Quote:
Originally Posted by BishopMVP
Patriots always have 1 offensive player (usually Gronk, when he was hurt it was Josh Gordon) who's the designated jumper to knock down hail mary's, with all the defensive players coached to stay on the ground... But like Logan said a hail mary probably wasn't a realistic option there with Tannehill at QB. As much as you can blame him/the coaches on it, the multiple DB's who missed tackles also deserve blame :/
Oh well. Pretty brutal 5 minute stretch there from "hey, we might be in the driver's seat for the 1 seed & home field!" to basically zero chance, but it's still just a regular season game. Just going to have to win in Arrowhead unless the Chiefs lose the divisional game, but they certainly look less scary without Kareem Hunt (and they still have Andy Reid coaching them.)
Shit, maybe he intentionally stumbled  |
Such a fascinating play, can't wait to watch the All-22. (Like you, I was more morbidly fascinated than upset by the loss).
Seems like everything started with the delayed first lateral, where the first Dolphin took a few steps forward before throwing it back. That seemed to paralyze the Patriots' defenders just long enough to where they weren't going to be in position and couldn't catch back up with the Dolphins setting things up downfield. The Dolphins never stopped moving and too many Patriots stopped and had to restart.
Belichick claimed that Gronk wasn't in there for a hail marry, but if they did the play where the ball goes 30-40 yards downfield first before the laterals start. I don't understand why an actual defensive player wouldn't be a better fit on a play like that, but, what do I know. Gronk would only be (marginally) useful if he happened to be right at where the first pass came down - which seems really unlikely when the Dolphins had the whole field to work with. And if the Dolphins used ANY of the rest of the field, Gronk would be a huge liability (which obviously was the case).