ESPN analyst Booger McFarland<\/a> said. \u201cBecause you did your homework before the game. You knew the weather was going to turn nasty. Even though Wil Lutz is a good kicker, it was going to be tough to kick in inclement weather. I thought this was a poor coaching decision and move by Sean Payton.<\/p>\n\u201cIf you\u2019re going to go for it, how about run the ball?\u201d McFarland added. \u201cI mean, it\u2019s fourth and 3 feet. Or a 31-yard field goal. Instead, you go reverse-pivot with a quarterback making his first start.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mark Schlereth, NFL analyst for Fox Sports, said on \u201cThe Dan Patrick Show\u201d that he was in Peyton Manning\u2019s suite at the game with Manning, Mike Shanahan and Brandon Stokley. He said they all figured Payton would send out his kicker to make it a two-score game.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got a backup quarterback, you\u2019ve got a chance to go up 10-0 and your defense is balling out of control,\u201d Schlereth said. \u201cAll of us were in agreement at that point: just kick the field goal, just kick the field goal. And you come out with a little roll-out pass and it was a debacle to begin with. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd plus, at that point, you hadn\u2019t run the ball for 2 inches. So, it\u2019s not like you feel like, hey man, they\u2019re really going to respect our run game. They\u2019re really going to respect what we\u2019re doing here as an offense so we\u2019re just going to run the QB sneak or we\u2019re just going to run some power down the middle or iso and really smash-mouth these people. They were kicking our (behind) up front. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo, I was like, kick the field goal, take the points, man, 10-0 is a big score, especially with the weather report that it was going to get nasty in the second half.\u201d<\/p>\n
Patrick brought up the trend of NFL coaches going for it on fourth down \u2014 they\u2019re 25 of 51 in the playoffs so far.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt almost seems like you\u2019re a failure if you don\u2019t go for it on fourth down and you take the field goal and you leave four points out there,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I don\u2019t know if the data is able to show, well, who\u2019s my quarterback? Who am I going against? What are the conditions? What time of the game am I doing all of this stuff?\u201d<\/p>\n
Schlereth is old school; he hates the analytics that have become such a prominent part of the game.<\/p>\n
McFarland also questioned Rams coach Sean McVay\u2019s decision to go for it with just under five minutes remaining on fourth-and-4 at the Seattle 6 with Los Angeles trailing 31-27 in the NFC championship. McFarland argued McVay should have sent out Harrison Mevis for a chip-shot field goal. Instead, Matthew Stafford threw incomplete and when the Rams got the ball back in the waning seconds, they needed a TD, not a field goal, to win.<\/p>\n
Make it a one-point game and \u201cnow you put the pressure back on Seattle\u2019s offense,\u201d McFarland said. \u201cAnd so now, if you\u2019re Seattle\u2019s offense, and if you go three-and-out or (the Rams) get a ball back, we don\u2019t need to drive for a touchdown. We\u2019ve got a kicker that can kick a 50-yarder. And we\u2019re on turf, so we don\u2019t have to worry about the footing. And so now, the pressure goes back to Seattle\u2019s offense to keep the football.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Behind the Call analyzes the biggest decisions in the NFL.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NFL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/NFL<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DENVER (AP) \u2014 With a blizzard bearing down on Empower Field at Mile High, coach Sean Payton went…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[205913,3829,3832,2000,29730,1996,7820,399,192887,178357,198780,205914,1820,10482,39992,198623,2001,1833,10481,49290,1815,2804,3828,349,9644,8642,3833,17871,49292,880,178356,60256,156118,200479,99,3325,3324,27076,30848,88756],"class_list":["post-435002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-brandon-stokley","tag-co-state-wire","tag-colorado","tag-connecticut","tag-courtland-sutton","tag-ct-state-wire","tag-denver-broncos","tag-football","tag-garett-bolles","tag-harrison-mevis","tag-jarrett-stidham","tag-liljordan-humphrey","tag-los-angeles-rams","tag-maine","tag-mark-schlereth","tag-marvin-mims-jr","tag-massachusetts","tag-matthew-stafford","tag-me-state-wire","tag-mike-shanahan","tag-new-england-patriots","tag-new-hampshire","tag-new-mexico","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-football","tag-nh-state-wire","tag-nm-state-wire","tag-peyton-manning","tag-quinn-meinerz","tag-rhode-island","tag-sean-mcvay","tag-sean-payton","tag-seattle-redhawks","tag-send-to-apple-news","tag-sports","tag-ut-state-wire","tag-utah","tag-vermont","tag-vt-state-wire","tag-wil-lutz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}