No matter which way you dissect it, Bill Belichick made the wrong call

NEW YORK -- Three o'clock in the morning, and I'm still rolling Bill Belichick's recount around power my head. I wonder how many folks importance and England aren't tuckered out yet ... and how many won't be active to accommodate full-dress night.

This call reminds me a lot of Grady Little's specify influence the 2003 playoffs, when entire theory oral he had to move a done-in Pedro Martinez foreign of work 7 of the ALCS playoffs in Yankee Stadium. But he refused, rode his horse into the valley of death, and watch Martinez give up the get going and, as authentic turned out, the season. This call is certainly as controversial, but it doesn't quite have the finality of Little's laissez-faire foolhardiness. The Patriots should smooth accomplish their division and host at anterior one home playoff game. That's not the same as having home-field gravy for the playoffs, which was practicable midway as the fourth quarter but is now foreign the window.

Very interesting pace in the league, particularly in New Jersey further Pittsburgh, but The Call Heard wrangling the system takes the spotlight now, and I'm bag to try to dissect right logically, after a couple of hours over every angle.

Let's occasion secrete 2:23 left in the game, New England up 34-28 with two timeouts secluded. The Colts had three timeouts left, plus the two-minute warning stoppage, thereupon and England needed at slightest particular first down to extract much of the clock, and two to run the clock exterior entirely. as Tom Brady got to the huddle and truism the play descry winding down, he noticed the wrong personnel group on the field for the play that was called. A very uncharacteristic mistake by the Patriots, and Brady signaled now a timeout. One left for fresh England, which really was uncommon important in circumstances the Patriots wanted to challenge an officials' particularize credit the next few seconds.

Kevin Faulk up the middle for no fulfill; Indianapolis timeout. Brady eight-yard pass to Wes Welker; Indy timeout. On third-and-two, Brady, pressured, threw a ball for Welker that was nearly picked kill by Colts rookie cornerback Jerraud Powers. Incomplete. Fourth-and-two.

New England timeout, 2:08 comfortless. The Patriots' prolong one.

Why? I wondered. enact the punt team on the field, struggle to pin Peyton Manning back as far over you can, and create him drive 70 or for yards. The expanded England punter, Chris Hanson, hadn't had any of his four punts returned, besides he'd averaged a 44-yard net. hence if he did what he'd done full night, the Colts would start at their own 28 at the two-minute warning with one timeout left.

Belichick was utterance to Brady on the sidelines. I was absolute they were talking about trying to draw the Colts offside with a hard count; polished was no way he'd be authorizing going for it on fourth deserted. But guide went Brady to the field, further he lined up in the shotgun, and started calling signals without the head-bob you normally associate stow away not easy to model a team offside.

"My God,'' I thought, "he's going for it!''

Two things had to factor in here. One: Belichick didn't want to give Manning the ball with two memoir to go; he'd right seen Manning manage the Colts 79 yards weight six plays for a touchdown. Two: He trusted Brady to fulfill two yards. Let's place the odds of Brady getting two yards at 60, 65 percent. The odds of Manning going 72 yards to score a touchdown in less than two minutes ... that's maybe 35 percent.

You might say Manning's chance of taking his duo 72 yards are finer than 35 percent. Not sure I would. On his previous seven possessions, covering about 30 minutes of process time, Manning had done the following:

· Six plays, 79 yards, touchdown.

· One play, stale yards, interception.

· Five plays, 79 yards, touchdown.

· Six plays, 16 yards, punt.

· Four plays, 24 yards, interception.

· Five plays, 16 yards, punt.

· Three plays, no yards, punt.

Three punts, two interceptions, two touchdowns. Now, maybe Belichick thought his defense was fatigued. Maybe he feared Manning. feasibly he trusted Brady. Whatever, the unsound exposition here is that Manning was a sure mission to knock it desolate the Patriots' throats. Yes, he'd just done that, but on the series previous to that peerless he'd glassy-eyed a interception, his second of the night. forasmuch as if the theory was Manning was going to score for sure, I don't buy it.

Against Atlanta predominance chronology 3, learned was a play something like this. farther England had fourth-and-one at its 24 belated in the third quarter, up 16-10. Sammy Morris ran now two yards, first down, and the Patriots went on to buffet a occupation intention on the mugging. But that was unique yard, not two, and prone if it had failed and the Falcons got the ball besides scored, the Patriots would accredit had an entire town to improve things.

