12 seconds remaining, the Ravens used their final timeout forcing the pats to punt. I believe they should have handled the final 12 seconds in this fashion and am a bit surprised they did not:

I would have had Ryan Allen take the snap and run into and around the end zone until forced out the back for a safety. Pats give up 2 points and still lead 35-33. At the very least Allen kills 6 seconds (probably more), leaving only 6 seconds left on the clock.

Now, with 6 second left on the clock, the pats get to free kick from the 20 yard line. This is important! The free kick eliminates any chance of a bad snap, dropped snap or blocked punt. It also decreases the chance of Allen shanking the kick since there is no rush. We also get better field coverage to defend the return. Our cover guys are running downfield at the kick rather than blocking. And the kick is coming from the 20 yard line as opposed to the 5. Those 15 yards are huge.

If Baltimore attempts to return the kick, chances are they will kill off all 6 seconds if the return gets anywhere back near midfield. If they fair catch (or give themselves up) they would have 6 seconds remaining but most likely all the way back near their 30 yard line (assuming 50 yard punt). On their 30, Flacco is not making it into the end zone, nor are the receivers getting all the way there.

Game over.

Obviously the biggest fear in giving up the 2 points is that you now lose with a FG instead of a TD. I just don't think there's any scenerio where a FG becomes an option, it's Hail Mary TD or nothing.

I think this scenerio gives the pats the best odd's of winning, certainly better than the Hail Mary we all watched holding our breath.

I thought this at the time, telling the group of guys I was with that I would take the safety. I'm surprised that BB did not.

Anyone agree?
 
I thought the same thing and told my wife that the Pats would probably do just that, but they decided to take their chances with a punt. They had most of the tall guys back there and the Ravens receivers were outnumbered big-time but it's always a scary play to have to deal with at the end of a game.

It worked out and they're moving on so it was the right call.
 
I thought a safety was coming.

BB has done it before. When they started kneeling down I was thinking there was too much time left, and the ratbirds still have a TO. Then I figured, no way BB screws this up, he's the master of this stuff. Then I was like, WTF?

Worked out in the end, but if he had it to do over, I say BB has TFB take more time before kneeling, and on 4th down has a guy run to the end zone and waste as much time as possible, then take the safety.
 
Uhm....

No.

I DO NOT WANT my punter running around like a chicken without a head with the ball in any proximity of our end zone.

Can you even fathom the fallout if they manage to force a fumble and score a TD?
 
INPatFan said:
I thought a safety was coming.

BB has done it before. When they started kneeling down I was thinking there was too much time left, and the ratbirds still have a TO. Then I figured, no way BB screws this up, he's the master of this stuff. Then I was like, WTF?

Worked out in the end, but if he had it to do over, I say BB has TFB take more time before kneeling, and on 4th down has a guy run to the end zone and waste as much time as possible, then take the safety.
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I think BB played it smart. If they got the safety. All there need is a FG to win. Flacco would have been trying to get that DPI call to win it .
 
Also, it was underrated by DMac to bat that Hail Mary ball volleyball style to OUTSIDE the EZ so even if a Raven caught it, he wouldn't have had time to score.
 
Dwight Schrute said:
Uhm....

No.

I DO NOT WANT my punter running around like a chicken without a head with the ball in any proximity of our end zone.

Can you even fathom the fallout if they manage to force a fumble and score a TD?
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That's why he runs out the back of the end zone, he's not getting tackled, no fumble.
 
HSanders said:
Also, it was underrated by DMac to bat that Hail Mary ball volleyball style to OUTSIDE the EZ so even if a Raven caught it, he wouldn't have had time to score.
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Agreed, great play by McCourty, but it never should have come down to him needing to make that play.
 
