The Fake FG

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The Fake FG

Postby RiverDog » Tue Nov 21, 2017 5:39 am

It's the end of the half, 7 seconds remaining in a close game with the Hawks trailing by a single score, ball on the 17 yard line, 4th and 1.

Now can somebody estimate what the odds are of scoring a touchdown from 17 yards out on a fake FG featuring a running play?

That had to be one of the stupidest gambles that I've seen in my over 50 years of watching football.
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Re: The Fake FG

Postby Largent80 » Tue Nov 21, 2017 6:00 am

Hard to argue that. Methinks Pete doesn't have much confidence in Walsh. All he had to do was keep Haush. I don't blame Walsh for coming up short on the last FG either because if Pete hadn't foolishly used a challenge on an obvious Baldwin incompletion we would have had at minimum one more play to run and possibly many more, with time still left on the clock.

Pete tripped over himself a few times in this game.

The right side of the o-line is dreadful, and even if we make the playoffs, this is quite clearly not a SB caliber winning team.
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Re: The Fake FG

Postby RiverDog » Tue Nov 21, 2017 6:27 am

Largent80 wrote:Hard to argue that. Methinks Pete doesn't have much confidence in Walsh. All he had to do was keep Haush. I don't blame Walsh for coming up short on the last FG either because if Pete hadn't foolishly used a challenge on an obvious Baldwin incompletion we would have had at minimum one more play to run and possibly many more, with time still left on the clock.

Pete tripped over himself a few times in this game.

The right side of the o-line is dreadful, and even if we make the playoffs, this is quite clearly not a SB caliber winning team.


Except for that one dreadful game against the Skins, Walsh hasn't kicked all that badly this season. He was 2-2 in FG's, 2-2 on XP's last week and had already kicked 2 XP's and a FG in this game. At that point, he'd been perfect in the last 6 quarters. Plus they don't get a lot easier than a 35 yard attempt. And yea, I can't blame him for leaving that 51 yarder short by a few feet either. It was a cold, damp night and the ball just doesn't carry well. If it's a lack of confidence that's influencing Pete's decisions, he needs to forget about that Skins game and let Walsh do what he was hired to.

Given the game situation, that fake had almost no chance of scoring a TD. Realistically the best that could have happened is that we got a first down out of it with enough time for a FG attempt, of which we already had a 90%+ shot at anyway.
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Re: The Fake FG

Postby Oly » Tue Nov 21, 2017 6:29 am

RiverDog wrote:It's the end of the half, 7 seconds remaining in a close game with the Hawks trailing by a single score, ball on the 17 yard line, 4th and 1.

Now can somebody estimate what the odds are of scoring a touchdown from 17 yards out on a fake FG featuring a running play?

That had to be one of the stupidest gambles that I've seen in my over 50 years of watching football.


Largent80 wrote:Hard to argue that. Methinks Pete doesn't have much confidence in Walsh. All he had to do was keep Haush. I don't blame Walsh for coming up short on the last FG either because if Pete hadn't foolishly used a challenge on an obvious Baldwin incompletion we would have had at minimum one more play to run and possibly many more, with time still left on the clock.

Pete tripped over himself a few times in this game.

The right side of the o-line is dreadful, and even if we make the playoffs, this is quite clearly not a SB caliber winning team.


Yep. This. I'm baffled how a SB-winning coach could be that stupid in critical situations.
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Re: The Fake FG

Postby RiverDog » Tue Nov 21, 2017 6:45 am

Oly wrote:Yep. This. I'm baffled how a SB-winning coach could be that stupid in critical situations.


Between the penalties we've had this season and the huge game management boners he's pulled, I'm beginning to lose confidence in Pete and our coaching staff. Those Super Bowl appearances are fading further and further into our rear view mirror. If we miss the playoffs, which at this point appears more likely than not, and if Pete decides to stand pat with his current configuration of coaches during the offseason, then it's not going to take very much next season for me to fall off the bandwagon and start calling for his head. That call on the fake FG was inexcusable. A grade schooler could figure out that the odds of success didn't justify it.
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Re: The Fake FG

Postby idhawkman » Tue Nov 21, 2017 7:25 am

Actually, if you look a the play, OTT our LS stands up instead of cutting the guy to the play side. Had he cut that guy, Luke would have scored. The lane to the end zone was so wide it was ridiculous. But... it always comes down to one guy NOT doing his job.
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Re: The Fake FG

Postby Hawktawk » Tue Nov 21, 2017 7:37 am

It was a ridiculously stupid call. Inexcusable.indefensible . Another hormonal moment by our usually awesome coach. :?
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Re: The Fake FG

Postby idhawkman » Tue Nov 21, 2017 7:40 am

Hawktawk wrote:It was a ridiculously stupid call. Inexcusable.indefensible . Another hormonal moment by our usually awesome coach. :?

