Zeke's (almost) huge mistake that could have lost the game

[Romo_To_Dez]

He did right in taking the points. You never know what could happen on plays afterwards or if something could go wrong and prevent the team from scoring.

 

[jrumann59]

Would you rather be up by four with 1:40 left, or up by one with 12 seconds left?

Lets see long return puts them in FG range, the way big ben was abusing the secondary 40 yards is doable in 12 seconds. Odds are being up by 4 with 100 seconds left you bet your defense can keep them out of the endzone.

 

[erod]

Lets see long return puts them in FG range, the way big ben was abusing the secondary 40 yards is doable in 12 seconds. Odds are being up by 4 with 100 seconds left you bet your defense can keep them out of the endzone.

No, you kick it out of the end zone, and Big Ben has no timeouts with 12 seconds from his own 25 yard line.

 

[joseephuss]

There's nothing subjective about it.

The stats say you have an X% chance to win if you do one thing and a Y% chance to win if you do the other thing.

Zeke's TD gave us a lower % chance to win than if he had gone down at the 1. We got away with it and hopefully will learn from it moving forward.

Someone has to decide/define what "chance to win" means. That is subjective.

 

[mattjames2010]

Lets see long return puts them in FG range, the way big ben was abusing the secondary 40 yards is doable in 12 seconds. Odds are being up by 4 with 100 seconds left you bet your defense can keep them out of the endzone.

Or you put up points too quickly with nearly 2 minutes left and they drive down the field with 2 timeouts and score...

.....which is what freakin' happened. Haha

I feel like you guys aren't factoring in what was going on in our secondary at the end of the game.

 

[Diehardblues]

Would you rather be up by four with 1:40 left, or up by one with 12 seconds left?

That's what these kids don't get. This is the NFL not Amateur football. A minute with timeouts is an enternity. Look what we did in 42 seconds.

 

[joseephuss]

No, you kick it out of the end zone, and Big Ben has no timeouts with 12 seconds from his own 25 yard line.

I'm still not seeing the 12 seconds left part. Looks like they would have about 20 to 25 seconds left in your proposed scenario.

 

[joseephuss]

That's what these kids don't get. This is the NFL not Amateur football. A minute with timeouts is an enternity. Look what we did in 42 seconds.

Plus they would only need a FG instead of a TD if Dallas had settled for a FG.

 

[mattjames2010]

If we had a great defense with a good pass rush and solid secondary, I'd agree, score and let your D go to work. That is not what was happening here.

We were down to ONE veteran CB, we are without Church. The only two secondary players worth a damn were Carr (Barely) and Jones. Who do you want to put the game in the hands of, one of the best FG kickers in the league or a defense that can't get a sack to save their lives with a banged up secondary behind them?

 

[Redball Express]

It wasn't a mistake or an almost mistake. When you are trailing you score when the opportunity is in front of you. Nothing is ever guaranteed, so you take advantage of your chances when you can. It is a different situation of you are protecting a lead, but when you are behind you take that touchdown. Bad snaps, bad holds, blocked kicks, missed field goal and in general stuff happens. Elliot did what he needed to do and it was the right thing to do.

Yep.

Zeke is going to score in that situation.

Just as he did again moments later.

I never want to see us not run the play as intended.

Speaking of that..

the fake spike by Big Ben was a desperate play.

Could not believe we had to overcome that.

 

[Diehardblues]

Plus they would only need a FG instead of a TD if Dallas had settled for a FG.

Correct. We basically had an opportunity on that possession to end the game like on the Steelers last possession with only 9 seconds.

 

[Nightman]

No, you kick it out of the end zone, and Big Ben has no timeouts with 12 seconds from his own 25 yard line.

I guess you already forgot the DET game when we got a penalty to stop the clock and gave them an extra TO

 

[8FOR!3]

Steelers had 2 timeouts left, not 1.

Exactly, I think there would've been like a minute left on the clock and well you all saw how quick Roethlisberger moved the ball down the field after that. So in that situation he would've probably gotten his touchdown and we would've lost because we would've have had a minute left to move the ball. You don't get cute on offense trying to run clock down. Even though it does sometimes make sense, it's not a smart move and it can come back and really bite you. If you have a chance to get a touchdown you get a touchdown.

 

[Proximo]

These threads are always fun.

We won....but we could've won "better".

Or, we didn't win "right".

Pro football. The ultimate "hindsight is 20/20" game.

 

[erod]

I guess you already forgot the DET game when we got a penalty to stop the clock and gave them an extra TO

What if Pittsburgh didn't score so quickly? Our defense had no chance with that much time left. We're just lucky they were so bad there was still time left.

 

[ksadler1]

I absolutely agree with both the OPs post and having to take the points. This was a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation if I've ever seen one and I strongly agree with both points.We could have won or lost with either scenario. We just happened to win.....

 

[dogunwo]

Thread fail.

 

[GIFTS86]

Zeke Elliott had a huge day. Zeke Elliott almost made a huge mistake.

The grins are tattooed to our faces, and we're fist-bumping through a rosy Monday morning, but it could have been very, very different. I can see and hear the screams today had Zeke's boo-boo not been band-aided in time.

If the game was managed properly, the biggest play of the game should have been Dak's last completion to Jason Witten.

That first down should have sealed the win. Pittsburgh had one time out, and Dallas had a 1st-and-10 deep in Steelers territory with 1:55 left. Once Zeke got that first down, he should have gone down. Time out Pittsburgh. Take another knee. Whittle it down to 1 minute. Take another knee. Whittle it down to less than 20 seconds. Dan Bailey. 26-24. Ball game with only about 12 seconds left.

Instead, we saw Elliott go off right tackle untouched for a touchdown. The first thing I though was, "uh oh, too much time left." I'm not sure if Pittsburgh let him score or not, but it sure looked easy. It was definitely their only chance at that time. That left more than 1:40 to go with Big Ben against our exhausted, short-handed defense. No Scandrick, Mo, or Church. McFadden on Brown. Great googly-moogly.

Fortunately, Pittsburgh scored too quickly as well, and Dallas had time to come back. The Steelers had no choice, needing a touchdown, but it turned out good that Dallas was easy pickings.

That left time for Zeke to punctuate the day. Fortunately, it was an exclamation point, and not a big fat question mark.

I think your completely wrong. If they did not want zeke to score the coaches would have told him not to. And number 2 it's up to the defense to stop the steelers from scoring. How dumb is our defense to fall for a fake spike.

 

[erod]

I'm still not seeing the 12 seconds left part. Looks like they would have about 20 to 25 seconds left in your proposed scenario.

Zeke drops at the 2 and Pittsburgh calls a time out with 1:40 left. Dak sneaks to the spot Bailey wants, and Pittsburgh call it's last time out with 1:35 left. Dak takes a stutter to a knee to get it to 52 seconds. Dak does the same thing. Time out with about 10 seconds to go. Bailey 23-yard field goal.

So actually, they could have probably got it down to about 6 seconds.

 

[erod]

I think your completely wrong. If they did not want zeke to score the coaches would have told him not to. And number 2 it's up to the defense to stop the steelers from scoring. How dumb is our defense to fall for a fake spike.

Fake spike or not, there was no way Dallas was stopping them. Defense was exhausted, and Scandrick was out of the game.