2021 Miscellaneous NFL News

[stalton]

So I went back to our game against SF to see the exact timing. The 2nd to last play started at :16. Adams caught the ball and gave himself up at :11 and they spiked it with :03 left.

 

Conversely, Dallas started with :14. Dak slid with :08 and clocked it at :00

 

13 second sequence for GB and :14 second sequence for Dallas with a pretty close gain of yardage.

 

In my opinion, Dak just ran too far with the time on the clock.

[PeaveyFury]

Some rumors that McCarthy could be axed so the Cowboys can keep Kellen Moore.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Yet it somehow feels justified. McCarthy mostly won in GB, goes to Dallas, his QB goes on IR in year one and then they go 12-5. Without context firing him sounds ridiculous, but the guy is just so bad at situational football that it feels totally correct to get rid of him.

 

I think he has a role as a coach in the NFL. I just don't think it's as a head coach.

[homer]

"Do you want to be running a Hail Mary play from the 50-yard line or do you want to run five verticals form the 25-yard line?" McCarthy said. "So, that's the decision, it's the right decision."

 

 

You know you were at the 41 yard line, right, Mike?

 

Your point sucks if you have to start it with a huge exaggeration.

 

I can see this point if there were more than 14 seconds on the clock.

[PeaveyFury]

There are also non-QB draw ways to get the ball in closer….

[homer]

I am glad Dallas ran a few hook and lateral plays. I know they're risky in the middle of the field but just seems like they're the kind of play that is always open since dudes fly to the ball so quickly.

[OldHeidelberg]

There are also non-QB draw ways to get the ball in closer….

 

Yes, the Rodgers play at the end of the niners game was the better way you do that and I think there is also a difference between getting yards for a FG and what the Cowboys were facing yesterday. You are giving up 2, maybe even 3 shots at the end zone from the 40 for the maybe 50/50 shot you can even get to that one play from the 25 which is what, maybe a 20% conversion rate at best? To many things have to go perfect to pull off that draw, including the refs which you can't control.

[DuWayne Steurer]

Yet it somehow feels justified. McCarthy mostly won in GB, goes to Dallas, his QB goes on IR in year one and then they go 12-5. Without context firing him sounds ridiculous, but the guy is just so bad at situational football that it feels totally correct to get rid of him.

 

I think he has a role as a coach in the NFL. I just don't think it's as a head coach.

 

 

What's funny to me..... maybe interesting to me, or just a conversational point.... I don't know how to word it... but here I go...

 

when people talk about bad coaches, firing coaches...... And I find it interesting that a guy like McCarthy, as long as he's been in the game, as much as he's tied to football, and as much as he (presumably) studies the game, and is around the game, and just.... football is such a huge part of his life, it's amazing to me that he's so, so, so bad at understanding situational football. You could nab a guy off of a message board who'd understand the situationals 5 times better than Big Mike. I don't even think that's hyperbole. I'm not saying this hypothetical person would be better at designing plays, motivating players, running an offense, and all the other football "stuff", but... as far as understanding situations and time management, it's just something McCarthy has never grasped, and it's a big enough deal that it should, and probably will cost him his job.

[DuWayne Steurer]

There are also non-QB draw ways to get the ball in closer….

 

Yes, the Rodgers play at the end of the niners game was the better way you do that and I think there is also a difference between getting yards for a FG and what the Cowboys were facing yesterday. You are giving up 2, maybe even 3 shots at the end zone from the 40 for the maybe 50/50 shot you can even get to that one play from the 25 which is what, maybe a 20% conversion rate at best? To many things have to go perfect to pull off that draw, including the refs which you can't control.

 

 

I don't think McCarthy relies on analytics a whole lot. I think he's more of a "go by my gut" type guy.

[homer]

McCarthy is blaming his analytics guys for suggesting that last play.

 

[DuWayne Steurer]

McCarthy is the king of never being accountable. I'm so glad that dude is gone. If we hadn't won the Super Bowl in 2010 (don't get me wrong, I'm glad we did), he might have been fired after like 2012, and we probably win 2-3 in the ensuing decade.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

I've spent a lot of time defending MM as a coach but I've come to around believing that they were lucky in 2010 and a competent coach probably would have had them winning at least 12 games that season. What he did after that season, with better teams, is more telling about what kind of game manager he actually is.

[PeaveyFury]

The honest issue I see with McCarthy in Dallas going forward is that like his staff in GB(at least offensively), he surrounded himself with a good staff that helped develop the system and built the success. As those guys bled off the staff in GB, innovation and success waned. It appears that his Dallas staff is set to be decimated this offseason, and that really makes you wonder about whether they’re primed for a modest pullback next year.

[adambr2]

There are just so many things that can go wrong with what McCarthy did. Your QB can botch the execution like what actually happened. You can have a defender cause just a slight delay and have it not be penalized. You can have a guy not get set right or commit some other penalty with a running clock and then there's a 10 second runoff and the game is over.

 

Just take your shots, obviously things can go very wrong with a couple Hail Mary's but at least you're getting shots. You don't put yourself in a position to not even get an opportunity. And the fact that he still stood by his buffoonary shows how stubbornly stuck in his ways he remains.

