Keep the points or take the first down?

Did anyone who thought that we should have taken the penalty watch the friggin game? Smith could not move the ball well at all. Gore is done. Right call Jimbo.

Somebody tell me the odds of Akers missing from inside of 45. Low. It was a bad call. It was conservative and he didn't get bailed out by special teams or the D. Just because it is logical does not make it a good sense. You can come up with plenty of logic for keeping the ball.

1) Extra time off the clock.
2) Very high odds of coming away with a field goal anyway. (But extra time off of the clock.)
3) A chance to get a TD.

This was not the time to fold. Hold those cards and win.

Originally posted by Fricker:
Ok I'm kind of torn. But I will go on record of sayin to the OP Vernon Davis must not know football either because him and half of the NFL analysts all thought it was the wrong decision . And it was exactly that. I see your position can't take points off the board in a big game .. that is a good case and point on 5 yd penalties ... A 15 yd penalty that puts u inside of the 22 with a 7 pt lead and 10 mins to go (which is way to much time to play it soft) is another story. I like how your trying to give facts but what you must have not seen from your recliner you armchair qb is the fact that We were 100% on scoring tds that game with the ball inside the 25 yd line. Worse case, u knock a few mins off the clock and put it in the hands of your veteran kicker who leads philly for career alltime points to kick a 39 or less FG .. in the process of that u knock a good 3 mins off the clock . Giving them 7 mins to score twice. It is about time We don't put everything in the hands of the D . Give the O a chance especially when momentum was already in their hands . It was a foolish call, and can't honestly blame the O or D for doin zero in OT I mean after all the coach don't have faith in u why should you.

I will go on record and say 2nd and 2 in Ot Alex can not sit and take a sack .. you have to do absolutely anything to get rid of that ball. Playing safe and putting the weight on the D has consistently put a L on the board in the last 10 yrs of history with this team. So go ahead think you know more than anyone on here but maybe its time u put the foot rest up on the barcalounger get ya a Nice cup of whatever u drink, and watch something because you have already mastered the art of watching football.


Kick off from the 50 really which David akers did put right thru the middle from 60 yds out

I think this is the first paragraph long tweet in the history of tweeting. You mastered all of the grammatical errors of a true tweet. You're just missing one thing. Let me finish your post. #huh?

worst decision in harbaugh young coaching career you are supposed to take the 15 yrds and the 1st down its a no brainer alex had a qb rating of 99.1 let him throw the damn ball Vernon Davis led nfl in tds 2 years ago he only had 2 receptions used mostly as a blocker against D. Ware and delanie walker was a mismatch on a dallas olb spencer on his TD never went back to that play even kyle williams looked great on his td catch never threw another ball to him we have a total of 200yrd offense in back to back weeks thats is possibly the worst offense in the nfl we have to stay aggressive I am sick of conservative playcalling worst case scenerio if u have that little faith in ur offense take penalty run 3 frank gore runs if we gets 1st down great if not at least we take more time of clock and prevent 4th qtr dallas comeback

Here's my 2cents:

I like the call. He probably looked up at the scoreboard and saw a 24-14 lead and did not want it to go away. Had they not put the score up yet, he probably would have taken the penalty. Honestly. It was a mental thing. Never take points off the board. They were there and it was a 2 score game.

I don't like the point of the game this happened at. There were over 8 minutes left in the game. Had there been 4 or 5 minutes left, it would have been a perfect call. 8 minutes was too long and really left me uneasy. I feel bad for Harbaugh because he was really a rock in a hard place. There was no right decision, only hindsight.

Harbaugh made a sound decision believing the defense could protect a 10 point lead. The defense failed to do so. Harbaugh is a smart man and will learn from this.

running more time off the clock with maybe the possibility of having to kick the field goal again, would of put us in a better situation at the end of regulation. Dallas did kick the game tying field goal with no time left on the clock.

I don't know..the decision was mind boggling to me..but i can see it both ways though..you look on the other side and see Dallas has a kicker that's struggling and missed a 21 yarder so you take the points and hope your defense can come up with a stop...it just didn't work out...I was highly upset and i keep thinking of 2 plays:

1. The decision not to take the first down on the penalty and keep the 3pts

2. The offside penalty on Brooks?? WTF was that!! They should of been off the field but instead they get the first down on the next play and drive for a TD ..smh..that was a HORRIBE CALL!

With 10 mins left in the 4th you don't think about "running out the clock" that's stupid. There was plenty of time for dallas to make 2 drives either way, time was not a factor at that point and an extra 2 mins off the clock would not have mattered if it was only a 1-score game. The possessions were more important than te clock, so you take the sure thing over what could have been.

dont take points off the board

would have an another try at a FG or even a TD bla bla bla bla. An even better chance Alex takes a sack pushes the ball outside of FG range and now it's punt time again. The odds of a sack and getting backed up were much greater then putting points on the board. JH made the right call.

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.

The call was right. You never... NEVER take points off the board when you are in the lead. EVER!!! It's a hard and fast rule that has stood the test of time. The fact that the 9ers lost can not be blamed on the call.

Decision didn't matter, Romo wasn't getting stopped. We need better dbs.

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.

Finally someone that's thinking rationally. I wonder if the fans who think Harbaugh made the wrong decision also think that an incentive laden contract is better than guaranteed money?

This whole thing is a hindsight is 20/20 deal. The same people railing on Hargbaugh for keeping the 3 would have been on here to b***h if we had went for it and came away with nothing. If it had happened that way we would not have even gone to over time and they would all be here claiming their armchair coach credentials and saying how they would have kept the points on the board and we would have gone to over time where their super play calling skills would have willed the team to win.