An onside kick in playoff OT

[Mat68]

I thought about it.  

[BuffaloBillyG]

3 minutes ago, Livinginthepast said:

Like I said at first glance it seems like a ludicrous idea but if you get past the untraditional nature of the idea, I think it actually makes more sense to at least try something. I literally liken the Bills defense after the coin toss to a condemned man being led to a firing squad. You might as well try something on the off chance it might work.

They did try something. It didn't work. 

 

Coming up with things that are way more of a longshot of working 2 days after the fact is just slamming your head into a wall. 

 

I've seen it least 3 posts say they should do something similar and more times than not they point to the onside kick by the Saints in their Super Bowl. Ask yourself this. Had the Colts recovered that kick...is Sean Payton still the coach of the Saints today? I doubt it. Because of a play like that doesn't pan out perfectly you're done as a HC. And with good reason.

 

 

[PetermansRedemption]

1 hour ago, Einstein said:

If you lose the coin toss, you’re probably going to lose the game.

 

If you lose the onside kick attempt, you’re definitely going to lose the game.

 

I’ll take “probably” over “definitely”.

I’m not so sure you definitely lose. You still need 1 or 2 stops From your defense to force a FG, possibly a long FG. As crazy as the onside kick idea sounds, I think it might have been the right play. Your defense was being shredded like a paper bag. 75 yards, 50 yards, 35 yards, it didn’t matter, they were very likely giving up a TD. 

[billsfan89]

I saw an interesting proposal for playoff OT, same rules except for the team that wins the coin toss they have to kick an extra point the other team then gets possession and if they score a TD they have to go for 2 points to try and win or lose if they miss. It adds more strategy to take the kick or not but still allows both teams to possess the ball.

[ChevyVanMiller]

To quote Danny Crossman when he was asked if he wished he’d kicked it through the end zone after home run throwback: “I pretty much wish we’d done anything other than what we did.” 

[Patrick Duffy]

2 minutes ago, billsfan89 said:

I saw an interesting proposal for playoff OT, same rules except for the team that wins the coin toss they have to kick an extra point the other team then gets possession and if they score a TD they have to go for 2 points to try and win or lose if they miss. It adds more strategy to take the kick or not but still allows both teams to possess the ball.

I'd just rather see both offenses get to have a chance 

[BillsShredder83]

1 hour ago, Livinginthepast said:

Yes, I know what you are thinking, this is the stupidest, most preposterous idea ever proposed and a waste of a post, but I did seriously think about this after we lost the coin toss on Sunday night to start the OT. We had just blown the game, the Bills defense was utterly gassed and more importantly mentally defeated. Kicking off to them and giving them the ball was going to inevitably result in what we had just seen in their last two drives ( a quick drive and mostly likely a TD score). I had no faith that the Bills could stop Mahomes and my worst fears came true when it ended soon after. I wish that McD had somehow summoned up all his courage and gone for Bass to do an onside kick. There is no way that the Chiefs would have expected it in that pressure situation and their special teams would have been backing up to set up a return.  The chances of recovery would have been much higher than your average onside kick. And if it failed? and KC got the ball on their own 40 or 50? Well you were probably going to lose anyway and you may just have sped up the inevitable. Or maybe your defense pulls off some unlikely miracle and intercepts Mahomes or they fumble.   Sean Payton did the onside kick at the start of the 2nd half in the Saints SB win over the Colts and it swung the game. Probably the ballsiest coaching move in SB history. But this?? This would be the ballsiest call of all time. Of course I very much doubt that anyone on the Bills staff even considered this possible avenue or would have had the bravery/ derring do to try it. But when I look at how the game ended in OT why not gamble? Especially with these OT rules?

this never crossed my mind. if youre looking at it out of context, it sounds like an easy NO. but youre right. situationally, our d had no stops. kc full momentum.  on the coin toss i knew at the very least it was a kc fg, and wed have to match or win with a td. there was basically 0 chance kc wasnt getting in fg range imo. so what you give up 30yds?  situationally the defense is playing "3 or 7" already. D can hyper focus in on NO TD, and forget about the rest of the field.

 

dude, honestly great thinking. its a play call id stand behind win or lose. something id situationally want coach staff to consider. awesome post, im fully sold

[BuffaloBillyG]

2 minutes ago, billsfan89 said:

I saw an interesting proposal for playoff OT, same rules except for the team that wins the coin toss they have to kick an extra point the other team then gets possession and if they score a TD they have to go for 2 points to try and win or lose if they miss. It adds more strategy to take the kick or not but still allows both teams to possess the ball.

The best I have seen so far IMO is you put 15 minutes on the clock. Play a full quarter. Whoever is leading at the end wins. If still tied at the end of the "5th quarter" it's a tie in regular season...and you keep playing if it's a playoff 

[Livinginthepast]

10 minutes ago, BuffaloBillyG said:

They did try something. It didn't work. 