[CheezWizHed]

I see MM being a much better coach in the 90s era (Holmgren). I think he got left behind in this more recent era of FB and just can't adjust.

[nodakfan17]

I see MM being a much better coach in the 90s era (Holmgren). I think he got left behind in this more recent era of FB and just can't adjust.

[sarcasm]Just give him a flat-brimmed hat.[/sarcasm]

[PeaveyFury]

I see MM being a much better coach in the 90s era (Holmgren). I think he got left behind in this more recent era of FB and just can't adjust.

 

I think this is an interesting point. McCarthy, to his credit, made his name on being a guy innovative enough to adopt and embrace the changing landscape of the NFL initially as a HC and developed a pass-heavy system that was contrary to those offenses of the 80s and 90s that won in that era but were becoming obsolete. In his early career successes, he was coaching against the tail end of the Holmgren-era types and winning a bunch. Then, as the league adapted to defend against his own system and the wider adoption of pass-heavy systems, he proved unwilling or unable to adapt and continue to innovate himself.

 

Now, he's up against a new era of youth, innovation, and in-game thinking, and he's now the guy getting left behind. Still a guy that is good enough as a HC to rack up in-season wins aplenty against the Giants and WFTs of the world, but struggles when having to run a gauntlet of high-quality playoff caliber teams.

[nodakfan17]

McCarthy is very much an old soul in terms of appearance, strategy, and coach-speak - all traits I find endearing … now that he’s no longer our coach.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

You can have a defender cause just a slight delay and have it not be penalized.

 

This happened, and happens with just about every one of these kinds of plays.

[PeaveyFury]

Looking a bit closer at 'the play' today, and it's actually a solid 'analytics' call against the defense the 49ers were running. Problem is, it's a call that was made vs. a defense and seemingly not with the in-game situation in mind. I'd be curious (and I'd expect this data exists somewhere) to know what the average snap to 'clock-it' time off the clock is when the offense calls a run play under two minutes. My rough guess would be 10-15 seconds. Obviously, the longer the run, the more extended the time off is. I think it's fair to say that it would have been a borderline great call if they had snapped it with 18-20 seconds. But, I'd have to think that at 14, they were on the verge of not having enough time regardless of the play's outcome.

 

Still, I'd bet their assumption was that Dak would gain maybe 10-ish yards and would be downed with more than enough time left to clock it with 2-4 seconds still left. That the play sprung bigger than that was their first undoing, plus all the ineptitude around how they handled the ball after that.

 

I don't think the play call was poor, but I think it was a bad idea considering the time left and their position on the field. That and obviously poor coaching as to what to do after the play are what should be rightfully criticized today, just IMO.

[OldHeidelberg]

I wonder though about how much better a play from the 30(if Dak slides earlier and gets it spiked) is than 2 plays from the 40, it’s still sort of a Hail Mary from there as niners will put everyone back in the end zone. It maybe depends on your players and what they are good at, maybe MM had another hook and ladder play in mind or something else short of the end zone.

 

Sounds like MM will be back but of course Jones may be taking some time on it and everyone is going to say absolutely be back until he isn’t.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

The number I keep seeing around Twitter is that most coaches won't do that unless they have 16 seconds. There are however a few examples of doing it with less time, with the caveat that that it's almost always to kick a FG that they can't from the original spot.

[Joseph Zarr]

Well, he can blame his 'Analytics' guys all he wants. They are merely giving you information of what is possible in a vacuum given a situation. The coach makes the ultimate decision and his inability to take direct accountability is classic Big Mac and just not a good look.

 

As others have pointed out, the play just isn't practical given their time constraints as everything has to go absolutely perfectly right while SO many things can go wrong on a play and several things went JUST slightly wrong in the play. Then, your players showcased that even though they publicly declared this is a play and scenario they have practiced ad nauseum all season long (I see you Dak) they didn't understand the plain and simple rule that the Line Judge has to spot the ball? Dak had to know upon sliding he had to run straight to the referee responsible for the spot. OR the moment became too hurried and too big and the players simply responded reactively instead of with poise and focus and calm. All of this is distinctly possible and all of this happened in real time. So, you chose that play. That is the play you practiced for that scenario. And, you failed. You failed as a direct result of poor execution and a lack of understanding of the execution needed in that precise time structure. That is entirely on the players involved and the Head Coach. And, as others have alluded to, with Big Mac involved this is exactly what you would expect. He delivered yet again.

Edited January 17, 2022 by Julio Muchacho

[PinaMadness]

In the end, the game just proved that the Cowboys have been frauds all along. They also have been mediocre for five years. They're the Minnesota Vikings with media hype. I forgot what talking head said it, but Dak is Kirk Cousins with better PR.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

This season I did feel like they were frauds. They've had a couple teams over the years that were actually pretty good, but they seem to have something go wrong at an inopportune time. The '07 team that lost to the Giants was good, the '14 team that lost to the Packers was also really good. In '16, they probably would have put up a much better game against Atlanta than the Packers did...but Rodgers threw that insane pass to Cook and then Mason hit the game winner.

 

They seem to be on the losing end of a ton of really close games.