Stoney's He-Man Steeler Haters NFL Playoff Thread ... No Yinzers allowed

One does one's best ...

 

If-Then'ism ...

If Dallas maintains possession there, then this could have happened:

° Pokes score on the next play to make it 27-26
° Pokes go for 2 and make it, 29-26
° Pokes go for 2 and miss it, 27-26
° Pokes try to blast it up the gut but get stuffed, second and goal
° Pokes try the greatest play ever called -- goal line fade -- but Romo throws it out of bounds, third down
° Pokes hand it to DeMarco, who fumbles the handoff but Pokes recover at the 3, fourth down
° Pokes decide a FG is best right now to make it 26-24 'cause there's 3 minutes, with timeouts, and 2-minute warning -- we'll force a punt and go down and kick the go-ahead field goal

I can add 10,000 scenarios to that list in an hour, but won't.

Point being that saying "Oh, Green Bay would've gone right down and scored anyway ... " is flat-out false because the course of history changes the moment Dallas maintains possession of the ball, had the ruling come back as such. If that happened, then ...

... it would have been really cool to see what happened next, and next, and next, and next.

But the course of history would not have been the same had it been 1st and goal and the Pokes scored. Everything changes, from whistles to timeouts to commercials to this, to that, to this and that and that and this and this and that

 

What would you have bet on Xan?

 

On what happened next?

Wouldn't have bet on anything. It would have been 1st and goal at the 1.

You know how many times 1st and goal at the 1 has become 4th and goal 2 minutes later?

Now, IF the Cowboys scored on the next play THEN ...

° maybe the Packers fumble the kickoff or
° maybe Rodgers throws on 1st down but the ball is tipped and the Cowboys pick-6 it or
° maybe Rodgers rolls right and throws a 12-yarder but gets tackled to the ground and hurts his shoulder and has to come out and
° maybe the back-up fumbles the next snap and the Cowboys recover or ...

 

This is the only thing I really disagree with here. As I and others have noted, what we saw Green Bay do is pretty much what Green Bay would have had to do regardless of whether the Cowboys scored. Yes, there are some possibilities that you've noted (the fumble on the kickoff, whether Green Bay was driving for a go-ahead or simply a tying field goal). But do you really think Green Bay handles its last drive differently? Do you think Dallas defends that last drive differently? I don't.

 

Xan, it is not if-then ism to say that Green Bay would have gotten the ball back with considerable time left and that its offense had been moving the ball consistently in that quarter. Hell, it's not if-then ism to say it's possible the Cowboys would've had enough time to respond to a Green Bay drive and that they had been moving the ball well in turn.

 

That's fair. I'll walk it back to actually allow myself to consider the surface probabilities, such as the Packers could have moved the ball with ease in the last 3 to 5 minutes, depending on how much time it took the Cowboys to score a TD. Of course they could have because Aaron Rodgers is one of the 3 best QBs in the league.

 

What is "considerable time"?

And I can agree with the fact Green Bay moved the ball well up until that point.

That doesn't mean -- and fuck probabilities and statistics -- that Green Bay would have just zipped through the defense again with 3 to 5 minutes to play.

On the surface of sports chatter, where morons reside, sure, you can say, It don't matter no how cah Green Bay woulda scored they woulda!

Yes, Green Bay's offense is pretty goddamn spectacular. And man, it would have been cool to see how the offense responded being down 27-26 (or 29-26) with a spot in the semifinals on the line. The numbers and the probabilities say Green Bay's chances at scoring again were strong. I agree with that. But that's pretty much where it ends.

 

This is what I'm most curious about. If the ruling on the field wasn't overturned, and Dallas hung on to win, how much outrage would there have been compared to what we have now?

 

Hmmmm. Trying to decide whether I've just been called a moron. And, if so, whether being called a moron by someone who says "fuck probabilities and statistics" is a good or a bad thing.

 

No to the first thing.

I also said, or tried to convey, that I recognize stats and probs -- but not in the if-then world of sports.

 

I really haven't watched the replay enough to have a set-in-stone opinion on the catch/no-catch, but for those advocating a rule change, I'm curious how you would change it.

If a player going to the ground does not have to maintain possession all the way through the catch, then when a player dives for the pass, catches it in mid-air, but has it knocked out by the ground, the play would then have to be ruled a fumble, no? If it's not an incompletion, then we're saying the player had possession and, since he wasn't down by contact, the ground can cause the fumble.

If the player is contacted by a defender during the dive, and the ball is knocked loose by the ground, the player would then be down by contact, but do any of us really think that should be a catch?

I'm curious how you would rectify this rule so as to make it perfect.