3rd and goal 7 seconds before the half

[Chaos]

41 minutes ago, stbugs said:

The big play was the scramble on 1st down. We had 29 seconds when it was 1st and 5 at the 9 and no timeouts. Cam escaped the initial pressure but didn’t throw it away. Hopefully, he learns a bit, but on first down, he’s got to throw the ball out of the end zone as soon as he got away initially, which he did. He tried to still find someone. If he throws it away immediately (they never call grounding out of the end zone), there’s probably 20 seconds left and you have 2 more shots barring a sack. Once he got tackled, they got to the line with 16 seconds and let it run to 7 before spiking it.

It wasn’t a good series after getting it to 1st and 5 at the 9. I won’t argue kicking FG on third so as to not risk a sack and no points, but Cam’s gotta be aware of throwing the ball away on 1st down and know he’s got two more plays.

This right here.  Everybody read this post who's bitching we kicked the FG on third down.  It was the 1st and 5 play breaking down and the ensuing line up/ scrambling/panic that followed that play with no time outs remaining that doomed the posession.  When Cam assessed the defensive alignment, the risk of what looked like a possible illegal formation penalty, and the clock, Cam calmed down and spiked the ball.  We got three points.  I could see us in years past getting zero points in a similar situation. 

[dave-o]

The announcer said after 7 years in the league Cam should have had a better plan down there...

[BrianS]

1 minute ago, dave-o said:

The announcer said after 7 years in the league Cam should have had a better plan down there...

Yea . . . the same announcers who also think Sean Lee is a couple injuries short of being Luke Kuechly?  Those announcers?  

[dave-o]

18 minutes ago, BrianS said:

Yea . . . the same announcers who also think Sean Lee is a couple injuries short of being Luke Kuechly?  Those announcers?  

I guess...    Joe Buck...  I couldnt remember his name before..  Haha...  Getting old !!

 

[tiger7_88]

3 hours ago, BrianS said:

We did.  Keep in mind no timeouts.

It looked like Cam went to the line with a play already called but would not have had the time to audible to something different, run it, and still kick the field goal after the attempted play if it failed.  Cam definitely looked the defense over before he spiked it.

 

If only we had had some part of those :45 seconds we used to run TWO PLAYS prior to the 2-minute warning, right?

[pantherclaw]

3 hours ago, BrianS said:

We did.  Keep in mind no timeouts.

It looked like Cam went to the line with a play already called but would not have had the time to audible to something different, run it, and still kick the field goal after the attempted play if it failed.  Cam definitely looked the defense over before he spiked it.

 

He made the right decision.

[tiger7_88]

54 minutes ago, Chaos said:

This right here.  Everybody read this post who's bitching we kicked the FG on third down.  It was the 1st and 5 play breaking down and the ensuing line up/ scrambling/panic that followed that play with no time outs remaining that doomed the posession.  When Cam assessed the defensive alignment, the risk of what looked like a possible illegal formation penalty, and the clock, Cam calmed down and spiked the ball.  We got three points.  I could see us in years past getting zero points in a similar situation. 

Could you explain why Ron and Norv decided to take it slow and leisurely and run only 2 (TWO) plays between 2:45 and 2:00?

"Cam did the right thing, we didn't have a lot of time and things were disorganized!"

I agree with the above statement, but there was a REASON that Cam "didn't have a lot of time" and its not because of what happened between when the clock was at 0:20 and 0:07.

[BrianS]

Just now, tiger7_88 said:

Could you explain why Ron and Norv decided to take it slow and leisurely and run only 2 (TWO) plays between 2:45 and 2:00?

"Cam did the right thing, we didn't have a lot of time and things were disorganized!"

I agree with the above statement, but there was a REASON that Cam "didn't have a lot of time" and its not because of what happened between when the clock was at 0:20 and 0:07.

Consider the overall situation.  We were 1st and 10 on our 38, with 2:45 to go.  It's a lot of time, and while our field position was "good", it wasn't "great".  Thus we ran a couple plays to see what we could get, those plays went well taking us to midfield'ish.

Now we're at the 50, with 2:00 to go . . . that's "great" field position so we got serious about scoring.  Had those plays gone poorly, it would have been easy to see us handing the ball back to Dallas with enough time for them to try to score.

 

[mc52beast]

3 hours ago, Lumps said:

But 7 seconds seems enough to at least try one quick slant, shot for the endzone and then easy try for FG if not on 4th down.

 

We had 5ish (?) yards to go...really wanted to see a killer instinct there from the staff.

Don’t think anyone on this coaching staff has a killer instinct... more like play not to lose

[cookinbrak]

Why not walk to the line on 2nd down and 16 seconds left, spike the ball, and then have 3rd and goal with 13 seconds left? Call a huddle, try a pass, and then kick a FG.

[Silent Majority]

3 hours ago, Lumps said:

But 7 seconds seems enough to at least try one quick slant, shot for the endzone and then easy try for FG if not on 4th down.

 

We had 5ish (?) yards to go...really wanted to see a killer instinct there from the staff.

Madden 2019! amirite!?

[tiger7_88]

14 minutes ago, BrianS said:

Consider the overall situation.  We were 1st and 10 on our 38, with 2:45 to go.  It's a lot of time, and while our field position was "good", it wasn't "great".  Thus we ran a couple plays to see what we could get, those plays went well taking us to midfield'ish.

Now we're at the 50, with 2:00 to go . . . that's "great" field position so we got serious about scoring.  Had those plays gone poorly, it would have been easy to see us handing the ball back to Dallas with enough time for them to try to score.

 

I respect your opinion, but you're not ever going to convince me that two runs for 10 yards that took 45 seconds JUST CHANGED EVERYTHING.

How about 2 runs that took 25 seconds?  Know what that would have resulted in?  The "confusion" on that play happening at 0:07 occurring at 0:27 which would have given the QB waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more options.  But, no, Ron wanted to waste time because he didn't want to give an offense that hadn't crossed the 50 yard line the entire 1st half a "chance" with a few seconds left on the clock.

Ron Rivera is one of the worst head coaches in the league at time management.  There are many things he's very good at but time management is not one of them.