Point Blank – January 20
What a “Bettor Better Know” – NFL Conference Championships…Steve Kerr’s bench Warriors…Be careful with Florida assumptions…
The Sunday that was in the NFL, with a drama for the ages in Seattle, and a fight that would have been stopped early on the other coast, had it been in a boxing ring. So here are a few things to file away, before beginning to break down Seahawks/Patriots.
Item: For Seattle to win the NFC, Part I – The Packers had to leave a trail of bread crumbs…
--Green Bay chose to twice settle for short FGs after turnovers.
Mason Crosby converted a pair of kicks from inside of PAT distance, officially listed as 18- and 19-yarders. And of course the inability to maximize on the scoreboard came back in a haunting fashion. Unfortunately, the collective efforts of the Sports Mediaverse in the post-game press room could not get to the heart of the matter with Mike McCarthy. How much of his decision to play for “3” each time had to do with the fact that the ball was near the goal in Seattle, and not just near a typical NFL goal line? That is crucial tp understanding his processes.
Football science tells us that it is not even a close call on the first fourth-and-one; you go for it. But there needs to be an adjustment to the charts because of the venue. What single factor has made Seattle’s home field the league’s strongest in recent years? That incredible crowd noise. What is the single biggest factor in a play near the goal line? The OL hearing the snap count, and getting off the ball. How much did that factor into McCarthy’s thinking? We will never know, because no one asked. But they were opportunities missed.
Of course, Green Bay was still in a position to survive those sequences, until conservatism at another spot on the field came in to play…
--The Packers did not get a first down when the game was in their hands.
Green Bay got possession of the ball up 19-7 twice, with 6:53 remaining and with 5:04, and could not generate a first down either time, throwing just one pass in six snaps. The conservatism of the first drive can be excused – starting at their own 13-yard line there was nothing wrong with back-to-back running plays to work some clock and wedge a little breathing room, before an Aaron Rodgers pass was incomplete on third down. But the second sequence proved to be a killer.
First, it could have started in much better position than it did, with Mason Burnett inexcusably going to the ground early after that INT at the Packer 43-yard line. There was not room to make a big return, but there was room to get more than he did, all the while taking a few more seconds off the clock. Once again, there was nothing wrong with a first-down run, which forced Seattle to burn a time-out. But that run lost four yards, and it created a key decision – run again to force another Seahawk time-out, or throw a pass to set up a more favorable third-down setting? They ran again, this time losing two more yards, and while it did burn another time-out, it left a basically untenable third-and-16. Another running play produced little, and when Tim Masthay’s punt went for just 30 yards, Seattle got the ball back only 27 yards from where Burnett had knelt down. Opportunities missed.
--Green Bay did not recover a relatively easy on-side kick.
You know the story here by now – Brandon Bostick was supposed to only block on the Seattle kick, and let Jordy Nelson go for the ball. Instead he made a bad decision, and a Lombardi Trophy may have swung in the process. The Seahawks had one time-out and the 2:00 warning left, so had they not recovered, the best they could have hoped for would be for the Packers to be punting from near midfield, with about 70 seconds remaining. Opportunity missed.
--Russell Wilson’s balloon was not knocked down.
The arc of Wilson’s two-point completion to Luke Willson was remarkable, with the ball seeming to hang in the air for an eternity (perhaps even longer for those that had Seattle on Teasers). Green Bay safety Ha Ha Clinton-Dix was in a prime position to get a piece of the throw, and simply did not read that arc. Opportunity missed.
Honorable Mention: That 3rd-and-19 conversion.
You will read in other circles about one other key turning point, when Seattle faced a third-and-19 at the Packer 48 with 6:51 remaining in the third quarter, still down 16-0. Green Bay chose to only rush three, a rather dubious decision given the game flow to that point (Wilson had just been sacked two plays earlier), and that left enough time for Doug Baldwin to get open for a 29-yard gain. But note that while the lack of a pass rush can be filed as a Packer failure, there was a penalty on Clay Matthews on the play that would have given away a first-down anyway.
Green Bay did not have to convert all of the above situations to win the game, only one of them. And it left just enough of a trail for a good team to find a way.
Item: For Seattle to win the NFC, Part II – The Seahawks actually did a few things right…
Even with the late heroics, this was the worst game of Russell Wilson’s career (more interceptions than completions in the first half). The defense only sacked Rodgers once in 35 drop-backs, and allowed 130 rushing yards at 4.5 per attempt. But when big things had to happen, they made them happen.
--That goal line defense.
Part of why McCarthy did not gamble on fourth-and-goal on the first possession was that runs by Jon Kuhn on second down, and Lacy on third, did not produce. On the next Packer drive a run by Lacy on first-and-goal at the seven only generated a yard, which also took away the confidence of being able to push across the goal-line on fourth down. Some of McCarthy’s fears were justified.
--Draw it up Monday, practice it on Thursday, use it on Sunday.
