Your Call: Would you ever give the ball back to Patrick Mahomes?

What’s more fun than second-guessing NFL coaches? Nothing, that’s what. So let’s do it every week, right here. This week: Staring into the teeth of the dragon.

The scenario

Kansas City at Buffalo, the latest installment of the NFL’s current greatest rivalry. Buffalo has the ball, up 23-21, but it’s 4th and 2 on the Kansas City 26 with a little over two minutes left in the game. A field goal puts the Bills up five points. Going for it and succeeding chews up more clock; going for it and failing gives Kansas City the ball back with two timeouts.

This is why NFL coaches get the big bucks. What do you do?

The case for kicking

A field goal forces Kansas City to drive the length of the field for a go-ahead touchdown. Plus, if you go for the 4th down conversion and miss, Kansas City only needs to go about 40 or so yards to win the game with a field goal. Kicking is the safe play, putting the burden on your defense to hold Mahomes with about two minutes left in the game.

The case for going for it

Everyone within a million miles of Buffalo knows you don’t give the ball to Patrick Mahomes with two minutes left … since that’s one minute and 47 seconds more than he needs to wreck your world. Mahomes, of course, led Kansas City to victory over Buffalo in early 2022 in one of the great playoff games of all time, forcing overtime with a come-from-behind field goal drive that started with just 13 seconds left on the clock. Do you really want to give him the chance to do it again?

Plus, Bills kicker Tyler Bass is only 31 of 39 from 40-49 yards in his career and 5 of 8 this season, and had already missed an extra point on the day. A missed field goal would give Kansas City the ball needing to go about 30 yards to get into field goal ranges themselves. The risks of going for it were high … the risks of everything involved with a field goal were even higher.

The result

Sean McDermott made the only realistic choice he could have made, although there are plenty of overly…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/your-call-would-you-ever-give-the-ball-back-to-patrick-mahomes-142612673.html

Author : Yahoo Sports

Publish date : 2024-11-18 14:26:12

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