MORE BATTLES ARE LOST THAN WON

After all the back and forth, turnovers, and great plays, the outcome of this last year’s Super Bowl came down to one bad call. Why?

Did Wellington win the Battle of Waterloo or did Napoleon lose it? Does it detract from Robert E. Lee’s tactical brilliance that most of his famous victories came over some of the Union Army’s most feeble-minded commanders? By the same token, did George Meade win the Battle of Gettysburg or did Robert E. Lee fumble it away? And what connects Pete Carroll, Jim Harbaugh, Bill Walsh and Bill Belichick?

Despite all of Tom Brady’s fourth quarter heroics (13 of 15 passes for 124 yards and two touchdowns), the Seattle Seahawks sat perched at the Patriots’ half-yard-line, trailing 28-24, second down with 26 seconds on the clock, on the brink of their second consecutive Super Bowl title. They had the game’s most formidable power back, Marshawn Lynch (aka “Beast Mode”) in their backfield and with one timeout left, at least two chances to score. So why didn’t they?

Pete Carroll gave the convoluted explanation that they wanted all three remaining downs to have a chance to score. They had to throw on second down to have any element of surprise, and an incomplete pass would leave enough time on the clock to try and run the ball in on the third and fourth downs.

But that’s just nuts. That’s overthinking it. The Seahawks were not confronted with some complex tactical problem; the ball’s on the half-yard line and every person watching knew that all Marshawn Lynch had to do was lean forward and the game was over. It felt like the inevitable conclusion—to everyone, including the Patriots.

Red zone offense can be challenging. It’s difficult to throw the ball, the defense has less area to cover and they’re usually blitzing, giving the quarterback little time to read the defense. Inside the five, it’s even harder to fit the ball in such a compressed space, which is why so many teams opt for one-receiver plays, a jump ball on a fade pattern. The receiver catches it or it goes out of bounds. It would seem like common sense to always have more than one option on a pass play. Still, it’s a relatively safe, if potentially wasteful call.

The Seahawks called a slant inside off a receiver pick. Out of a three-receiver set (a rarity in the red zone and one that alerted the Patriots to expect a pass). New England sent three corners out with their goalline unit in response. Two receivers stacked to the right. Jermaine Kearse on the line,  Ricardo Lockette behind him. At the snap, Kearse’s job was to drive forward and engage the corner opposite, creating an obstacle that Lockette’s defender would have to run around, opening up the slant inside. Not a bad play design. It had been effective for the Seahawks in the past in this situation.

That was the problem. The Patriots had seen it on film and were ready for it.  Malcolm Butler, the third-string corner free agent rookie out of West Alabama, had been beaten on that exact same play in practice by the Patriot scout team. He was alerted by the stacked formation and by noting that Seattle QB Russell Wilson was looking his way prior to the snap.

Even without all the foreshadowing, throwing a ball over the middle in the end zone is dangerous. A tipped ball could lead to a game-killing interception. The tip could come off the paws of a defensive lineman, a desperate swat by a defender in coverage, a juggled catch by a receiver getting hit. Not a safe throw (or call) by any means.

If Caroll wanted to call a pass on second down, why not run a playaction rollout? With the talents of Lynch and Wilson it would have presented the New England defense with the following threats: a Lynch run,  a Wilson pass to the corner, and a Wilson scramble. And Russell Wilson could always throw it away if nothing was there. Multiple choices yet safe. Patriot defenders would have been put in an untenable position versus three legitimate scoring threats. Worst case scenario, Wilson throws it away and Seattle has two chances left to run it in with Lynch.

But why screw around at all? Lynch was going to score on the very next play.

Just two years earlier in the Super Bowl, the Seahawks’ bitter NFC West rivals the 49ers were presented with a similar dilemma: second and goal on the Ravens’ 5 yard-line with under a minute to play. Even though the run game got them to the red zone (a 33-yard run by Gore followed by a 2-yard run by LaMichael James on 1st and goal from the 7), they chose to throw the ball three straight times to Michael Crabtree— the  exception being a second down QB power run to the left out of shotgun. Running back Frank Gore and right guard Alex Boone led quarterback Colin Kaepernick to the left on a play that surely would have scored if only head coach Jim Harbaugh hadn’t called timeout at the last moment, fearing the Niners would get hit with a delay-of-game penalty.