 

Coming up with things that are way more of a longshot of working 2 days after the fact is just slamming your head into a wall. 

 

I've seen it least 3 posts say they should do something similar and more times than not they point to the onside kick by the Saints in their Super Bowl. Ask yourself this. Had the Colts recovered that kick...is Sean Payton still the coach of the Saints today? I doubt it. Because of a play like that doesn't pan out perfectly you're done as a HC. And with good reason.

 

 

I get what you're saying but the fact is in OT the Bills tried NOTHING different. They kicked off, they trotted their tired beleaguered defense on and they lost playing the same old D that WASNT WORKING. The Bills staff just succumbed to the inevitable and maybe prayed for a miracle when they could have at least done something different. As to your other point, I think having these discussions on what if scenarios actually is a form of healthy therapy for fans like me trying to wrap their heads around a crushing defeat not a head bash into the wall :).

[Billl]

22 minutes ago, Nextmanup said:

The reality is that win probability on an onside kick in that situation would have to be WAY LESS than simply kicking off in a normal fashion.

I don't have the exact numbers on that, but that would be my guess.

 

The plan might "sound" convincing to you, but it would unbelievably risky and likely to fail.

 

 

It would be likely to fail, but so was kicking off.  Field position meant virtually nothing at that point in the game.  Mahomes was in the middle of what ended up being a streak of 9/9 passing for 137 yards and 2 TDs.  You could have made them drive 200 yards, and it still would have come down to whether or not you could get a red zone stop. 
 

For context, the Chiefs ran 73 offensive plays (excluding punts and FG attempts).  41 of those plays were on first down.  The chances of stopping them from getting a first down when they’re likely running a 4 down offense was virtually nil.

[transient]

2 hours ago, Livinginthepast said:

Yes, I know what you are thinking, this is the stupidest, most preposterous idea ever proposed and a waste of a post, but I did seriously think about this after we lost the coin toss on Sunday night to start the OT. We had just blown the game, the Bills defense was utterly gassed and more importantly mentally defeated. Kicking off to them and giving them the ball was going to inevitably result in what we had just seen in their last two drives ( a quick drive and mostly likely a TD score). I had no faith that the Bills could stop Mahomes and my worst fears came true when it ended soon after. I wish that McD had somehow summoned up all his courage and gone for Bass to do an onside kick. There is no way that the Chiefs would have expected it in that pressure situation and their special teams would have been backing up to set up a return.  The chances of recovery would have been much higher than your average onside kick. And if it failed? and KC got the ball on their own 40 or 50? Well you were probably going to lose anyway and you may just have sped up the inevitable. Or maybe your defense pulls off some unlikely miracle and intercepts Mahomes or they fumble.   Sean Payton did the onside kick at the start of the 2nd half in the Saints SB win over the Colts and it swung the game. Probably the ballsiest coaching move in SB history. But this?? This would be the ballsiest call of all time. Of course I very much doubt that anyone on the Bills staff even considered this possible avenue or would have had the bravery/ derring do to try it. But when I look at how the game ended in OT why not gamble? Especially with these OT rules?

10-15 years ago it would have been unthinkable to let a team score a TD intentionally when you knew your defense wasn't up to the challenge of stopping them and you needed to conserve the clock, and then one day Belichick did it because based on the flow of the game to that point it made sense in the moment. It's not Monday morning quarterbacking to say the Bills weren't going to keep the Chiefs out of the endzone, the whole football watching world knew whoever lost the coin toss was most likely going to lose the game. Even if it failed, trying something unexpected to catch your opponent off guard and flip the odds in your favor in a situation where you're basically destined to lose would not have been the wrong thing to do in that moment.

[die hard bills fan]

Actually thought about this with 13 seconds left. A totally gutsy call that would not have been expected and burned off more time. 

[st pete gogolak]

I believe there has been discussion of a rule change eliminating onside kick and giving a team the option to try to convert a fifteen yard pass to keep possession.  If that was the rule in effect, what do you do?  Convert and you're one first down from FG range or fail to convert and give KC the ball at the 35?

[Livinginthepast]

1 minute ago, die hard bills fan said:

Actually thought about this with 13 seconds left. A totally gutsy call that would not have been expected and burned off more time. 

Doing an onside kick at that stage would have been even more ballsy than what I suggested in OT. But yes it also might have worked as nobody in a million years would expect that.

 

Of course had we done an onside kick in OT the one factor I did not consider is that the refs would have also not been expecting it and would probably have been in no position to properly assess if it was legit. With the quality of officiating in this league they would have just tossed a flag and either called us offside or reintroduced some little known arcane rule from the days of leather helmets that "when the kicking squad doth kicketh the pig skin in the extraneous time period, thou must informeth the team that doth defend" , and then given it to the receiving team!