Well, I won't argue with that. I agree, he should not have called the fake. That said, the play was there if everyone DOES THEIR JOB!
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Re: The Fake FG

Postby RiverDog » Tue Nov 21, 2017 7:44 am

idhawkman wrote:Actually, if you look a the play, OTT our LS stands up instead of cutting the guy to the play side. Had he cut that guy, Luke would have scored. The lane to the end zone was so wide it was ridiculous. But... it always comes down to one guy NOT doing his job.


In a compressed field as is the case in a red zone defense, a jet sweep isn't going to have a huge chance of scoring. They don't have that much territory to defend.

You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. That was a horrendously stupid call. You give up a 90% chance of scoring 3 points in order to take a 5% or less chance at scoring 7.
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Re: The Fake FG

Postby idhawkman » Tue Nov 21, 2017 7:47 am

It wasn't a jet sweep Riv. It was a fake field goal and they had no safety to roam the secondary. There literally was no one between the end zone and Luke except for the guy OTT let go by him by standing up instead of cut blocking or even just blocking him.
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Re: The Fake FG

Postby RiverDog » Tue Nov 21, 2017 7:52 am

idhawkman wrote:It wasn't a jet sweep Riv. It was a fake field goal and they had no safety to roam the secondary. There literally was no one between the end zone and Luke except for the guy OTT let go by him by standing up instead of cut blocking or even just blocking him.


I know it wasn't a jet sweep, but it was that type of play, with a TE or WR coming from one side of the formation horizontally within a couple yards of the LOS.

And I don't care how "wide open" it was. It was an extremely risky play, as all fakes are. All it takes is one blown assignment or one defender to sniff it out, which is exactly what happened.
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Re: The Fake FG

Postby c_hawkbob » Tue Nov 21, 2017 8:00 am

It was a stupid gambit and it wound up costing us the game. What a shame.
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Re: The Fake FG

Postby burrrton » Tue Nov 21, 2017 8:32 am

RiverDog wrote:That had to be one of the stupidest gambles that I've seen in my over 50 years of watching football.


This. However, it's not like we ended up needing those three points...
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Re: The Fake FG

Postby Oly » Tue Nov 21, 2017 11:25 am

idhawkman wrote:Actually, if you look a the play, OTT our LS stands up instead of cutting the guy to the play side. Had he cut that guy, Luke would have scored. The lane to the end zone was so wide it was ridiculous. But... it always comes down to one guy NOT doing his job.


But that's the point. If just one guy doesn't do his job--especially when that job is having a LS explode laterally to cut block a bull-rushing DT--then the play fails. The point is that the play was so stupid and risky because so many things had to go right, with none going wrong.

burrrton wrote:This. However, it's not like we ended up needing those three points...


Just imagine if, on that last drive, the game was tied and Russ still had that wasted time out to get Walsh 5 yards closer.

I don't know if I've been this angry after a game since the SB debacle.
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Re: The Fake FG

Postby NorthHawk » Tue Nov 21, 2017 11:55 am

We discussed the lack of success with challenges and playcalls late in the half or games a few years ago.
This goes with the territory of Pete being a little bit of a gambler.
Combine it with him being a Defensive coach and evidence mounts that he doesn't have the same acumen for the Offense that he does with the Defense.
The "Always Compete" philosophy leads to throwing the red challenge flag when there is little chance of success as we've seen last night and in the past.
I'm not sure who's advising him up stairs, but that needs to be addressed. Someone should have been shouting in his ear NOOOOOO! Keep that flag in your pocket!
I'm sure many of us were doing that.

As it turned out last night, these things all came together to prevent a better chance to win.
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Re: The Fake FG

Postby mykc14 » Tue Nov 21, 2017 7:13 pm

I tend to give play callers the benefit of the doubt more often than not, but there is really no way to justify this fake field goal in this situation... risk FAR outweighed potential reward. On top of that the play was extremely hard to execute. To be successful you’re relying on somebody who NEVER blocks anybody 1 on 1 to block a DT who crosses his face, while he is starting from a head-down long snapping position. Ott really has no chance to block him in that situation. He had to snap, look up, and find which direction the DT went and then figure out which type of block to execute (cut/down/maybe reach although I doubt it)... just a head scratcher all around
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Re: The Fake FG

Postby Zorn76 » Wed Nov 22, 2017 2:09 am

It was the dumbest f'ing thing I've seen Pete do in a regular season game.
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Re: The Fake FG

Postby RiverDog » Wed Nov 22, 2017 4:59 am

mykc14 wrote:I tend to give play callers the benefit of the doubt more often than not, but there is really no way to justify this fake field goal in this situation... risk FAR outweighed potential reward. On top of that the play was extremely hard to execute. To be successful you’re relying on somebody who NEVER blocks anybody 1 on 1 to block a DT who crosses his face, while he is starting from a head-down long snapping position. Ott really has no chance to block him in that situation. He had to snap, look up, and find which direction the DT went and then figure out which type of block to execute (cut/down/maybe reach although I doubt it)... just a head scratcher all around


Plus in addition to the complexity of the play, running a shovel pass to a player running horizontally within a few feet where 6-7 DL's are going to be pushing like hell to get some penetration to block the FG attempt makes the play selection itself very questionable.

