I had no problem with McFad going out of bounds on first down....he didn't go out of bounds on a play strung out...he picked up 8-9 yards...that's worth it.
I had no problem with scoring the TD when we did. Scoring a TD means you cannot lose on the next possession. Kneeling down and making the Skins use their timeouts and then kicking the FG means they don't have to score a TD.
So we kick a FG, we cut their time in half and use up their timeouts. Now the one horrible special teams play of the game--they had a great return and a penalty, so they're only one completion from kicking the tying FG and we're wondering why we didn't go for the win....worse, imagine another SpT meltdown like vs. NYG and a TD.
Worst that could happen was a great return, a penalty, and a long TD pass---all three happened, but thank goodness we had scored the TD and were only tied. And then we won the game...end of story.
Maybe another coach would have done it differently; maybe another RB would have picked up the first down and dropped at the 1 or 2. But this entire game we'd been playing a little outside the "play it safe" box, something we all complained about not doing all season. I have no problem with scoring the TD, taking a 7 point lead, and counting on the defense and kick off team to do their jobs...neither did...big surprise.