TDL’s Sports, Wrestling, & Otherwise

From an article on the Philadelphia Eagles website:
Fans will dwell on the loss to the Saints throughout the offseason, and coach Andy Reid’s decision to punt on fourth-and-15 with only two timeouts and 1:56 remaining might become the most questioned — and ridiculed — call in recent Philadelphia sports history.

So let me see if I have this straight.

The ball is on Philly’s own 39 yard-line. It’s 4th and 15 with 2 minutes left and the Eagles still have 2 timeouts. I’ll be honest and say that I have no idea what the 4th down conversion rate is on plays over 10 yards, but I’m going to go out on a limb and call it absurdly low.

Let’s assume they turn the ball over own downs.

Best case scenario: The Eagles defense comes up huge, burns all their timeouts, and get the ball back on the 20 with a minute left, effectively losing 20 yards in a minute of clock.
More likely case scenario: The punt gets pinned inside the five with a minute left, losing 35 yards.
Even more likely case scenario: The Eagles defense comes up big, gives up 8 or 9 yards on three downs, leaving the Saints a 45 yard field goal to go up six. Now, they have to go the length of the field for a touchdown.

If they punt, the defense has to make the same big plays, but there’s no chance of them giving up more points. If they can force the Eagles to go three-and-out, they get the ball back in roughly the same point on the field with a minute of clock left, and only have to go about 30 or 40 yards to put the game into overtime. Going for a 4th-and-15 in that situation would be idiotic. At 4th-and-10, when they were going to go for it, the field position was better and even giving up 9 yards would have left the saints with a 50+ yard field goal they wouldn’t have taken.

Any Philly fan who really thinks that a punt was called for there is dumb.

And, if you can sit there and say the most idiotic move in recent Philly sports’ memory is trading Allen Iverson, not a punt in a playoff game.