That was the fake FG attempt that turned the momentum of the game, with Jon Ryan making a nearly perfect throw to Garry Gilliam, likely the only catch Gilliam will make in his NFL career. It was well-designed, with film study showing how hard the Packers were rushing off of the right end on FG attempts, but to make the call also required some daring. Pete Carroll had that added degree of daring. Had the play not worked, of course, it could have been completely deflating, but part of why such gambles work is that a coach shows confidence in his players to make the play.
--Patience on offense.
When your QB is having a bad day, you do not put the full load on his shoulders. The Seahawks ran the ball 10 times for 88 yards in the fourth quarter, but it was a little better than that, with Wilson losing a yard on a kneel-down on the final play of regulation. They did not panic on offense, and by staying balanced, including a couple of runs on the overtime drive, it helped to set up Doug Baldwin in one-on-one coverage, without a safety playing back to help. After 135 snaps, game over.
Item: There wasn’t much to see at Foxboro…
It did not take nearly that many snaps for a decision in the AFC. One of the prime talking points set up in last week’s NFL review was how New England had been able to push the Indianapolis defensive front around in two meetings since last January. This game was largely an extension of that, with LeGarrette Blount bulling his way for 148 yards and three TDs. In sweeping those three meetings by a combined 81 points, the Patriots ran for 657 yards and 13 TDs. As such, there just was not much new to file away.
The takeaway from an Indianapolis standpoint is how much Andrew Luck and Chuck Pagano bring to the table. This is a team with slightly below average talent across the board, except for QB, yet the Colts have three playoff wins under their belts from the past two seasons. There is still a long bridge to be built before they can cross the waters to become an elite team, but the best young QB in the sport, and a coach well respected by his players, is a strong foundation to work from. The first priority will have to be getting more physical up front on defense - while adding Arthur Jones has helped, note that the Colts allowed TDs on 69.5 percent of red zone drives this season, the worst in the NFL by a substantial margin (New Orleans was #31 at 62.8).
As for the Patriots, once again it is that flexibility that makes this team so unique. A week after not having a RB carry from scrimmage in the entire second half vs. the Ravens it was an entirely different approach, and it makes them among the most difficult teams to prepare for in NFL history. Now one of the better chess matches of any Super Bowl matchup awaits, and from a betting standpoint, one of the tougher games for the Sports Books to set their props for in recent memory. As always, confusion can mean opportunity, and there will be plenty of space devoted to that here between now and kickoff.
About Last Night…
It is almost frightening to believe that at 33-6, Golden State has still not played its best basketball yet, but now that all hands are on deck, the Warrior depth is going to be a genuine factor over the second half of the campaign. Although they tripped up at Oklahoma State on Friday without Andrew Bogut and Andre Iguodala, take a look at the bench production over the past two games –
Minutes +/-
Shaun Livingston 37:46 25
David Lee 44:17 26
Andre Iguodala 44:10 33
Mareese Speights 32:57 24
Justin Holiday 31:17 24
Leandro Barbosa 20:29 10
There are no signs of anyone pouting over a lack of playing time (winning can do that), and if this group continues to play hard they can simply over-run the benches of opposing teams, all the while allowing Steve Kerr to carefully manage the minutes of the starters. On Monday the reserves scored 54.9 percent of all points, and grabbed 52.8 percent of the rebounds, in that 122-79 rout of Denver, with no starter having to spend more than 25:14 on the court.
In the Sights…
There were some headlines across the Sports Mediaverse noting that Florida had a “24-game SEC win streak” snapped at Georgia on Saturday, and the fact that the Gators are sitting at -11 tonight vs. LSU shows some market buy-in to that notion of a strong program being near their past levels. But it may be an entirely different story for the Gators this season, and assumptions of this being another typical Billy Donovan team would be wrong. After losing four seniors from a team that had tremendous chemistry and basketball savvy, it is purely a work in progress right now.
Donovan will likely stick to his starting lineup of two freshmen (Devin Robinson and Chris Chiozza), and two sophomores (Chris Walker and Kasey Hill) tonight, and to establish some perspective, 10 different Florida players have started in a game this season, but none of them in all 16. It has been a struggle to get all of those new faces and combinations to mesh, with 10 players averaging at least nine minutes per game in SEC play, but none more than 28, and losing 73-61 at Georgia, with a season-high of 19 turnovers, shows how far they are from coming together. Donovan was open about it afterwards –
“I was just looking for guys to play. There was nobody that I could say, this guy played really, really well … I couldn’t put one guy in there. For me, this game is a microcosm of our team. And what I mean by that is this is a great example of what I watch in practice. This is what I watch. The hardest thing for younger players is to be consistent day in and day out, what comes with that is maturity. I don’t hang my hat on this group when it comes to consistency. There’s nothing consistent in what we do right now.”
#511 LSU may not always make good decisions on the court, but the Tigers have players in Jordan Mickey and Jarrell Martin that have NBA scouts watching, and there is the kind of talent to not be intimidated on the road – they already own outright wins as underdogs at Mississippi and West Virginia, took care of business at UAB, and suffered a tough OT loss at Missouri. With a tighter chemistry and more settled rotation than Florida, it would not be a surprise if they were in the hunt to win outright to the final possessions.
This Week at Point Blank
Monday – What a “Bettor Better Know” – Weekend Starting Five