The Niners’ failure to score in this situation and clinch a fifth Super Bowl title for the 49er franchise was emblematic of what went wrong in the Jim Harbaugh era in San Francisco.

The 49ers were an immensely talented football team under Harbaugh but they were unbelievably, outrageously profligate with scoring opportunities in the red zone, especially early in games, settling for field goals instead of scoring touchdowns.

Their lack of success in the red zone was a direct result of the playcalling. The Niners either tried to power the ball right up the middle—a poor choice since the defense is concentrated on stopping that exact scenario—or heave a desperate back-shoulder fade to one receiver—another poor choice since Kaepernick is anything but a touch passer. The continued lack of red zone success and poor playcalling under Harbaugh and his offensive coordinator Greg Roman suggested that the 49ers never practiced red zone offense and were continually surprised by the situation every time they found themselves in scoring position. Which couldn’t possibly have been true.

Possible remedies they might have tried were playaction rollouts or going to a spread formation that would have stretched the opposing defense sideline to sideline and forced them to account for multiple receivers as well as Gore or Kaepernick running the ball. These are not original or innovative ideas but standard practice among other NFL teams, especially those not ranked near the bottom in red zone efficiency.

The other glaring weakness in the 49er offense was the playcalling system itself. Three plays were given to Kaepernick over his headset. He then had to repeat all three play calls to his teammates in the huddle. They then had to align themselves at the line of scrimmage. Then they would have to re-align themselves again, if Kaepernick changed the play again, to one of three ( ! ) play calls. This was needlessly complicated and ineffective. In a word, clunky.

Kaepernick often found himself out of time and the offense was often out of position with the result of false starts, delay of game penalties and squandered timeouts. It wasn’t just a matter of style points, it was proven costly, game after game.

In addition to penalties and wasted timeouts, what this playcalling system did was far worse that create inefficiency. It surrendered tempo and initiative to the defense. What does that mean? It means that because Kaepernick never got the play off until the play-clock was down to three seconds or less, the defense was able to anticipate the snap count every time.

Defenses always seemed to stuff the running game at key moments or swarm Kaepernick on crucial downs. And it was because they knew he wasn’t  going to quick count them or hard count them. It allowed defenders to explode off the ball like they were shot out of a cannon. It was ridiculous and unnecessary and it happened over and over again.

The stated justification for it by the San Francisco coaching staff was that the playcalling system allowed the 49er offense to  get into the right play against a particular defense.  Did it? Were the Niners near the top of the league in explosive plays under Harbaugh? No, they were not.

What allows offenses to be explosive and dynamic is getting to the line of scrimmage with loads of time. Manning and Brady have time. They can quick count it or use a hard count or survey the defense and adjust the play call accordingly.

Firing Jim Harbaugh (and by extension, his offensive coordinator Greg Roman) for these shortcomings would have been perfectly reasonable. Unfortunately, they were not fired by owner Jed York for football reasons but for petty personal ones.  York wanted a yes-man who would defer to him, not an independent-minded football lifer like Harbaugh. This explains why Broncos offensive coordinator Adam Gase was not hired as head coach and defensive coordinator Vic Fangio not retained as Niner fans and many observers around the league expected. Jed York wanted a coaching staff of guys absolutely beholden to him so defensive line coach Jim Tomsula was jumped up to head coach, bypassing any time as a coordinator, and whatever Niner assistants who couldn’t find work elsewhere were promoted to positions of greater responsibility.

Bill Walsh said the problem of trying to win games by out-toughing everybody else was that sooner or later, you were bound to run into somebody tougher. The Niners were out-toughed by the Baltimore Ravens and the Seattle Seahawks repeatedly in the Harbaugh era; or at least, toughness was insufficient by itself to consistently beat these two teams.

