Going for Two??

[peeker643]

I wonder if Mangini considered it.

Not because they weren't equal to the Jets in most ways yesterday but because he was down three statrters and his defense had been gassed in the second half. Not to mention he still had 40 seconds or so and an onside kick attempt if they don't get it.

He wins it there and everyone leaves happy. He loses it there and he can easily justify it by noting the injuries and the fatigue factor.

I have to admit I never considered it until much later myself.

Would y'all go apoplectic if they go for two and miss there or are you good with it? Is it a concession you're making that you're not quite good enough if you do go for two there.

[JCoz]

Whats funny is that my wife asked me that right after we scored and I dismissed it pretty quickly, but you make a solid case.

I don't know about our fan base being A-OK with that if it didn't work, though....

I would have been cool with that, but it really didn't hit me at the time.

[yogi]

peek, good question.

I didnt think of it at the time and it wasnt brought up on the game thread either.

Now that I'm thinking about it, I would not.

We had the momentum and I believed that we had a better than 50/50 shot at winning it. I thought if Colt got the ball, he would fulfill his destiny and get us the W.

He'd a done it too, cept for Stuckey's drop that was later blamed on Easy E by Statmasta.

[Larvell Blanks]

JMO, but I think if Mangini decides to go for it and fails then fans and media would tear into him saying that he was caught up in the moment and didn't manage it correctly. With that in mind and if that situation plays out like that, are his defensive players going to be pissed that he didn't have the confidence in them to go for the tie and stop the Jets in OT? I'm sure the O would have been stoked to go for it but how big a player is Cribbs on any 2 pt conversion play, even if it is as a decoy?

My initial thought was to go for 2 (I bailed out on the game thread at halftime) but seeing how Daboll had some issues with his play calling inside the 10 earlier in the game I figured go for the tie and win it in OT.

[GodHatesClevelandSport]

I thought about it as they were driving. Almost unheard of. The Chiefs tried it against the Chargers during Herm Edwards last season. They were like 1-10 so they had nothing to lose. They failed.

I think Dick Vermeil did it with the Chiefs a few years ago against the Raiders. Just pounded Larry Johnson right through there for the win.

I thought the Browns should have considered going for two because everything was going their way. McCoy had the hot hand, the crowd was rocking, Hillis' presence would make the defense unsure of whether the Browns would pass or throw. Can't criticize them for not going for it, cuz almost no one risks his job that way. Maybe with Cribbs available they would have tried it. Give the Jets even more things to thnk about.

[JCoz]

peek, good question.

I didnt think of it at the time and it wasnt brought up on the game thread either.

Now that I'm thinking about it, I would not.

We had the momentum and I believed that we had a better than 50/50 shot at winning it. I thought if Colt got the ball, he would fulfill his destiny and get us the W.

He'd a done it too, cept for Stuckey's drop that was later blamed on Easy E by Statmasta.

Don't forget how much of this was Cribs fault for being such a bitch, yogi.

But I digress. Back to the topic at hand.

[gotribe31]

I wonder if Mangini considered it.

Not because they weren't equal to the Jets in most ways yesterday but because he was down three statrters and his defense had been gassed in the second half. Not to mention he still had 40 seconds or so and an onside kick attempt if they don't get it.

He wins it there and everyone leaves happy. He loses it there and he can easily justify it by noting the injuries and the fatigue factor.

I have to admit I never considered it until much later myself.

Would y'all go apoplectic if they go for two and miss there or are you good with it? Is it a concession you're making that you're not quite good enough if you do go for two there.

I said go for 2 at the time. While that may have been an emotional reaction, football is an emotional game. Jets D was back on their heels, o-line and everyone in the stadium was fired up, and I think we would have gotten it. Hand it to Hillis and see what happens. Like you said, the D was tired, we had some key injuries, and I'd take Hillis and Vickers to get me 3 yards over relying on a coin flip any day.

That being said, I understand why he didn't. Folk was terrible, Dawson is solid, and even if we lose the coin flip we get the wind. I'm not going to complain either way, but I really did want them to go for 2 and win it right then and there.

[Fire Marshall Bill]

Taking the 1 was the right call IMO but Chansi Stuckey might argee with going for 2 if you asked him today

They did everything right

Played D, got the ball back and drove to within FG range

[Cease]

The old adage is to go for two on the road, play for OT at home. Right?

