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

[erod]

Thread fail.

More like basic math fail.

 

[chagus]

You score points when your down. How is this even a conversation?!?

 

[Yakuza Rich]

Tough to tell. You're trying to gain yards and then you get thru the line and are bursting home for a TD. Also, while Bailey is superb, Heinz Field is a tough place to kick. I tend to think there are more clear situations where the player should be aware and kneel to the 1-yard line. This just was not one of them.



YR

 

[jrumann59]

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.

Well someone has to be "dumb" enough previously or it would not have been in the playbook.

 

[Elusive6thRing]

If they had no timeouts and since we have one of the greatest fg kickers ever I'd say run the clock down kick the fg, but since they had the timeouts it'd be tough to run it all the way down using their timeouts and not score. So we did the right thing.

 

[joseephuss]

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.

Why would Pittsburgh let 15 seconds run off the clock before calling a time out? When he scored there was 1:55 on the clock. If he goes down at the 2 yard line there would be 1:55 on the clock. Pittsburgh likely would not burn a time out then, but rater would wait until after the 1st down play. You are stretching it that they would have 12 seconds left and really if you think it would get down to 6. It is between 20 and 30 seconds.

 

[robbieruff]

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 recall when the Eagles running back (Westbrook) went down at the one on us to seal the game some seasons back. And I agree Zeke would've made a heady play to do that as the Steelers would've had to stop the clock after his run to 1:50 let's say (amount of time for it to register and for them to get the TO called). First knee takes it to 1:45-ish (their last TO and second down). Next knee takes it to 3rd down and another 40 ticks off...so about a minute left. And next knee takes it to make it 4th down with about 20 seconds left and a chip shot. Kicked the FG to take the lead to about 15 seconds. Squib kick it to about 7-8 seconds. Ballgame. I thought the same thing. But how boring would that have been!?!

Here's the Westbrook play...

 

[conner01]

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.

Ask Tony romo about those game winning fg's

 

[Elusive6thRing]

In fact they scored in like one minute so if we tried to milk the clock more which again they had two timeouts they probably would have gotten the ball last and won the game. But luckily they left time for us to score last.

 

[erod]

If they had no timeouts and since we have one of the greatest fg kickers ever I'd say run the clock down kick the fg, but since they had the timeouts it'd be tough to run it all the way down using their timeouts and not score. So we did the right thing.

The right thing Dallas did was letting Big Ben take them the length of the field in less than a minute. LOL

 

[jrumann59]

I recall when the Eagles running back (Westbrook) went down at the one on us to seal the game some seasons back. And I agree Zeke would've made a heady play to do that as the Steelers would've had to stop the clock after his run to 1:50 let's say (amount of time for it to register and for them to get the TO called). First knee takes it to 1:45-ish (their last TO and second down). Next knee takes it to 3rd down and another 40 ticks off...so about a minute left. And next knee takes it to make it 4th down with about 20 seconds left and a chip shot. Kicked the FG to take the lead to about 15 seconds. Squib kick it to about 7-8 seconds. Ballgame. I thought the same thing. But how boring would that have been!?!

Here's the Westbrook play...

Most likely if they were to kick a FG it would have been 3rd down.

 

[robbieruff]

Most likely if they were to kick a FG it would have been 3rd down.

Nah. You don't run the sequence that way when you're looking to completely burn clock. Not taking a 3rd down FG for sake of a bad snap and leaving 40 more ticks on the clock and a FG beats u. That ain't happening. Unless you're joking???

 

[mmohican29]

I think New England got a bit cutesy last night trying to run clock before scoring. And it bit them in the butt. You try to score and then count on your defense.

See Seattle @ Minnesota.

Nothing is given. The Vikings geared down for the gimme chip shot and Seattle advanced to the NFC Championship game.