“Be prepared and you will be lucky.” –  samurai expression

New England didn’t try to beat its head against a brick wall going up against the Seahawk defense in the Super Bowl. Studying game film,  offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels and  Tom Brady noticed that Seahawk defense pounced on opponents’ attempts to hit the big play, which all too often resulted in game-deciding turnovers. They avoided this with a dink and dunk offense (reminiscent of Walsh’s West Coast Offense) that targeted open receivers underneath coverage and avoided the ballhawks of Seattle secondary. This was the type of offense Brady ran early in his career under offensive coordinator Charlie Weiss, when the onus was on avoiding mistakes on offense and allowing the Patriot defense to come up with the big play. The Patriots’ receivers were coached up on ball security and instructed to get upfield immediately after making a catch.

In New England’s previous two Super Bowl appearances, leaning on Brady to make the big play cost them both games. In this game as well, his two interceptions, especially his first one that he threw in the end zone to kill an early drive, nearly cost the Patriots the game. Which made the comparisons to Joe Montana all the more infuriating to Niner fans. Joe had zero picks in his four Super Bowl appearances, Brady has four interceptions in six games. To be clear, Brady didn’t win the Super Bowl, the Seahawks lost it.

“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” – Napoleon

Post-game, the initial commentary was that Belichick blundered as much as Pete Carroll by not calling a timeout after Marshawn Lynch’s first down run, saving time for New England to respond if Seattle scored. It later came out that Belichick was fully aware of the limited time left. He didn’t call timeout because he wanted to pressure Caroll and his offensive coordinator into doing something foolish. The Patriots won their first three Super Bowl titles under Belichick by playing sound football and capitalizing on their opponents’ mistakes.

“Luck is the residue of design.” – Branch Rickey

Bill Walsh was the father of situational football. He realized that fatigue and emotion could force bad decisions, therefore you had to be prepared ahead of time. The most tangible evidence of Walsh’s legacy are the laminated play call sheets that you see coaches clutching on the sideline at every level of football, detailing the play calls for all the various game situations ( 1st and 10, 3rd and short, backed up, red zone, etc.). But even the improbable was anticipated.  “The Catch,” for example, was rehearsed by Montana and Dwight Clark dozens of time in practice and they were incredulous that Walsh thought this type of play could be practiced. Situational football was Walsh’s great contribution to pro football (more than the X’s and O’s of the West Coast Offense) and Belichick, in his mastery of it, is Walsh’s true heir.

Seattle had to get creative to lose this game. Contrast Darrell Bevell and Pete Caroll’s  final play call with Vince Lombardi’s  Packers in the 1967 “Ice Bowl” against Dallas. Lombardi called for a fullback dive from the Cowboys’ one-yard line.  Quarterback Bart Starr called timeout and came over to talk to him. He informed Lombardi that because the field was so icy the backs had a hard time getting their footing. Starr felt a quarterback sneak had a better chance.”Well, go ahead and do it and let’s get the hell out of here!” roared a freezing Vince Lombardi.

Playcalling is at least as much an art as it is a science. It’s important to remember how loosey-goosey, balls-to-the wall, Seattle had played to get to this point. In the NFC Championship game against Green Bay, the Seahawks scored their first touchdown by way of a fake field goal. They scored 15 points in the final two minutes to force overtime with the help of a recovered onsides kick and a two-point conversion. Now they were set up on the Patriots’ one by virtue of an insane juggling catch by Jermaine Kearse and a 4-yard run by Lynch. And perhaps that was the problem for the Seattle brain trust; that the obvious play call, a goal-line plunge by Lynch lacked flair and drama, they wanted something more spectacular to reflect their coaching genius.

“Don’t think, just pitch. Thinking can only hurt the ball club.” – Bull Durham

Football is a conflict between thinking and action. There is the plan, the scheme, the analysis, but there must also be the quick decisive act. Seattle runs a basic defensive scheme with a handful of coverages that enable its defenders to play fast. The Seahawk offense is predicated on the simple brute force of Marshawn Lynch running the ball and the brilliant improvisational talents of QB Russell Wilson. When Wilson scrambles, his ability to wait, wait, wait before deciding to run or pass, stretches opposing defenses to the breaking point. How ironic is it then, that the ultimate quick, decisive team should stumble over a playcalling decision that any fan or casual observer could make? It wasn’t a complex Gordian knot but one swift cut with a sword—in the person of Marshawn Lynch—would have done it. The shortest distance between two points really is a straight line.