Not Knocking Wade, But Why Did He Accept The Penalty On 4th Down?...

[Chocolate Lab]

I wondered about that, too. Was it really going to be 4th and two, though? Watching it live I thought they were only a yard short, and maybe he was afraid they'd go for it and get it.

I bet if you asked him, though (and they probably will at the PC), he'd say he had confidence in our defense and wanted to put them in 3rd and really long so he could take another shot at McNabb. That would be my real answer to your question. Risky, yes, but pretty ballsy as well.

 

[rexrobinson]

The challenge of the McNabb Td pass was another concerning call. He was clearly behind the LOS. That was a real hail Mary challenge with no rational basis made on pure emotion. It ended up costing us a challenge and a time out. Good thing for us, the other team's coach was even less rational with his challenges.

Yeah, that was the one that got me upset because he was clearly behind the LOS and if my lip reading was accurate, Wade seemed like he did not quite know the rule even though Romo has done the exact same thing and had it challenged at least once a year since he has started. I am guessing Wade knew the rule but was trying to see if we could get lucky.

 

[sonnyboy]

He made several head scratching calls in my opinion. That was one of the first ones. I came out of my chair.

Came out of mine too. For all the Wade bashing I believe he's pretty good on the game day HC type stuff like this. Almost always agree with his calls and we run a fairly efficient sideline.

But he dropped the ball there. It was not just a poor decision, it was flat out wrong.

What were the others you made reference to?

 

[LeonDixson]

I was angry with that decision. We've been burnt too often on 3rd and very long to take that chance, especially by the Eagles.

 

[rynochop]

It was a definite head scratcher, i saw why, but yeah like someone said, i was just waiting for a defensive hold or illegal contact or something.

That said, it was a brilliant move compared to Reid kicking that FG. If you make it or miss it, you still need a TD. And you have no TO's left to stop the clock while we have it. I guess he though scoring a TD after the FG wins it.??

If you miss it, which was highly likely, or go for it and dont make it, which is pretty unlikely, but certainly not impossible, there isnt much difference in field posisition.

 

[Doomsday101]

Yeah, that was the one that got me upset because he was clearly behind the LOS and if my lip reading was accurate, Wade seemed like he did not quite know the rule even though Romo has done the exact same thing and had it challenged at least once a year since he has started. I am guessing Wade knew the rule but was trying to see if we could get lucky.

A lot of that is you are trusting your own people up in the coach’s booth who will radio down and on these close calls to challenge or not. Myself I thought it was close enough to challenge and seeing how the play resulted in a TD for philly I had no issue with the challenge. NBC kept talking about the redline they are showing but that red line is not official and not exact.

 

[Tusan_Homichi]

I liked the call. It was a game of field position and that could have been big if we didn't give up 21 of the 23 yards needed.

 

[Doomsday101]

The coaching call I would question more than any other was Reid kicking the FG with no timeouts left with a little over 4 min. Even after they made the FG they were still in need of a TD to win the game while all Dallas needed was 2 1st downs to seal the game.

 

[JBond]

He made several head scratching calls in my opinion. That was one of the first ones. I came out of my chair.

I was a little surprised he called a time out instead of letting Romo down it. As you say there were a couple of "what the heck is going on moments".

 

[mmohican29]

I liked the call.

I was wanting him to accept the penalty and us possibly get the ball at midfield.

With the way our defense was playing i'd take my chances on them holding on 3rd and a mile if the reward got me 20 yards farther upfield.

I agreed with this. I think Wade wanted to make a statement defensively taking the penalty... if he gets a sack there or a shorter gain it's a big field position swing already leading by 7.

And it draws a line in the sand that we are NOT afraid of Philadelphia's big play potential.

 

[newlander]

...I agree...that wasn't smart......AT ALL. He also delayed calling timeout when we stopped philly with 1:48 to go in the first half. he waited until 1:36...not what you want to do. That 12 seconds could've come in handy in play calling at the end of the drive: too many passes to RW because we didn't have the timeouts or the time we would've had....RANT OVER!!!

