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2018 Playoff Thread - No Dog In The Hunt Edition

Apollo Stallion

By Apollo Stallion
in Houston Texans

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Pastor Dillon

Pastor Dillon

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The Jags are good. A great young D. They have a good young line with a great young back. 

QB might be the only weakness they really have and Bortles May or may not still be the QB of the future but should they decide to, they could sign Eli Manning and be really scary for 2-3 years 

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jch1911

jch1911

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37 minutes ago, EliteTexan80 said:

Steelers making this a fight right now... great catch by Bell on that route.

I am hoping Steelers win, but they are getting bodied by Jags right now.

Steelers seemed to have taken the Jags (Bortles?) lightly and Haley is trying to be too tricky / aggressive for his own good

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Apollo Stallion

Apollo Stallion

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So watching the Steelers absolutely botch clock management at the end of this game and possibly their last chance at another ring in the Big Ben era, it occurred to me just how behind the times the NFL continues to be.  I know the dumb jocks that run most NFL teams don't want to let the analytics geeks into the building, but how hard would it be to employ a few dorks to do things like do basic math on when to take timeouts to save max time and to have a  paralegal level understanding of the NFL rulebook to exploit in crunch time.  I mean they have those "kick/2pt conversion charts" so coaches don't have to do basic math in the heat of a game, why not have a dude sitting in the booth with a pretty basic dynamic excel spreadsheet with inputs for time left/pts needed/time outs remaining/downs remaining and a variable for the 2 minute warning. 

I mean it's not going to cure stupid like Tomlin going for the onside kick in a 7pt game w/2:19 on the clock or Antonio Brown trying to get 2 extra yards instead of getting out of bounds burning :12.  However, they still got it down to 3 with :01 seconds left meaning every second mattered (more on that kick with :01 in a second).  What I would propose is that during that drive where the Steelers cut it to 7, the stats geek is sitting there inputting scenario's to present after the score.   They score and dude radio's down two options:  1) 2:19 left - 3 tos.  Budget :05 for the kickoff (hoping you get touchback and save it), and :05 after first, 2nd 3rd and they punt into 2:00 minute warning.  Ben gets full 2 minutes, no TO's to move the team 80 yards to tie (took him 2 plays vs. Pats).  Scenario 2 is onside kick which if successful gives you possession at midfield and 2+ minutes to score.  If you fail, you give them the ball at midfield with 15 yards to go for a game sealing FG. Sure, a coaches gut and feel for the game has to be taken into consideration, but again basic math will tell you that if you don't have confidence your defense is going to stop the Jags, then you don't risk going down by 10 or 14 if you fail on the onside kick and that if you succeed, they aren't going to let you burn a full 2:19 going half the field with THEM having all their TO's.  Tomlin obviously picked wrong, but even then they still botched the clock more by not taking their TO's ahead of the 2 minute warning as the penalty made a FG attempt inevitable and not using them ahead of the 2:00 cost them :15 seconds.  You have to score, get the onside and score again and :15 is 2-3 plays when  Ben has already burned them 3 times with quick strikes.

So that gets us to the :01.  SOMEBODY has to know that NO TIME WILL COME OFF THE CLOCK IF YOU RECOVER THE ONSIDE KICK cleanly. They played it as if their only chance was to pooch it or kick it at a player and hope the returner fumbles (at least they knew you can't advance your own onside kick) which is still an absurd scenario.  If you recover the onside kick without a fumble (kicker kicks it to himself/normal onside kick w/emphasis on blocking hands team off play (high bounce) , no time comes off the clock and you have the ball at the 50 giving Ben one play TO WIN THE GAME no more difficult than you've already done 3 times.

Anyway - we have an Ivy League educated coach who regularly burns :20 - :30 unnecessary seconds in 2 minute drill by not knowing when to use the TO, clock it, 2 minute warning usage.  BO'B gets paid $5 mil+ per season, you'd think we could afford to pay somebody a few grand per game to perform some data entry and let the computer do the math and run these scenario's both before hand and real time.  There are always going to be analytics answers that may be right, but are hard to implement like going for 2 every time, never punting or skipping a franchise QB to acquire more draft picks.  However, Bob McNair made his BILLIONS in an energy industry built on comprehensive "Decision Risk Analysis" and I'm pretty sure McNair himself ain't sitting there doing those calculations in his head the way we ask the coach of his BILLION dollar football team in crunch time.  I mean there is a guy in every baseball locker room who can with relative accuracy tell you where a specific pitch thrown by a specific pitcher at 95 MPH will come off another specific players bat, at what angle, and where it is going and position specific players accordingly, yet NFL teams can't have someone doing calculations on a frigging clock. I mean, pilots have to spend so many hours every year in the "simulator" so they know exactly how to react and survive in the most obscure scenarios (see Sully and the fact commercial planes almost never crash anymore), NASA is located a few miles down the friggin road, and I'm not even saying O'Brien himself needs to spend the time in the simulator (but he should), but you need a guy who has run all of these scenario's and can act as the mission control expert.             

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Apollo Stallion

Apollo Stallion

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Or forget everything I just said about using basic math and accept that the Saints/Vikings just proved that the universe is ruled by law of entropy steering us to disorder and all our human calculations will never fully account for elements of chaos reminding us we aren't as smart as we think we are.  

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