Grantland: Punting on 4th-and-1 candidate for worst coaching move of the year

[goodoleboy]

reading comprehension fail?

Not on my part....You?

[fjblair]

Only a clueless idiot would call the punt a terrible coaching decision and a candidate for worst coaching decision of the year. I suppose if your football knowledge is framed by xbox or some other fantasy world NFL would you may make such sweeping conclusion. Going for it would also have been a reasonable call but 8/10 coaches call for the punt in that situation.

[IGSaint]

Only a clueless idiot would call the punt a terrible coaching decision and a candidate for worst coaching decision of the year. I suppose if your football knowledge is framed by xbox or some other fantasy based bullshit you may make such a misinformed conclusion. Going for it would also have been a reasonable call but 8/10 coaches call for the punt in that situation.

The stats speak for themselves we converted 21-24 of those downs. newton is huge. Our secondary was being torched all game. You go for it and have confidence in your offense because that defense showed the whole game that it could not stop atl.

[Guild]

How much would you bet that statistically the punt turns out to be the better play than going for it on fourth down?

[PantherGuy]

I don't think punting was that terrible. It was a very long 1 yard and we had been getting pressure on Ryan all game. I think the worst thing Rivera did all day was not try to score with 3 timeouts before the 1st half ended.

If we PREVENT the falcons from converting on a hail mary, we win the game and the punting call looks great.

After having a day to think this over, I agree with this view. I still would have gone for it on that 4th down, because we had no idea that we were going to down the ball the one on the punt. And I can see why punting was a possibility, even if I wouldn't have done that. But I do agree that the clock management at the end of the first half was worse coaching. I can't imagine how that didn't have every one of us pulling our hair out and shouting at Rivera through our TVs.

[PantherGuy]

It isn't hindsight when we were all calling for it...

I nearly broke my TV when he didn't go for it.

I nearly shattered my laptop monitor slamming it shut.

[SuperMan]

The stats speak for themselves we converted 21-24 of those downs. newton is huge. Our secondary was being torched all game. You go for it and have confidence in your offense because that defense showed the whole game that it could not stop atl.

They ran the odds on several different sports sites had we gone for it we had an 90% chance of victory.

By punting we lowered our chances of winning to 53%....

Sounds like a no brainer to me.

[Mother Grabber]

Holy poo...how many times every Sunday do coaches punt on 4-1 or 4-inches. It's so obviously the right move, every freakin time. You do not go for it on 4th down at mid-field. You just don't. Ever.

[FastNFurious]

This call really had me scratching my head.... with our recent history of picking up a yard on 3rd or 4th down, why not put the game in the hands of Cam? Why trust a defense that has struggled all season to stop a high-octane offense like the ***Cons? As we all saw by the 1st play at the 1, our defense cannot be trusted to intercept or even bat down a ball that was in the air for more than a few seconds

[TopCat]

I've been meditating on this all day. And have come to the conclusion that Rivera made the right, safe call. If we go for it and don't convert we give them the ball in their territory, plus their run defense was pretty stout all day but we have cam and whatever. But if we punt and pin them deep which we did, can't get much deeper than the 1. Your defense has been playing very well all game. Better than usuall at least. We had like 6 sacks. Their at the 1 you get pressure on Ryan, boom games over. BUT that's not what happened so Rivera should be fired.

[pstall]

the ball landing on the1 yard line shows it was the right move. the FRIGGIN' ONE!!!!

[HardcoreDefense]

Holy poo...how many times every Sunday do coaches punt on 4-1 or 4-inches. It's so obviously the right move, every freakin time. You do not go for it on 4th down at mid-field. You just don't. Ever.

How many NFL coaches do you see run college/ trick plays every other play, or have horrible time management skills before the half, or not prepare his rookie corner/ sorry ass FS for the deep ball etc etc.......... Point is we Panthers are different from the rest and should have went for it on 4th and 1. We don't play aggressive enough. I'm sure if we were going against a QB like Brady, Manning, or Rodgers you would want to go for it too. We are an OFFENSIVE team not defensive yet. We win from offense and lose from offense. Our D is getting better but it's not at the point where we should rely on them to stop an undefeated Elite Offense like the Felons with home field advantage.

[IGSaint]

the ball landing on the1 yard line shows it was the right move. the FRIGGIN' ONE!!!!

I'm tired of people saying that punting was the right move if it was the right move,WE would have WON!!

Some times taking that risk even though it's a big risk like going for the 1st down on that 4th down conversion is the right move.

If something fails it should no longer be considered the right move.

[unicar15]

Didn't mind the punt considering its a given that the Falcons win if we don't convert. The bad coaching moves were on the drives before that when we did nothing and then we had Nakamura on the field at the end.