ON SUNDAY NIGHT, the Indianapolis Colts ran one of the strangest — and worst — plays in recent NFL history when they isolated their entire offensive line out to the right of the field, leaving just two in the middle.
Colt Anderson was immediately swamped by New England Patriots players and the Colts turned over the football giving their opponents great field position.
The Pats eventually won the game by 7 points.
A lot of thoughts went through our minds when this happened. Most of it involved swearing.
Now the Colts have finally offered an explanation for what they were trying to do and, to nobody’s surprise, it didn’t pan out the way they hoped it would.
Indeed, the play started to go wrong before it was even called.
Punter Pat McAfee told the Bob & Tom Radio Show:
“The gunner (the player who chases the ball after it has been punted) who became the center all week was Clayton Geathers. Clayton Geathers gets injured in the second quarter.
“Insert Griff Whalen who had never done it before. So Griff Whalen is now the new center in a play he’s never practised before.”
Basically, they shouldn’t have called the play because the player who had the most important role in it was injured at the time.
McAfee also confirmed what the intention of the play was.
“The point of the play is a deception play. So, you’re trying to manipulate the (receiving team) into thinking they have to sub their defence back on.
“We are sprinting to the sideline in hopes to make the other team think we are subbing our offence back onto the field. So, when they think the offence is coming back on the field, your hope is that they think their defence has to come back on the field.”
After deciding to run the play anyway, the Colts were hoping to trick the Patriots into doing one of three things: 1) Call a time out, 2) give away a penalty for having too many players on defence or 3) leave the middle of the field empty for an easy run as the players all ran towards the sideline.
Unfortunately for the Colts, none of these things happened so — as he hadn’t practised the play before — Whalen failed to realise he was not supposed to snap the ball.
If the Patriots didn’t do any of the three things above, the center was supposed to ‘fake’ snap the football — a hard count — in one final bid to draw the defence offside. If that didn’t work, the Colts would just take the delay of game penalty and punt the ball away as normal.
Though he didn’t practise the play all week, Whalen is not without blame here. Scott Zolak reports that Anderson told him repeatedly not to snap the football.
Still, the vast majority of blame should fall on Chuck Pagano who allowed his team run a play where the most important component of it had no clue what was going on.
So shouldn’t he have asked “why’d I call that?” rather than “why’d you snap that?” after the play?
Dropped so many points from winning positions so far… Could literally be at the top with a better conversion rate but that’s the way, still positive we’re getting into good positions just not hanging on to them enough. We keep trucking on!! Mon Bohs
@John Kelly: time for change long gone stale
@James Moran: maybe… Still think he’s the right man, it’s hard when you have to replace 60% of the team year on year but most on longer contracts now so hopefully can build next year instead of another clear out.. that’s the key for me. Bit of stability