Even if it weren't for the complexity of the play and the experience level of those called on to execute it, it was a bad risk. Not many fake FG's are ran in for TD's. If the objective was simply getting a first down and we had time for another couple of plays or if we figured we needed another 10 yards to get a better shot at a FG, then I could see it. But we were already within a 40 yard FG attempt, or the 90%+ range, and with just 7 seconds left, if he's stopped short of the goal line, there's a very good chance of the clock running out before we could call a timeout, so it was pretty much an end zone or bust play.

I'm sure that there's been other play calls that I've seen in my 55+ years of watching football that were this bad or worse, but I honestly can't recall one this egregious. A few have compared it to the SB49 fiasco, but that was controversial mainly because of the consequences (losing the SB), and there was at least some amount of reasoning one could do to justify that call. But not on this one. This was Pete's biggest boner ever...by far.
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Re: The Fake FG

Postby idhawkman » Wed Nov 22, 2017 8:05 am

here's a sequence of the play and what I think was a good design but for the LS not doing his job. I still think it was the wrong call for the situation but I do like the design of it.

Image
Image
Image
Image
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Re: The Fake FG

Postby NorthHawk » Wed Nov 22, 2017 9:24 am

The design looks good on paper, but Long Snappers aren't hired for their run blocking so that's the weak part of any type of play like that and it showed.
All it takes is an aware DL and the play is over like we saw.

Edit:
It's another case like Ricardo Lockette in the SB where we ask a player to do something they don't normally do or have never done in Seattle at an important point in the game.
Last edited by NorthHawk on Wed Nov 22, 2017 9:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Fake FG

Postby mykc14 » Wed Nov 22, 2017 9:32 am

idhawkman,

Overall the concept seems good, except for the fact that Ott is required to make a very tough block and he NEVER blocks 1 on 1... Even from your pictures he is beat before he even lifts his head from snapping. He had zero chance of making his block... IF the DT stays on his left the play probably works, but that is a BIG if as many DT's cross the center's face on PAT/Field goal attempts (this could be something that the Seahawks coaches noticed that the Falcon DT doesn't usually do though...)
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Re: The Fake FG

Postby NorthHawk » Wed Nov 22, 2017 10:05 am

With Pete having coached under Bud Grant who I believe he said he thinks of as a bit of a mentor and other conservative coaches, it's a little baffling that he didn't get the points when he could at that point in the game.
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Re: The Fake FG

Postby Hawk Sista » Wed Nov 22, 2017 10:23 am

I think if you listen to Pete, you’d understand the play call and what they’d been seeing. Hindsight is 20/20 but had Luke gotten wide of Grady, it’s a TD all the way. There were 15 seconds left, not the 7 seconds shown on the TV screen and we had a timeout left. Pete & the players were getting the right look earlier and had practiced that play for a bit. OTT was not supposed to block Grady, the look was that Grady wasn’t there. It feels like the day dumbest play in the world right now, but remember that part of situational football is the score. The Falcons would have called different plays had the score been different. It’s an easy thing to point to, and pretty easy from the couch after it failed. We have not witnessed 5 years of success because Pete is conservative.
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Re: The Fake FG

Postby mykc14 » Wed Nov 22, 2017 10:46 am

Hawk Sista wrote:I think if you listen to Pete, you’d understand the play call and what they’d been seeing. Hindsight is 20/20 but had Luke gotten wide of Grady, it’s a TD all the way. There were 15 seconds left, not the 7 seconds shown on the TV screen and we had a timeout left. Pete & the players were getting the right look earlier and had practiced that play for a bit. OTT was not supposed to block Grady, the look was that Grady wasn’t there. It feels like the day dumbest play in the world right now, but remember that part of situational football is the score. The Falcons would have called different plays had the score been different. It’s an easy thing to point to, and pretty easy from the couch after it failed. We have not witnessed 5 years of success because Pete is conservative.