 

[joseephuss]

I recall when the Eagles running back (Westbrook) went down at the one on us to seal the game some seasons back. And I agree Zeke would've made a heady play to do that as the Steelers would've had to stop the clock after his run to 1:50 let's say (amount of time for it to register and for them to get the TO called). First knee takes it to 1:45-ish (their last TO and second down). Next knee takes it to 3rd down and another 40 ticks off...so about a minute left. And next knee takes it to make it 4th down with about 20 seconds left and a chip shot. Kicked the FG to take the lead to about 15 seconds. Squib kick it to about 7-8 seconds. Ballgame. I thought the same thing. But how boring would that have been!?!

Here's the Westbrook play...

In that situation Dallas had no timeouts left and the Eagles had the lead. Had he scored in that situation the Eagles most likely still win that game. It would have given them a 17-6 lead in a game where the Dallas offense did nothing. The Cowboys were unlikely to score twice to come back and win that game. I never thought that play was as big a deal as some made it out to be.

 

[robbieruff]

Yeah...i know what the Eagles situation was...thus the rest of my write up!?!

 

[big dog cowboy]

You score when you can and have faith the defense stop them.

 

[Nightman]

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.

then we lose because we gave up almost 500 yards, not because our star RB chose NOT to score

thread fail

 

[Reality]

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 knew this argument would pop up, but it is very flawed thinking. You are assuming that if Elliott downed the ball, that 1) the Cowboys could still score a touchdown when they wanted to time-wise, and 2) the Steelers would have no time left to come back.

#1 is the biggest part of the flaw. Let's say Elliott downs the ball instead of scoring. The Cowboys then run three times and failed to score a touchdown. You can assume 50-55 seconds at most have run off the clock by the time they kick a field goal because I believe the Steelers had 2 timeouts left.

So, now the score is Cowboys 26, Steelers 24 .. and that's assuming the kick is not blocked, placement is not bobbled/fumbled, etc. Now the Steelers get the ball back and a field goal wins the game. Playing scared in a situation like that is what the Cowboys used to do and how they have lost so many games in the 4th quarter.

The bottom line is that unless you have the lead and you can run the clock out, you take the points, especially a touchdown. You do not assume you can score a touchdown on the next 1-3 plays nor do you assume that you will make a field goal simply because it is short. You take the points and trust that your team can stop them with the remaining time, and in this case, it required a 75 yard drive to take the lead by the Steelers. If you want to blame someone, blame the defense for giving up a quick and easy touchdown.

I can only imagine what would have happened had Elliott downed the ball on the 1 yard line and then either the Cowboys fumbled on one of the following plays or the field goal was blocked. Everyone would be calling Elliott an idiot and saying Garrett is the worst coach ever.

 

[Nightman]

I knew this argument would pop up, but it is very flawed thinking. You are assuming that if Elliott downed the ball, that 1) the Cowboys could still score a touchdown when they wanted to time-wise, and 2) the Steelers would have no time left to come back.

#1 is the biggest part of the flaw. Let's say Elliott downs the ball instead of scoring. The Cowboys then run three times and failed to score a touchdown. You can assume 50-55 seconds at most have run off the clock by the time they kick a field goal because I believe the Steelers had 2 timeouts left.

So, now the score is Cowboys 26, Steelers 24 .. and that's assuming the kick is not blocked, placement is not bobbled/fumbled, etc. Now the Steelers get the ball back and a field goal wins the game. Playing scared in a situation like that is what the Cowboys used to do and how they have lost so many games in the 4th quarter.

The bottom line is that unless you have the lead and you can run the clock out, you take the points, especially a touchdown. You do not assume you can score a touchdown on the next 1-3 plays nor do you assume that you will make a field goal simply because it is short. You take the points and trust that your team can stop them with the remaining time, and in this case, it required a 75 yard drive to take the lead by the Steelers. If you want to blame someone, blame the defense for giving up a quick and easy touchdown.

I can only imagine what would have happened had Elliott downed the ball on the 1 yard line and then either the Cowboys fumbled on one of the following plays or the field goal was blocked. Everyone would be calling Elliott and idiot and saying Garrett is the worst coach ever.

It is a loser's mentality.......playing not to lose instead of grabbing victory

 

[Reality]

It is a loser's mentality.......playing not to lose instead of grabbing victory

Exactly! Good teams play to win, while bad teams try not to lose.