Everybody is talking about Bill Belichick losing his mind and going for it on 4th and two deep in his own territory, up six, with about two minutes remaining, and most noteworthy, Peyton Manning standing on the other sideline.
Belichick and Brady will probably defend the call to their graves, but I assure you they will die wrong. It reminded me of Marty Mornhinweg taking the wind in overtime as opposed to receiving. Similarly, the other team took advantage of the horrifying (or gratifying depending on who you are) blunder.
What I want to focus on though is a couple hilarious post-game happenings. Obviously, everyone expected Belichick to have a quick, nonchalant hand-graze with Jim Caldwell, but what we probably didn’t expect was what happened after the briefest of meetings at midfield.
As Belichick was speedwalking off the field, Matt Stover, kicker for the Indianopolis Colts, ran over to Belichick and put his hand on Belichick’s arm and said what I imagine was along the lines of, “Thanks for that, Bill. I got the winning point!” Bill looked at the kicker like he wanted to spit on him, then quickly gave him the ultimate cold shoulder.
Notice that Stover has the game ball in this picture. I realize Stover was with Belichick in Cleveland from 91-95, but I can’t believe Stover’s dumb, or naive, enough to feel he’s going to get a warm greeting from Belichick after that game. It just seemed silly to me, but he’s a kicker. What do you expect?
Almost immediately after that a camerman got boss tossed by Belichick’s body guard.
Nope, they’re not holding hands.
“Down you go little guy,” says Mr. Clean Bodyguard.
I have video, but it was taken on my five-year old cousin’s Little Tikes camera, so bear with me on the shoddiness:
Here’s a pretty good video of it.
UPDATE:
Interesting discussion going on over at Advanced NFL Stats [via 18to88] regarding BB’s call. I think anyone who thinks BB was right because of these stats is overanalyzing the hell out of this. In that situation, you punt, put some faith in your defense, and make the Colts travel 70 yards as opposed to 28. I’m going to go ahead and disregard any opinions from Patrios/Colts fans because based off comments I’ve seen they’re way too absorbed in themselves. The majority of Patriots fans will probably deflect blame elsewhere because BB is their God. Colts fans are so cocky with their undefeated team right now, they think they would have won if the Pats punted too
I can’t be convinced with the stats provided by ANS. This isn’t an automated robot sport or a freaking video game. Considering the basic variables, in my opinion, you punt there and hope the Colts can’t drive 70 yards on your defense. And I’d say showing trust in your defense is way more important there than eradically trying to show your offense you trust them because it is ostracizing your defense. Now you’re dealing with a loss because your offense wasn’t as trustworthy as you thought and your defense has to have the awful taste in their mouths that their coach didn’t have enough faith in them to stop the Colts from 70 yards away. On ESPN all night, I heard Brady back the call up, I heard Faulk back it up, sorta, but I want to hear what the defense is thinking. And my guess, is they weren’t really in a very talkative mood when BB left them to dry at the 28 yard line.
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