I bet the players would have liked to go for the win. It's a vote of confidence in your offense. At 3-5, there is really not much to lose and it could have and given Colt his first heroic finish.

I wouldn't have down on Mangini if he went and failed. I'm not upset he played by the book and extended the game at home.

[skatingtripods]

Go for two. Grow a set. You either win and everyone goes home really happy or you lose and probably move up a couple spots in the draft.

[peeker643]

Ahh...knew you guys would have something for me on this.

I can't and won't bitch about it for sure but thinking back I put myself in the GHCS/GoTribe camp. Not to mention a huge strength for McCoy and the offense s the play action pass because teams have to to respect the Hillis run and McCoy is very good with the play fake (and one day when the Browns have a viable deep threat at WR this is going to be a staple of their offense).

Play fake to Hillis and move McCoy wide with both Hillis, Vickers and your two TE now working the end zone gives McCoy options everywhere.

Well, if nothing else, I hope Daboll keeps that in the back of his head as opposed to having McCoy line up in the gun repeatedly inside the 5 yd line. Give it to 40 or get under center and fake it to 40.

[Bigfist]

I was convinced that they would go for two off a trick play. Maybe Hodges (the holder) picking up the ball and running or rolling out and passing. You have to think that someone would have been open in the endzone.

[gotribe31]

Well, if nothing else, I hope Daboll keeps that in the back of his head as opposed to having McCoy line up in the gun repeatedly inside the 5 yd line. Give it to 40 or get under center and fake it to 40.

Or snap it to 40 and have him hand off on a reverse that turns him into the lead blocker?

[peeker643]

Well, if nothing else, I hope Daboll keeps that in the back of his head as opposed to having McCoy line up in the gun repeatedly inside the 5 yd line. Give it to 40 or get under center and fake it to 40.

Or snap it to 40 and have him hand off on a reverse that turns him into the lead blocker?

Something involving 12 and 40 is fine. And keep 82 and 89 in the pattern. Not so much shotgun and hoping 11 and 80 somehow stumble into some clear area on the field.

[Noodle]

You call a timeout and have the entire offense come over to the sideline. Daboll goes and gets Cribbs.
You have it look like a team meeting, and sneak Cribbs into the group. The team then walks back out to the line of scrimmage, all around Josh, trying to hide his injury.

He lines up in the backfield...in a split across from Hillis. The D is shitting their pants about now.
Colt takes the snap and fakes left, looking like he's flipping the ball to Cribbs for a round end run, he then hands the ball to Hillis to his right in a delayed handoff and Hillis goes straight up the gut for score.

They could of used Cribbs as a decoy...maybe not to that effect, but I think if you cautiously trot him out, you give the D way too much to think about (Holy crap, where's he been???)when they're reeling from Coly just tearing them up in under 2 minutes.

[daddywags]

I don't think they even considered it because they thought they could beat this team heads up. The staff put the team in position to win and they just didn't get it done. That said, the only way I would have considered going for 2 is if we had a no-doubter play in the book we could use. Nothing too fancy, like a double reverse or kicker throwing the ball thing, just a solid offensive play that we knew from our film study would work once. With a rookie QB playing his 4th game, Josh Cribbs sidelined, and no number 1 WR, it's hard to imagine such a play IMhO.

[JacksonDysonJackson]

I considered it at the time.

Would y'all go apoplectic if they go for two and miss there or are you good with it?

Not at all. And if some fans would have, they better not be the same fans applauding the pass to Watson on first down inside their own 5. They had a much better chance at converting the two-point than driving within FG range with under 2 mins pinned back that deep.


Is it a concession you're making that you're not quite good enough if you do go for two there.

I guess, but frankly, they aren't as good as the Jets...so who cares? Same thing as the onside kick and all the trick plays against NO...they aren't as good as those teams so you need to gamble a bit.

[hermanfontenot]

If you're going for two and the win, you really need Josh Cribbs on the field IMO. I don't think just pounding Hillis in there against that defense was the way to go.

Having Josh on the field- whether QBing out of the Flash or motioning to create the possibility of an end-around- generates enough misdirection and deception to make it a higher percentage play than they actually had.

[motherscratcher]

It had crossed my mind and I wouldn't have been mad if they went for it and came up short.