[BuffaloBillyG]

22 minutes ago, Livinginthepast said:

I get what you're saying but the fact is in OT the Bills tried NOTHING different. They kicked off, they trotted their tired beleaguered defense on and they lost playing the same old D that WASNT WORKING. The Bills staff just succumbed to the inevitable and maybe prayed for a miracle when they could have at least done something different. As to your other point, I think having these discussions on what if scenarios actually is a form of healthy therapy for fans like me trying to wrap their heads around a crushing defeat not a head bash into the wall :).

Ok. Let's look at it objectively.  Doing it the way you were suggesting might lead to success what kind of percent of the time? .5%? 1%? Debatable, however I think we could agree it's shockingly low odds.

 

Kicking it deep could lead to a TON more opportunity to make a play.

 

1. Kick could have been muffed/fumbled

2. Holding on the return sets the up deep

3. Being deeper into their territory (in theory) should lead to more plays having to be run.

4. Each play is the chance of a sack, fumble, tipped ball INT, dropped pass or throw away. 

 

So let's say you put all your eggs in the onside kick basket. You're basically giving yourself 1 shot at 1 good possible outcome.

 

Kicking it deep gives your (again, in theory) a shot on each individual play at one of several outcomes that could seal the game in your favor.

 

I look at it like this. Let's say we were playing darts. You need 20 to win. Would your rather have 1 dart from 20 feet away or 8 darts from 25 feet away? 

[Never NEVER Give-up]

The success of an onside kick is way too low (8%).
The touchback kick allows you to SET-UP your defense.
The squib kick COULD result in a big return (Hardman plays well against the Bills, Hill was not back for the kick) - but it would have drained 7 seconds IF he tried a legit return.

I am OK with what the Bills did on the kick-off, though I would be equally OK with the squib and would have went crazy had they tried an onside kick (unless they somehow recovered it - a very low 8% probability).

My issue was the 13 seconds and the soft coverage.  They should have rushed 2-3.  That 3rd rusher could have tackled Kelce (defensive holding penalty), the other two rush and keep Mahomes in front of them.  The other 8 defenders can provide normal coverage (one of them has to also tackle Hill) and make one of their other players beat us.  This way we burn 5 seconds per play (do this 2-3 times, however many times we need to). As a game cannot end on a defensive penalty, their last play should have between 0-4 seconds and be no where near FG territory.  If they beat us with a hail mary or trick play, so be it.

Edited January 25, 2022 by Never NEVER Give-up

[Patrick Duffy]

20 minutes ago, die hard bills fan said:

Actually thought about this with 13 seconds left. A totally gutsy call that would not have been expected and burned off more time. 

Even when unexpected chances are still very low to recover. Then you give them the ball at mid field making it easy to get in FG range. Also I can only imagine the heat he'd get from calling that and it not working

[MPT]

4 minutes ago, BuffaloBillyG said:

Ok. Let's look at it objectively.  Doing it the way you were suggesting might lead to success what kind of percent of the time? .5%? 1%? Debatable, however I think we could agree it's shockingly low odds.

 

Kicking it deep could lead to a TON more opportunity to make a play.

 

1. Kick could have been muffed/fumbled

2. Holding on the return sets the up deep

3. Being deeper into their territory (in theory) should lead to more plays having to be run.

4. Each play is the chance of a sack, fumble, tipped ball INT, dropped pass or throw away. 

 

So let's say you put all your eggs in the onside kick basket. You're basically giving yourself 1 shot at 1 good possible outcome.

 

Kicking it deep gives your (again, in theory) a shot on each individual play at one of several outcomes that could seal the game in your favor.

 

I look at it like this. Let's say we were playing darts. You need 20 to win. Would your rather have 1 dart from 20 feet away or 8 darts from 25 feet away? 

 

Onside kicks were recovered 18% of the time this year. So you are way off with your premise. And that's when teams are expecting it. I wouldn't be shocked if that chance doubled with a surprise kick. 

 

So it would be a really tough call, but I do think the odds of recovering an onside kick in that situation are better than the odds of stopping the KC offense.

[Never NEVER Give-up]

1 minute ago, MPT said:

 

Onside kicks were recovered 18% of the time this year. So you are way off with your premise. And that's when teams are expecting it. I wouldn't be shocked if that chance doubled with a surprise kick. 

 

So it would be a really tough call, but I do think the odds of recovering an onside kick in that situation are better than the odds of stopping the KC offense.

 

[MrEpsYtown]

Speaking as a high school coach, the time to onside was after we scored to go up 4. They'd never expect it. Yeah you give them a short field, but a field goal doesn't win the game. They had to score a touchdown there regardless and they scored it in like two seconds anyway. If you recover the ball, you gain a possession there and likely ice the game, or at the very least, force them to use timeouts. 

 

But, the onside kick rules make them so improbable to recover that I would not do it.