{"id":1324,"date":"2008-12-13T07:34:42","date_gmt":"2008-12-13T11:34:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/2008\/12\/13\/decisions-head-scratching-bad-decisions\/"},"modified":"2011-06-25T10:55:37","modified_gmt":"2011-06-25T14:55:37","slug":"decisions-head-scratching-bad-decisions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/2008\/12\/13\/decisions-head-scratching-bad-decisions\/","title":{"rendered":"Decisions.  Head scratching, bad decisions."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>How is Atlanta Falcons coach Mike Smith still <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ledger-enquirer.com\/227\/story\/539474.html\" onclick=\"__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.ledger-enquirer.com\/227\/story\/539474.html', 'justifying his decision');\" target=\"new\">justifying his decision<\/a> to punt on forth down in the closing minutes of last week\u2019s loss to the Saints?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nSmith believed the Falcons\u2019 defense was smart and stout enough to force a three-and-out and let rookie quarterback Matt Ryan try for a miraculous finish, but the Saints never gave back the ball.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve got no reservations about it,\u201d Smith said Monday. \u201cWith 3:15 to go, fourth-and-5 from our 35, I felt like we\u2019d punt them back, which we did. Michael (Koenen) hit a big punt. They had the ball first-and-10 on the 13 with 3:15 to go. We had two timeouts and the two-minute (warning). If we are able to stop them, we were going to get the ball back to our offense in better field position than if we\u2019d taken the gamble on fourth down.\u201d\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Hello!  What a piss poor call.  You are down by 4 so a field goal is not going to hurt you, and you are just as likely have having the Saints run out the clock.  The defense did not stop the f\u2019ing Saint all day, so I have no idea why Smith thought his defense was get pick up some magic IQ points.<\/p>\n<p>After the game, this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ajc.com\/blogs\/content\/shared-blogs\/ajc\/schultz\/entries\/2008\/12\/07\/because_of_ryan_falcons_had_a.html\" onclick=\"__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.ajc.com\/blogs\/content\/shared-blogs\/ajc\/schultz\/entries\/2008\/12\/07\/because_of_ryan_falcons_had_a.html', 'dumb ass');\" target=\"new\">dumb ass<\/a> had the audacity to compare Ryan to Vick.  Let\u2019s don\u2019t go there.  He could have gotten his point across without the needless comparison.<\/p>\n<p>Anyhow, tomorrow\u2019s game versus the dreaded Buckaroos from Tampa Bay ought to be a good one.  When I purchased my season tickets this year, I never would have predicted that the Falcons would be in prime playoff position with three games to play.  What a great turnaround!<\/p>\n<div class=\"addtoany_share_save_container addtoany_content_bottom\"><div class=\"a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_ addtoany_list a2a_target\" id=\"wpa2a_1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.addtoany.com\/share\" onclick=\"__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'outbound-article', 'https:\/\/www.addtoany.com\/share', '');\" class=\"a2a_dd addtoany_share_save\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-content\/plugins\/add-to-any\/share_save_171_16.png\" width=\"171\" height=\"16\" alt=\"Share\"\/><\/a>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\nif(wpa2a)wpa2a.script_load();\n\/\/--><\/script>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How is Atlanta Falcons coach Mike Smith still justifying his decision to punt on forth down in the closing minutes of last week\u2019s loss to the Saints? Smith believed the Falcons\u2019 defense was smart and stout enough to force a three-and-out and let rookie quarterback Matt Ryan try for a miraculous finish, but the Saints &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/2008\/12\/13\/decisions-head-scratching-bad-decisions\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Decisions.  Head scratching, bad decisions.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"addtoany_share_save_container addtoany_content_bottom\"><div class=\"a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_ addtoany_list a2a_target\" id=\"wpa2a_2\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.addtoany.com\/share\" onclick=\"__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'outbound-article', 'https:\/\/www.addtoany.com\/share', '');\" class=\"a2a_dd addtoany_share_save\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-content\/plugins\/add-to-any\/share_save_171_16.png\" width=\"171\" height=\"16\" alt=\"Share\"\/><\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12,29],"class_list":["post-1324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive","tag-atlanta-falcons","tag-nfl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1324"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3543,"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1324\/revisions\/3543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}