Originally posted by nickbradley:
I must be the only one who understands football, because it seems like I'm the only person supporting the Harbaugh decision. People who are angry simply do not understand the calculation Harbaugh made, and Bill Belichick would have made this decision with our team.
Simply put, the odds of scoring a touchdown were lower than the chance that we miss the make-up field goal, which is about 30% for Akers with 40-49 yard attempts...probably higher outdoors and so-so turf that had caused a lot of slippage during the game.
It was a PERFECT DECISION, a rational decision, a decision that a software program with perfect information would have made. I CHALLENGE ANYONE to make the case that we were more likely to score a touchdown than miss the follow-up.
Here's backup for the pro-Harbaugh case:
1. It's two scores that matters, not 2 touchdowns
2. Gore ran for 2.4 yards per carry and Smith was sacked once every FIVE times he dropped back. Chances of scoring were very low.
3. Accepting the penalty would have put us on the 25, or a 42-yard field goal.
4. If we didn't advance down the field again, Akers would have still been required to kick a 40+ yard field goal.
5. In his career, Akers has missed 3 out of every 10 field goals between 40 and 49 yards.
6. Half of our drives went backwards or nowhere, especially in the second half.
7. Heavy pressure causes turnovers.
This was a terrible decision statistically and testicularly!
1. Two scores is what matters, however time is also just as important. The "ODDS" of Dallas winning the game lessens with the time. We would have eaten up at least 3 more mins. (the same amount of time we took off the clock last week when we took points off the board.)
2. Accepting the penalty would have put us on the 22 yard line or a 40 yard field goal not 25, . I see why you fudged the math on that 55-15=42? Because even using half of Gore's 2.4 yards per carry it moves Akers field goal to the 30-39 yard range where he is ridiculously good at 88% or 97-110. We had 2 negative runs for a total of -2 yards, so "ODDS" are.
3. I don't think we should have thrown and try to get into the end zone after accepting the penalty even though we were 2/2 in the red zone but you have a 0% chance to score when you don't even try. God knows Gore has never busted one 10+ yards after being stuffed most of day. (oh wait nm)
4. If Jim was so worried about the offence screwing up so bad we should just kick field goals on first downs as soon as we're in range from now on, because that is essentially what we did. We declined a 1st down on the 22!
5. Jim also screwed up by not calling time out with about 40 seconds left in regulation so that after Dallas kicked the game tying FG we would have time to go down and kick our own. But it's obvious by the previous blunder he wouldn't have let Alex even try. If he doesn't trust Alex, fine. Then he should have brought in a vet he would.
6. I love Jim and think he's going to bring us back to greatness. But now officially, "his s**t does stink".
[ Edited by KID9R on Sep 19, 2011 at 6:08 PM ]