I guess it comes down to this: If you think you have a better than 50% chance of making it then you should go for it. Maybe? I don't know. But I would have liked it.

I'm sure that if they went for 2 and missed, there would have been a very vocal contingent calling for Mangini's head, lead by Tony Grossi. So it was definitely safer to just kick the PAT. One good thing is that I doubt it ever crossed Mangini's mind what it might look like to go for it and fail.

[CAVSTRIBEBROWNSin07!]

I thought about it as they were driving. Almost unheard of. The Chiefs tried it against the Chargers during Herm Edwards last season. They were like 1-10 so they had nothing to lose. They failed.

I think Dick Vermeil did it with the Chiefs a few years ago against the Raiders. Just pounded Larry Johnson right through there for the win.

Shanahan did it against the Chargers, 2 years ago in the Ed Hochuli game.

[hebner20]

Even though i am a baseball guy I said it flat out at the time to go for 2. Perhaps it is because i am an outsider I am able to think outside of the box or use a different paradigm.

It is the same throughout the entire league. Almost no one would do it and it is considered safe to go for 1 and win it in OT - but you are never assured to be closer to winning the game than you are at the 2 yard line. Don't pass up the opportunity! Forget about personnel. I really believe you are wrong if you DON'T go for 2 - it is a procrastinating tactic. I know why coaches do it but the league needs to rethink the strategy. It really doesn't happen that often - probably once every 3 years per team on average.

The reality is: the Browns were never as close to winning yesterday than they were when they were lining up for the P.A.T.

Good game though, they are no pushover any more. I believe this team is for real.

BTW, Eagles are up 28-0 in the first quarter on MNF and Jerome Harrison just went 50years for a TD run. WTF?

[CAVSTRIBEBROWNSin07!]

7 coaches have gone for 2 while down a point in the final two minutes since the 2 point conversion was invented in 94; 3 were successful.

[pup]

Like anything else around C-Town. Go for it and get it, players did a great job. Go for it and fail and Gruden Watch 4.0 is going on.

Mangini has spent over two years preaching team and depth of the roster. Now he is going to tell them, "I don't think we had enough in the tank to hang around with these guys." Can't see that.

Didn't see it mentioned, but he did say he considered it but decided to take the OT route. Thought his team was in fine shape to handle another quarter.

[OldDawg]

I was convinced that they would go for two off a trick play. Maybe Hodges (the holder) picking up the ball and running or rolling out and passing. You have to think that someone would have been open in the endzone.

I thought the exact same thing. With all the trick plays in special teams (cross field lateral pass on punt return and fake punt vs New Orleans ... on side kick vs Jets), I fully expected some kind of trickery on a fake 1-point PAT into a 2-point PAT.

[danwismar]

I started thinking about going for two as soon as the Browns got the ball back down seven. In fact I mentioned it to the guys sitting around me as a joke, because we really had no realistic expectation of driving for the tying TD based on how bad the offense had looked the whole second half. ("When we score, should we go for two?") Did we even have a first down in the 2nd half at that point?

Actually, I was already thinking about another 20-20 overtime game against the Jets 24 years before.

[diminishingskills]

Peter Lynch once wrote about it when describing the mind-set of mutual fund managers touting stocks. The whole idea being that if you bought IBM (which was then as blue-chip a company as it got), and it had a bad quarter, investors would say "what's wrong with that damn IBM lately?" But if you bought some unknown company -- say, Microsoft circa 1982 -- and they had a bad quarter, investors would say, "what's wrong with you?"

So too it is with NFL coaches. Had Mangini gone for two, and had they come up short and lost the game right there, the howls for his neck would have been deafening.

Now, I like out-of-the-box thinking as much as the next guy, probably more so. I'm of the mindset that says that football coaches usually should act like they really have four downs, instead of three downs and then a punt (wasn't it some HS in Texas that hasn't punted in like three years, and they've been very successful?). At the same time, I can't fault Mangini for making the decision that 99+% of NFL coaches would make 99+% of the time.

[Love child of shawn kemp]

Going for two was also discussed when I was watching the game. I do remember saying that coaches usually go for it when they do not have as good of a team as the opposition. Its too bad we had already unveiled the confused looking offense, Chansi Stuckey end around play against NE as that might have been perfect for that occasion