Should the Pats be running up the score on everybody in garbage time?

[West]

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Yes they should and I am absolutely glad they are doing it. I'm tired of everybody being whiny bitches about professional sports. In college, maybe it's a little different. However, this is the pros. If you don't like getting your ass kicked, get better. Period.

No lead is safe. I have no problem whatsoever with all the late touchdowns they have been scoring.

There have been countless times in sports when teams have come back from ridiculous deficits to win. Think of the Bills against the Oilers in the playoffs back in the early 90s. How about the Lakers against the Trail Blazers in the fourth quarter of a Western Conference Finals game? Anybody remember Cleveland overcoming a 12-run hole against Seattle on Sunday Night Baseball a few years ago?

No lead is safe. You should never stop trying to win in my opinion. When a team goes for the throat like they should, people shouldn't get upset about it.

I absolutely love that this is happening right now. I hope they go undefeated and blow out everyone on the way.

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I do feel that most 'running the score up' situations are just one side looking for something to be angry about when they are really just pissed about getting their behinds kicked, but if ever there was a case of it in pro football, the Patriots/Redskins had to qualify.

I understand that comebacks happen, as we saw with the Titans/Texans just recently. But 25 points in the 4th is the most that's ever happened in the NFL, right? This was 38-0 in the 4th against the Patriots. There wasn't going to be no comeback. Did we want him to kick a field goal? Yeah, that's right, on 4th down, kick the field goal. The game is over. Even if they block the field goal and run it back for a touchdown, the game is over. There really was no reason for Brady to be in the game. If I was Greg Williams, I would have used any blitz I could think of to try and get a hit on him. Nothing to purposely injure at all. But you want to play the game, fine, let's play the game. What did the Skins have to lose, getting burnt on a blitz for a TD? They scored two more TDs on them anyway.

I'm gonna have fun rooting for the Colts Sunday.

[West]

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Whichever one is the Redskins CB.

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Springs is the CB, Tayor is the guy who spat on someone.

[gumpzilla]

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Even if they block the field goal and run it back for a touchdown, the game is over. There really was no reason for Brady to be in the game.

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I've just been assuming that Belichick and Brady are interested in putting up an absolutely bananas season, numbers-wise.

[Needle77]

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Even if they block the field goal and run it back for a touchdown, the game is over. There really was no reason for Brady to be in the game.

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I've just been assuming that Belichick and Brady are interested in putting up an absolutely bananas season, numbers-wise.

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I like this answer.

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David from Northridge, CA: With regards to the Pats and the Colts running up scores, I think dominant teams should avoid doing that simply because it allows players to hit unlikely contract incentives. As a result, it will hasten their fall. Any thoughts?

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Vic: That’s not the problem with lopsided scores. In my opinion, the problem with winning easy is that it makes a team soft. Hair-raising wins and losses battle-harden a team. They prepare a team for those pressure situations in postseason play. Teams that win easy often have trouble dealing with adversity. They have a tendency to fold the first time they face true crunch time. I don’t think that’ll be the case with either the Pats or Colts because those teams and their quarterbacks already are battle-hardened, but I think winning easy had hurt the Colts in the past. We’ll see what happens. I like teams that know how to win the close ones. As far as incentives, you want your players earning them. It means they’ve been successful. It means they’ll be more likely to negotiate them into their future contracts.

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From 10/29 Jaguars.com Ask Vic. Link to article

[capone0]

The Colts looked a lot better last year in the playoffs after struggling including the massacre @ Jacksonville last year. They knew how to find ways to win rather than cruising.
Don't know if this years Pats will also apply as stated in that article but they are hardly going to be challenged this year during the regular season. The only teams that might challenge them they will face in the regular season, and the first two matchups were a joke. The Colts and I guess the Pittsburgh will be the only tests the rest of the year. If they win them all, I'm not going to have much confidence in the Pats losing at home in the POs no matter how easy the road is.

I think the Chargers are starting to come around and I guess the Colts will hopefully have Marvin back, but it's going to be tough to beat the Pats no matter what a team does this year.

[Vyse]

if you're not good enough to contend, you can't whine about how badly you were beaten. wtf i'm supposed to take it easy so you feel better about your feelings?

