The Illogic of our Intentional Safety

i thought the safety was stupid.

I agree with you.

It took me a minute to understand the decision and then even after I did, I couldn’t find the logic in it. Just as you described, after the safety, it could not have played out any better for the Bills then it happened. And even in that perfect situation Buffalo had less than 30 seconds with 80 yards to march with ZERO timeouts. Given the choice of 4th and 10 on the goal line with 70 or so yards for a game tying field goal, 1:30 on the clock and 2 timouts or 1st and 10 on the 20 with 30 seconds and 80 yards for a touchdown….. this seems like a no brainer.

I’m not claiming to know more than Gailey, but what on earth could have made this decision seem to give us the best chance? Is that what Lee Evans was trying to tell Gailey on the sideline?

It did what it was supposed to do. Give our offense the ball back. A punt more then likely gets blocked or shanked out of bounds. Go for it and fail they get the ball on the 1 and easily win the game. It’s not madden people the reality of the situation forced the call. That’s not the play that lost the game it was the 3 before it and the last 4 of the game. Poor execution on those plays lost the game, Chan calls the plays and gave his team another chance. Its up to the guys on the field to do what they are being payed for.

Flame on…

I didn’t mind that decision at all. I mean, for real guys – we’ve got MUCH bigger problems.

Maybe it wasn’t the right call, but it wasn’t an unreasonable one.

I agreed with the intentional safety. I had 0% faith that Trent makes the play if they go for it, which leaves the Dolphins at the 3 yard line or something where they would score and the game would have been out of reach anyway.

Way too many things could have gone wrong had they punted, a block or a shank… and either way the Dolphins would have gotten the ball around the same area more than likely.

Trent failed miserably on the last offensive drive. The idea had to have been hail mary but Trent doesn’t do that. He had time in the pocket on all four downs… and refused to throw until the last one where he threw for what, 5 yards?

4-1 from the less than a yard line. With our poor offensive line, poor passing game, and the difficulty of getting off a punt in that little space, an intentional safety was the logical choice to make. Assuming we went for it and missed, the Dolphins would’ve had the ball at the one and we would’ve been down 20-10 instead of 15-10 as a touchdown from that distance is practically assured. Instead by going for the safety, we had a chance to cause the Dolphins to mess up on the ensuing punt for which they had to burn a time out to switch personnel to prevent a turnover on the kick. It also allowed our solid defense to make a stand and allow our offense to try and score a touchdown (which they failed to do) to win the game.

I didn’t buy Gailey’s explanation either. You lay out the pros and cons above better than the head coach did. That’s frightening.

I just thought of a way that it would have been a safer call.

We’re in the end zone already so we line up to go for it. Tell Trent that if he sees an open man for a first down, take the shot and get him the ball. Otherwise, since we’ve already decided a safety is cool, just have Trent take a knee, or, if he doesn’t have time, the sack. We’re in no worse position then than just snapping it out of bounds.

I know it would take maybe 5-6 more seconds off the clock, but I think it would be worth it to take the chance of converting.

Why was there not some kind of attempt to kick onsides and recover?
This was DeHaven’s opportunity to pull some kind of magic out of his bag of tricks.
I gotta believe Moorman can do just about anything he wants to in pinpointing a kick, and yet he pooches it right to the best athelete on the field?

I thought it was an interesting call, though i have enough in our all-decade punter moorman to get one off, even if it was a bad punt. its not like he nailed the free kick anyways. my biggest gripe was that he hit the same exact kick after they called the timeout. you knew they called the timeout to get a feel for what we were going to do, and then we played right into it. i would have either goen with a more convincing onside attempt to the other side of the field, or nailed it trying to pin them on their one, so that when we got the ball back, it would be around midfield (or at least give us a chance at a safety in return) and that might have been feasiable, with them having their hands team on the field.

Personally, i think there were three available options:
1-go for it. we went for it on fourth and 11 earlier in the game. it would have been the aggressive fighting we all like. if we failed, which was a very high probability, it would have been game over. i have no doubt the minnows could have run it in from the one inch line. if we succeed, it is the best scenario.

2- Moorman punt. i believe that this had a good chance of succeeding, since moorman might be the best on the team at what he does. if he does get a good one, we still get the ball back (assuming the defense holds) and only need a field goal to tie it. if he doesn’t succeed at getting a good punt, and only gets a bad one, they get a fg, burn up clock and we end up with the same situation as we did with the free kick (meaning needing a td with no time on the clock and time outs) if the kick gets blocked, a distinct possibility given the field position, it most likely would have gone out of bounds in the end zone. safety, same situation. absolute worst case scenario, the minnows get a td and we immediately get the ball back to make something happen, and hope that our special teams plays some magic. also could be worse.

3- the safety. believe it or not, this does have its advantages. first, it is the most guaranteed outcome. we get to pooch kick the ball. second, when was the last time you saw a team try to do something like that? it has the advantage of surprise, trying to throw the dolphins off. and you can tell that it worked like that because they tried to freeze the kicker, they didn’t know what to expect. unfortunately, we then didn’t try something different to capitalize on the surprise effect. we ran the same exact thing that they froze. the alternatives, a more traditional onsides kick that they were expecting, or to pound it out and leave them on their one yard line, thereby (once again, if the defense holds) giving us better field position (or the chance at a safety in the other direction), which we would need, since we would then need a td. (unless we actually got the safety, which would then relegate back to letting the special teams get some magic)

again, as you can see, i think the best option would have been to give it to possibly our best player, moorman. best case scenario, we only need a fg and still have fair field position, worst case, we end up at the same spot we were in. just my thoughts on the call.