Why wasn’t Calvin Johnson there to help knock the ball away?
It’s one of the questions — and there are many this morning — Detroit Lions fans have after watching the Green Bay Packers’ stunning Hail Mary cap an improbable comeback, along with why two players were lined up 20 yards from the line of scrimmage to defend a sideline route with three zeroes on the clock.
REMINDER: Jim Caldwell rushed three, kept two guys in for a lateral in an obvious Hail Mary situation. https://t.co/4OO0xu0rl7—
Isaac (@WorldofIsaac) December 04, 2015
And the larger question of why anyone would continue to subject themselves to the pain of watching these guys every week.
Allow me a brief rant here. Every year there are dozens of stories about NFL coaches who either sleep at the office or show up at 3 a.m. year-round, just working their fingers to the bone to gain any competitive edge. Then these same coaches kick a field goal from the 3-yard-line down 5 with three minutes left, turn mismanaging the clock into performance art, or punt the football from the opponents’ 38-yard line — all without any regard for how these decisions make it harder to win.
Jim Caldwell and his defensive staff allowed Green Bay the opportunity to throw a Hail Mary without being bothered by a 6-foot-5 human anomaly who is perhaps the best “Jump Ball” high-point man in league history. All of those hours of paying attention to detail and not once did a person realize Calvin Johnson would be a good person to defend such an attempt? How is that even possible?
It’s not as it turns out. The wide receiver practices Hail Mary defense during practice every week and has been on the field in similar situations in the past. Caldwell’s explanation for the coaching decision?
Lions coach Jim Caldwell said after the game Johnson wasn’t on the field because he was anticipating a lateral play.
“In that situation, we have a couple of different things that we do,” Caldwell said. “That was one where we were looking more for that pass back and forth kind of thing, because of the range. He (Aaron Rodgers) ran around there so long, moved up, gave himself a chance to get it in the end zone.
“We had plenty of guys back there. We had plenty of guys. We just didn’t make the play. They did.”
Did Caldwell not think Rodgers could throw the ball 60 yards in the air to the goal line? If so, is he watching edited game film in a broken screen? Rodgers makes 60-yard passes look as easy as any quarterback currently in the league.
We’re left with the assumption Caldwell thought that the Packers would think a crazy lateral play had a better chance of succeeding than a pass in the air. It also suggests Caldwell would chose a pitch-it-around-the-yard play in lieu of a straight Hail Mary if his offense had been in possession of the ball.
Where is the common sense? How is the guy 11-beers-deep on his couch at home actually more clearheaded than the football lifers charged with putting their teams in the best position to win?
You can bet your next paycheck on Caldwell getting up there and telling everyone, in coachspeak, that it’s back to the grind, that everyone needs to work harder and smarter. Meanwhile there’s a stoned college freshman skipping his Friday class for the 19th consecutive week who has already inserted Johnson into his prevent package just in case a similar situation arises against the CPU.
Terrific stuff. The only solution? Getting to the office even earlier in the morning.
from The Big Lead http://ift.tt/1QYIgRx
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