[kyro]

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If I was Greg Williams, I would have used any blitz I could think of to try and get a hit on him. Nothing to purposely injure at all. But you want to play the game, fine, let's play the game. What did the Skins have to lose, getting burnt on a blitz for a TD? They scored two more TDs on them anyway.

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If that's the case, then the Redskins should have just taken a knee when they got the ball back. You can't have it both ways.

And I say it again, what is sending a huge blitz going to do? If it was even remotely effective, I'm sure the Redskins would have been doing it more often. You want to talk about embarrassing? What happens when you send the house and Brady gets rid of it immediately to Moss for an easy score? That would be pretty humiliating.

[West]

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If I was Greg Williams, I would have used any blitz I could think of to try and get a hit on him. Nothing to purposely injure at all. But you want to play the game, fine, let's play the game. What did the Skins have to lose, getting burnt on a blitz for a TD? They scored two more TDs on them anyway.



[/ QUOTE ] If that's the case, then the Redskins should have just taken a knee when they got the ball back. You can't have it both ways.


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Huh?? I can blitz and try and put a lick on Brady, and I can try to score when we have the ball. What's the problem?

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If that's the case, then the Redskins should have just taken a knee when they got the ball back. You can't have it both ways.

And I say it again, what is sending a huge blitz going to do? If it was even remotely effective, I'm sure the Redskins would have been doing it more often. You want to talk about embarrassing? What happens when you send the house and Brady gets rid of it immediately to Moss for an easy score? That would be pretty humiliating.

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I'm not saying be stupid about it. I'm saying, I'm willing to risk getting burnt for a TD at this point in order to try and smack Brady. I don't see where getting burnt for another TD is any more 'humiliating' then the Patriots running their regular offense, going for it on 4th downs, and scoring TDs anyway.

[Salva135]

I think the problem with talking about play calls in the 1st half (a la the 2-minute drill they pulled against Miami), and pulling out starters in the 3rd quarter, etc. is that you put yourself on a slippery slope of making judgements about when to ease up on a team when the game isn't technically out of reach. Sure, coming back against the Pats down 35 with a quarter or so to go is very unlikely, but if there's even 0.00001% chance of it happening, these guys are paid to go out there and make sure it doesn't. They get paid to win, period.

You can argue about when a game is out of reach all you want, but eventually you reach the point where it becomes subjective, and the idea of letting up earlier in a game when it's not 100% locked up in order to keep a game arbitrarily close challenges the very premise of competition itself. Belichick has alluded to this many times in his recent press conferences, pointing out that this is the NFL, anything can happen, and it's not his job to judge how nicely or respectfully he should beat a team. He has every right to flip out on reports essentially criticizing him for doing his job so much better than everyone else. It's truly unbelievable.

I cannot think of one single example in all of professional sports where there have been these kinds of discussions about running up the score until the 2007 Patriots came along. Can anyone find any examples of other teams being openly called out on this repeatedly over the course of a season, in any major sport?

[Semtex]

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I think the problem with talking about play calls in the 1st half (a la the 2-minute drill they pulled against Miami), and pulling out starters in the 3rd quarter, etc. is that you put yourself on a slippery slope of making judgements about when to ease up on a team when the game isn't technically out of reach. Sure, coming back against the Pats down 35 with a quarter or so to go is very unlikely, but if there's even 0.00001% chance of it happening, these guys are paid to go out there and make sure it doesn't. They get paid to win, period.

You can argue about when a game is out of reach all you want, but eventually you reach the point where it becomes subjective, and the idea of letting up earlier in a game when it's not 100% locked up in order to keep a game arbitrarily close challenges the very premise of competition itself. Belichick has alluded to this many times in his recent press conferences, pointing out that this is the NFL, anything can happen, and it's not his job to judge how nicely or respectfully he should beat a team. He has every right to flip out on reports essentially criticizing him for doing his job so much better than everyone else. It's truly unbelievable.

I cannot think of one single example in all of professional sports where there have been these kinds of discussions about running up the score until the 2007 Patriots came along. Can anyone find any examples of other teams being openly called out on this repeatedly over the course of a season, in any major sport?

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chance of star player getting injured >>> chance of team coming back from one of those 30 point leads against the patriots