Posted on 01/12/2015 5:48:03 AM PST by Bender2
But again, by league average you’ve got a 60% chance of converting 4th and 1 if you go for it. Be bold. Bold coaches that go for it are playing for the Lombardi, McCarthy is not. No assumptions at all, just looking at trends. And of course one of those trends is that McCarthy went for it in the divisional round and advanced, and didn’t in the conferences and lost. McCarthy has a long history of calling plays to avoid losing and has 1 trip to the SB with a QB generally considered the best in the game today.
And say the Packers didn’t make it, so Seattle starts with the ball on their own 1-yard line, odds are the way the two teams were playing at the time, GB would have gotten the ball right back in great field position.
I believe this will be the first Super Bowl between one coach who replaced the other. Carroll was the Pats coach before Bellichick.
Actually, no, that would be the second, Shula replaced Weeb Ewbank in Baltimore and they faced each other in SB III.
How about 1999 when Shanahan faced Reeves in SB XXXIII?
Ah, forgot about that one.
Ahh, Shanahan replaced Wade Phillips, not Reeves.
Close.
OAK-TAM in 2003. Callahan vs. Gruden, after Gruden was traded to TAM.
Ah, yes. Forgot about big Wade.
Yep. Going for it on 4th is big, not only are teams successful on that more often than not, even when unsuccessful the results are usually pretty good. Now the opponents have the longest field possible, and your team is energized because they know you’re challenging them to win not hoping they don’t lose. Going for it on 4th can (and sometimes does) turn into 9 points with a safety and the resulting free kick giving you good field position against a temporarily demoralized team. Taking 3s on 4th and 1 is controlling the margin of defeat. Look no further than Seattle’s first points of the game (which came on a 4th and TEN in easy FG range) to see the benefits of playing to win rather than playing to not lose.
And don’t forget The Pirate Bowl (Bucs-Raiders). What’s interesting is all the times in the past the replacement was relatively recent, not a 15 year gap.
Yes, forgot that one.
That SB was horrible. Remember?
A lot of theories about Callahan intentionally sabotaging the Raiders in that one.
Yep. A really bad game.
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