 

[dbair1967]

The challenge of the McNabb Td pass was another concerning call. He was clearly behind the LOS. That was a real hail Mary challenge with no rational basis made on pure emotion. It ended up costing us a challenge and a time out. Good thing for us, the other team's coach was even less rational with his challenges.

Sorry, but you are dead wrong. Virtually all his body was over the line and several players saw it, thats why it was challenged.

It was a good challenege.

 

[Chuck 54]

I liked the call.

I was wanting him to accept the penalty and us possibly get the ball at midfield.

With the way our defense was playing i'd take my chances on them holding on 3rd and a mile if the reward got me 20 yards farther upfield.

I liked it as well....taking the penalty was a 20 yard swing if the next one is incomplete...so we let em get back exactly where they were...he wasn't concerned...I like that our defense is starting to get good enough that he has faith in them...they'll have some swagger if this keeps up.

 

[dbair1967]

That one is not on Wade. It's from someone up in the box looking at it. Wade has to take their word for it.

Several players saw it too.

He was definitely over the line by a good bit. He got away with it based on a technicality of the rule.

 

[TNCowboy]

I think Wade's line of thought was that an offsides penalty gave them the 1st down on 4th and 2. So if there was a ~10% chance of one of his knucklehead players jumping offsides, and say there was a 20% chance of the Eagles getting a first down, that 10% extra risk was worth the potentially 20 yards of field position they stood to gain.

It's kind of an aggressive move, and a little bit of a gamble, but the odds were still in our favor. I liked it. We weren't dominating the game to the point that 20 additional yards of field position weren't a big deal.

I never saw a replay except for my own Tivo, but it looked to me like he didn't catch the ball on 3rd down. It looked like the ball popped out as he was going down, but Cowboy defenders were right there and never complained, so he probably did catch it.

 

[sonnyboy]

I was a little surprised he called a time out instead of letting Romo down it. As you say there were a couple of "what the heck is going on moments".

I thought that was a great call. Absolutely right in my mind. Romo would've burnt at least another 6 secs trying to spike it, maybe more.

What good would a timeout mean to us with only 12 -14 secs left.

Not only was it a good decision but it was made quickly and that's a good thing.

 

[sonnyboy]

...I agree...that wasn't smart......AT ALL. He also delayed calling timeout when we stopped philly with 1:48 to go in the first half. he waited until 1:36...not what you want to do. That 12 seconds could've come in handy in play calling at the end of the drive: too many passes to RW because we didn't have the timeouts or the time we would've had....RANT OVER!!!

He did drop the ball on that one. I was screaming for a TO.

 

[rexrobinson]

Sorry, but you are dead wrong. Virtually all his body was over the line and several players saw it, thats why it was challenged.

It was a good challenege.

I did not like the challenge for that very reason, you need indisputable evidence to overturn the field ruling and given the few camera shots we saw there was no evidence he was over the line. He very well could of been over that LOS, we just never saw the evidence. When Wade challenged it I was hoping he or his staff saw something we did not.

Andy Reid got burned twice trying to challenge ball spots. Camera angles and the superimposed LOS and first down markers are tricky and makes the odds of overturning the ruling on the field very difficult since the officials can't make judgements on perceptions due to bad angles.

The good news is we won and I am happy so I don't really even care to be honest and since I am not a Wade basher I won't think much more about it either. This is just an interesting topic.

 

[TD-33]

It showed that Wade had faith in our defense, which I'm sure made them feel great. I'm assuming he felt that our defense was controlling the Philly offense for the most part minus the big dump off pass.

My thoughts too.

 

[bbgun]

Sorry, but you are dead wrong. Virtually all his body was over the line and several players saw it, thats why it was challenged.

It was a good challenege.

People were swayed by the announcers. They took a quick look at the replay, said we were crazy to challenge, went to commercial break, then replayed the thing in super slow motion. It was closer than they thought.