Originally posted by ckparrothead
A lot of this people in this thread seem to want to be all or nothing on this subject. Either Wannstedt has no balls and every other coach in the NFL worth his salt would have tried to get close enough for a field goal, or its the other way...Wannstedt did the complete right thing and it would have been stupid to attempt to get close enough for a Field Goal with that little time left.
At the risk of sounding like one of those annoying people who take two arguments and dissect them straight down the middle in order to make them seem soooo wise, I just have to say that in this case it was like a 50/50 type decision.
Yes, a lot of coaches would view 52 seconds as plenty of time to drive from their own 20 yard line, 50 yards to a team's 30 yard line to give us a legitimate chance at a game winning field goal. In fact, think back no further than last year in Week 6 against the Denver Broncos when we started at our own 26 yard line with 40 seconds left in the game. Up to that point the Miami offense only scored 14 points against the Denver defense, and one of those TD drives started with a short field due to a Sam Madison interception (and of course Patrick Surtain had taken one interception to the house for a TD to give us 21 total points). JAY FIEDLER completed two passes to get us in range for an Olindo Mare field goal that won the game. I know the dynamics were different, taking a knee was not a choice since we were down by 1 point, however it shows that going 50 yards in 52 seconds against a defense that you have not been having success against...is not at all impossible...not impossible enough that you could say something like most coaches would just run out the clock.
On the other hand you have to look at what Dave was seeing and that was a QB situation that is not at all ideal. Funny that I brought up the Denver game last year since it was Griese in that game that threw two picks that ended with 2 TDs and helped us win the game. Anyway...one drive earlier than when we started the ball with 52 seconds left, we started at midfield and went for a 48 yard field goal that Mare missed. And one drive earlier than that, Griese threw a dumb interception right into Ed Reed's hands, giving Baltimore the ball deep in our territory, ready to kick the field goal that would have put them on top 9-6 probably for the rest of the game.
What I'm tryin to say is we didn't have a quarterback we can trust to be safe with the ball, not to turn it over in such a crucial situation. He had already turned the ball over in a critical situation. He could have done it again.
52 seconds may be an eternity for a guy like Peyton Manning, or any other premier type QB in this league. But with a Brian Griese in his first year in this offense with a mediocre set of weapons and a less than mediocre offensive line...you MIGHT be risking more than you should to start slingin the ball downfield against Ed Reed and Ray Lewis, Chris McCallister, etc.
On the other hand if we had made an attempt at getting downfield, you don't really question that too much either, because 52 seconds is plenty of time...unless Griese tosses a pick and the Ravens win and everyone's like "WHY DIDNT YOU JUST RUN THE CLOCK OUT!!!!! GRIESE WAS SUCKING YOU NEEDED TIME TO GET A SCORING DRIVE TOGETHER!!!!!!"