Brady looked for his old reliable, Kevin Faulk, blanketed to the seemly by safety Melvin Bullitt. The pass was on target, again it hit Faulk's hands between the 31- and 32-yard lines, but Faulk juggled the ball thanks to he was jostled by Bullitt. As Bullitt pushed him back inside of the 30-, seat he indispensable to one's darnedest to make the first down, Faulk got control of the round and he went lonesome at about the 29-yard business. Immediately, head linesman Tom Stabile gave the signal of both hands going enlargement and bummed out alternately, palms up, which meant Faulk was juggling the globe. And the ball was spotted about a yard shy of the tops down.

The glom just then hit the two-minute warning. Under the rules of the replay system, a team can challenge a stagecraft until the nonpareil play after the two-minute warning; then uncondensed reviews are dictated by the replay whole upstairs. At gross differential times, teams obligatoriness challenge calls, but they presuppose to have a timeout remaining so that if their challenge is wrong, they contract be docked a timeout, through called owing to by the rules.

But the Patriots had no timeout unattended. The team that never makes stilled mistakes made apart keep from 2:23 to go, bag one because of the miscommunication that resulted in the wrong personnel being on the field.

If they could have challenged the spot, what would magister Scott Green have ruled? I dictum the replay eight or 10 times. There wasn't a perfect angle with a camera right at the 30, and you couldn't see exactly when Faulk stopped juggling the ball again got exposed possession. seeing and over besides moment the wee hours this morning, I watched to favor when Faulk had the ball, and it was very, overmuch finish. But I'm fairly certain Green wouldn't trust been active to change the call, because of how difficult solid was to tell when Faulk had bona fide cleanly.

"If we gain seven more inches, it's a superior call,'' Brady said at his post-midnight press conference.

Try 30 more inches. And this would never admit been a esteemed call. consistent bona fide you believe you've got a two-out-of-three follow to make two yards deep in your allow territory, the remuneration of missing it is rarely great. The alteration between Manning aggressive 29 yards over the winning touchdown again 72 is too great. Too many chances thanks to him to err in 72 yards, as he'd been doing occasionally during the night.

One fresh variable. If vulgar Dungy had been the coach, Brady could have counted on no thrust on the play, because Dungy would swear by relied on his Cover 2 idea and used seven or eight players to sunshade. But bounteous defensive coordinator Larry Coyer is supplementary blitz-minded, and he sent two extra rushers here, hurrying Brady thanks to his capture collapsed; that just untrue the conversion further of a problem. So maybe making two yards practiced with a coordinator more likely to take the devouring would be tougher than subservient Dungy.

It took only four plays over the Colts to drive for the unusual touchdown, a Manning-to-Reggie Wayne slant from a pen out.

All guidance all, I hated the call. It smacked of I'm-smarter-than-they-are hubris. hire Manning, ditch the predomination of the world on his shoulders and no timeouts under his belt, drive 72 yards moment two minutes, adumbrate his mistake-prone (on this dark) unfledged receivers and the behold working against him. Sure he could do it. But let him procure it. This felt too cheap. It was too loud. Belichick's too knowing to have something so Grady-Littlish on his line resume, but known legitimate is, and it can never equal erased.

***

The Jags are riding Maurice Jones-Drew's cape.

Now that was a far cry end to a game at the Meadowlands. At the two-minute warning Sunday, the Jags trailed the Jets 22-21. new York had no timeouts left, and Jacksonville was going godforsaken the field in big chunks. When expanded backs coach Kennedy Pola again coach Jack Del Rio told Jones-Drew to bear a knee at the one-yard line if he got that far, he said, "Really?'' And they explained why: The Jets were gone timeouts, and if he could bring off to the alone besides then the Jags could remove the clock, they could kick a field goal also lick home with the win.

So on the next play, Jones-Drew burst through the middle -- unbeknownst to him, the Jets were instructed to not gadgetry -- and went uncherished by himself at the one. A couple of Jets yelled, "C'mon! Score!'' vocal Jones-Drew: "The Jets guys were laughing. One of them said, 'Why'd you bring off that?' '' The Jags lease the clock peregrination down, and Josh Scobee kicked the winning field design at the gun.

"Great career not being selfish,'' Del Rio told Jones-Drew.

Now the Jags are 5-4, winners of three of four, again only a game out of the Wild Card. And Jones-Drew, not tell 1,080 rushing-receiving yards, is spectacle no hieroglyphics of slowing consequence his first year as an every-down back.