Originally Posted By: grampi
Originally Posted By: Wolf359
It's a good point about the colts footballs, however I think the point you miss is that you don't know what they inflated their balls to. So if they used a higher pressure, they also would have dropped, but would still have been in spec, but if that pats just had them inflated to the minimum, then the drop would have taken them out of spec. The key information you're missing is what was the starting pressure of the pats and colt balls?
Also with regards to the run vs. the pass, there's been a lot of talk about it. There was no guarantee that the run was going to get them in. Remember in the previous play, they were tackled at the 1 yard line and there wasn't that much time left on the clock. If they got stuffed, they would have had to burn the last time out.
It's football, sometimes things work out, sometimes it doesn't. I wouldn't say that they got lucky on that last play. Getting lucky is a blown call by an official, but without knowing the outcome, it was a fair call at the time it was made. The risk to the coach is that it will be considered brilliant if it works and be in the doghouse if it doesn't. As it didn't, he has to take the blame, deserved or not. The whole basics of football is to be somewhat unpredictable, if the play will be a pass or run. If it's always a run, then they load up against the run.
Dude, the stupidly called pass play by SEA took place on 2nd down. NE was not going to stop Lynch from the 1 yard line on three straight downs...wasn't gonna happen...
Did you notice how much clock was left at the time? Plus only 1 timeout. There wasn't enough time for 3 run plays. Remember they stopped him earlier at the 1 yard line. Obvious running plays also have the potential for loss yardage, there's no guarantee the next play starts at the 1 even on a running play.
Monday morning quarterbacking, hindsight etc., makes it a stupid call for a pass play. But maybe it was a great read by the defense and poor execution of a pass play. If you watch enough football, last minute drives are always exciting, but many of them are not successful. Whatacouldashoulda about sums it up. You could apply that to the two SB that the Pats lost, they should have won those aside from one or two plays. But a loss is a loss and a win is a win.
Also the key point about the colts ball is they were NOT at the same pressure as the pats balls. Therefore the fact that the colts balls were still in an acceptable range proves nothing. There was a range that the balls could be in. If the colts balls were in a higher range to start, at the end they could have been in a lower range and still have been in an acceptable range. If the pats balls started out in a lower range, then atmospheric pressure could have caused them to drop out of the acceptable range. I think it really boils down to nothing to see here, go study Boyle's law.
Also remember that one of the balls that was lower than normal, Gronk did end up spiking one of the balls.