Did Zuerlein bail him out or was this the designed outcome of the strategy the staff employed?
My initial reaction was much the same as most everyone else - I wanted to get closer BUT after finding stats indicating that NFL kickers make 61.9% of kicks from 50+ yards I think the staff’s strategy comes into more clarity here.
1. You run in a situation where a run is generally not expected hoping for the big gain and a shorter FG.
2. If you get the big gain then you play for the kick from that point on.
3. If the run gets stuffed you force SD to take TO and then run whatever play you want to advance the ball for a shorter kick. This has the benefit of making SD burn a TO at the expense of giving us the time to construct a more elaborate scheme to get closer.
4. If the run gets stuffed and SD doesn’t call a TO then milk the clock and rely on your kicker and a 61.9% chance of winning the game as time expires.
lol, come on..
this is not a bad strategy. If anything it’s ballsy. It might not be how most of us would have played this, because we don’t have the balls, but it wasn’t conceived in the mind of an imbecile either.