The fact that Grady wasn't supposed to be there is really the only explanation that I can see making even a little sense as there is no way Ott realistically could have blocked him. Even so, usually you can audible it back to the original play (normal field goal) if you don't get the look you want. 15 seconds does make a bit of a difference as well as you would be able to get out of bonds or call a timeout if you didn't score and still have 9 or 10 seconds left. In that time you could try a safe pass into the endzone and still have time to kick a field goal if you weren't successful...

I do completely agree with your point about the 3 points there were not the same 3 points we lost by as the play calls, etc.. would have been completely different as the game went on, but it would have been really nice to have those 3 points.
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Re: The Fake FG

Postby Aseahawkfan » Wed Nov 22, 2017 12:59 pm

Irritating choice. As IdHawkman pointed out, it could have worked. I expect this kind of play from Pete on occasion. The exaggerations about dumbest call they've seen in 50 years or the like, that's pretty ridiculous. There have been worse calls. Pete's made gambles before that didn't pay off. I've gotten used to him not taking the field goal when he should. It's cost more than a few games. When you have a coach that gambles, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. You have to take both good and bad outcomes.
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Re: The Fake FG

Postby NorthHawk » Wed Nov 22, 2017 4:28 pm

2nd dumbest call in 50 years... :roll:
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Re: The Fake FG

Postby Hawktawk » Wed Nov 22, 2017 5:51 pm

[quote="NorthHawk"]2nd dumbest call in 50 years... :roll:[/quote

I agree. It’s hard to top 2nd and goal on the one but this call was a beauty. With our line we’re going to run a shovel pass that has to go horizontally behind our line using a tight end albeit a fast one as the ball carrier . It was totally ridiculous. :shock:
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Re: The Fake FG

Postby RiverDog » Wed Nov 22, 2017 7:03 pm

Hawk Sista wrote:I think if you listen to Pete, you’d understand the play call and what they’d been seeing. Hindsight is 20/20 but had Luke gotten wide of Grady, it’s a TD all the way. There were 15 seconds left, not the 7 seconds shown on the TV screen and we had a timeout left. Pete & the players were getting the right look earlier and had practiced that play for a bit. OTT was not supposed to block Grady, the look was that Grady wasn’t there. It feels like the day dumbest play in the world right now, but remember that part of situational football is the score. The Falcons would have called different plays had the score been different. It’s an easy thing to point to, and pretty easy from the couch after it failed. We have not witnessed 5 years of success because Pete is conservative.


If there truly was 15 seconds instead of 7, it would lower the stupidity ratio by a couple of points, perhaps take it out of the 50 year category. Nevertheless, it was an incredibly stupid play call.

I disagree with the play being of good design. If it were not for the fact that it was a FG attempt, then yes, it's a good design. But when you consider that every single one of the 6 or 7 down linemen are going to be rushing like crazy trying to get to the kicker, it's almost inevitable that one of them is going to get enough penetration to disrupt a play with the tight end running horizontally just a yard or so behind the LOS.

And Sis is right, you can't point to a play in the first half as costing us the game, and at least for my part, I never indicated that it did. But in a close game, those three points are worth gold, and it's obvious that our chances of winning would have gone up substantially had we gone into halftime down by 4 instead of 7.
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Re: The Fake FG

Postby burrrton » Wed Nov 22, 2017 10:30 pm

[quote="Hawktawk"][quote="NorthHawk"]2nd dumbest call in 50 years... :roll:[/quote

^^Tawk, what the hell is it with you and these quotes?? :)
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Re: The Fake FG

Postby idhawkman » Fri Nov 24, 2017 10:48 am

mykc14 wrote:idhawkman,

Overall the concept seems good, except for the fact that Ott is required to make a very tough block and he NEVER blocks 1 on 1... Even from your pictures he is beat before he even lifts his head from snapping. He had zero chance of making his block... IF the DT stays on his left the play probably works, but that is a BIG if as many DT's cross the center's face on PAT/Field goal attempts (this could be something that the Seahawks coaches noticed that the Falcon DT doesn't usually do though...)


I agree, it was a risk. The odds of the DT crossing when the ball is on the right hash is very low odds. He effectively took himself out of the line of the FG try if we had done it. Again, there were so many things that had to fall the Falcon's way in that game and they all did. Its just the way it happened. #snakebit
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Re: The Fake FG

Postby idhawkman » Fri Nov 24, 2017 10:54 am

Aseahawkfan wrote:Irritating choice. As IdHawkman pointed out, it could have worked. I expect this kind of play from Pete on occasion. The exaggerations about dumbest call they've seen in 50 years or the like, that's pretty ridiculous. There have been worse calls. Pete's made gambles before that didn't pay off. I've gotten used to him not taking the field goal when he should. It's cost more than a few games. When you have a coach that gambles, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. You have to take both good and bad outcomes.


The silver lining is now teams will have to take time during the week to game plan for this fake.
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