The clockw as not relevant after the ball was snapped the last time. The play continues until it's over. If a Raven caught that tipped ball at the 3 or 5 yard line, it could have been taken into the endzone easily enough, even though there were plenty of Patriots there.
 
king of kings said:
I think BB played it smart. If they got the safety. All there need is a FG to win. Flacco would have been trying to get that DPI call to win it .
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Fear of the DPI is the only plausable excuse I see for playing it the way he did. And that may very well have been his logic.
 
I thought there was some rule that prevents - in this case the punter - from just running around backwards. something about "not trying to advance the ball" so ref could blow play dead.
I imagine the league doesn't want a keystone cops type of thing with the punter scrambling around trying to kill time. in this case there's not much room but imagine if the punt was from say the 40, he could run around back there just trying to avoid Ravens and run the clock.
 
I thought there was some rule that prevents - in this case the punter - from just running around backwards. something about "not trying to advance the ball" so ref could blow play dead.
I imagine the league doesn't want a keystone cops type of thing with the punter scrambling around trying to kill time. in this case there's not much room but imagine if the punt was from say the 40, he could run around back there just trying to avoid Ravens and run the clock.
 
I remember everyone high fiving and jumping up in and down in the stands when Brady was taking a knee and then all of a sudden they were punting and we were like "WTF??!!".

The Hail Mary was scary because it was in the air for like a half hour and all I could think about while it was up there was what a kick in the nuts it would be to get "Flutied".
 
Can't believe some people couldn't do the math to realize the Ravens would get at least one more play. It's not that difficult.
 
Patriots44 said:
I thought there was some rule that prevents - in this case the punter - from just running around backwards.QUOTE]
I'm pretty sure there is not. I've seen the punter simply step out the back of the end zone on a couple different occasions.
I'm sure it would be another example of those cheating pats bending the rules.
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This was pre-planned by BB. Kyle Arrington said that they came off the field after the Harmon int all celebrating thinking game was over and were told that they were going back for 1 more play.
 
HomelessJoe said:
Can't believe some people couldn't do the math to realize the Ravens would get at least one more play. It's not that difficult.
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When you're in the stands and just lived through the ultimate roller coaster game, the last thing I was thinking about was doing math. When they came out in victory formation, the whole stadium thought the game was over.
 
HSanders said:
Also, it was underrated by DMac to bat that Hail Mary ball volleyball style to OUTSIDE the EZ so even if a Raven caught it, he wouldn't have had time to score.
Click to expand...

Upon further review it wasn't even close but in real time when he batted the ball out of the endzone, all I could think was Torrey Smith catching it and trotting into the endzone.
 
Bill knew what was going on. I have to confess I thought they had made a big error in mis managing the clock.

It's all about risk I suppose. A run play was way too risky, imagine a fumble and turnover while trying to run the clock out? Same with a punter running into the end zone, too risky.

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- Some have asked the question of whether Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots could have managed the end of Saturday's 35-31 victory over the Baltimore Ravens better.

The Patriots had the ball at their own 20-yard line with 1:39 remaining, and the Ravens had one timeout remaining. The Patriots elected to take three kneel-downs. When the Ravens called timeout with 14 seconds remaining, it set up a punt by Ryan Allen from the 15-yard line.

This gave the Ravens a last-gasp attempt to pull out the win.

Bill Belichick was asked about the team's thinking at the time.

"It went pretty much exactly the way we thought it would," Belichick said in his Monday afternoon conference call. "We knew they had one timeout. We expected to be punting the ball with about 15 seconds, which was pretty much what it was. We didn't want to go through any handoffs or take any chance on any exchanges and the penetration, like the play they had on the goal-line, anything like that. We felt like we would be able to secure the ball, punt it back to them in the neighborhood of 15 seconds, and then that would leave them probably at the most two, possible one play, depending on what happened on the punt -- whether the ball was returned or went out of bounds.

"In the end, we felt like defending the Hail Mary was better than taking any chances at all handing [off] the ball, which I'm not sure how much time that would have run off the clock anyway. Maybe a couple seconds, I don't know. A first down, throwing the ball, wasn't really part of our thinking at that point in that game."
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