Running into the Kicker

[Hapless Bills Fan]

In the aftermath of Colts loss to....that team...I hear lots of smack talk about Caldwell and his timeout.

 

Before that, the Jets were bailed out and had their chance only because of a dumb "running into the kicker" penalty that gave the Jets 1st down.

 

Who done it, and has anyone heard any fallout on that?

[Doc]

Some undrafted rookie named Taj Smith. And there was no fallout because the Jets didn't score on that drive and Colts got the ball back and kicked a FG, only to let the Jets march down the field and score the game-winning FG. And as for the time element, only 34 seconds of game clock elapsed and the Jets kicked the FG on 1st down, so it wasn't an issue.

[Ed_Formerly_of_Roch]

If you're somehow trying to imply that without the running into the kicker penalty every play and every result in the game down to the final kick by the Jets would have been identical, thus the kick would have come much earlier, giving Indy time for one last drive down the field after the Jet's kick;

 

THAT is a huge stretch and totally unrealistic.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

If you're somehow trying to imply that without the running into the kicker penalty every play and every result in the game down to the final kick by the Jets would have been identical, thus the kick would have come much earlier, giving Indy time for one last drive down the field after the Jet's kick;

 

THAT is a huge stretch and totally unrealistic.

 

Not clear to me which of us you're talking to.

 

I felt the running-into-the-kicker thing was a momentum shifter. The Indy D had held tough, bunch of hard hits.

They stopped the Jets and got the ball back, true, but they didn't look as tough, they were ready to take a breather then they had to go out.

The Colts O was ready to bring it, when they finally got on the field I thought they looked flat.

 

Not arguable that champion teams overcome all that, nonetheless I thought it was a more clearly costly mistake for the Colts than the late timeout.

So I'm a bit surprised at all the flack on the timeout and the absence of flack on the running into the kicker.

 

Clearly one can't treat football as a numbers game and assume if you take out one 30 second stretch the rest of the game will be identical.

Too much strategy and too much human emotion.

[Doc]

If you're somehow trying to imply that without the running into the kicker penalty every play and every result in the game down to the final kick by the Jets would have been identical, thus the kick would have come much earlier, giving Indy time for one last drive down the field after the Jet's kick;

 

THAT is a huge stretch and totally unrealistic.

 

Not clear to me which of us you're talking to.

 

I felt the running-into-the-kicker thing was a momentum shifter. The Indy D had held tough, bunch of hard hits.

They stopped the Jets and got the ball back, true, but they didn't look as tough, they were ready to take a breather then they had to go out.

The Colts O was ready to bring it, when they finally got on the field I thought they looked flat.

 

Not arguable that champion teams overcome all that, nonetheless I thought it was a more clearly costly mistake for the Colts than the late timeout.

So I'm a bit surprised at all the flack on the timeout and the absence of flack on the running into the kicker.

 

Clearly one can't treat football as a numbers game and assume if you take out one 30 second stretch the rest of the game will be identical.

Too much strategy and too much human emotion.

If we can't determine what would have happened had Smith not run into the kicker, which is true, then it was still meaningless and there should have been no fallout. You'd be better-served talking about the numerous missed opps in the previous 55 minutes of play that lost the game for them. As it stood, the defense stopped the Jets on the next set of downs, regaining the mo, and the Colts scored to take the lead, only to watch the ST's and defense give up enough yards to get the Jets into FG range to ice the game. But Caldwell's timeout was dumb, although it didn't cost them the game, and that's where people have the problem with it.