Onside Kick Wasn’t as Crazy as You Think

[st pete gogolak]

The pundits lambasting Campbell for the onside kick are ignoring the new kickoff rules. If you “kick it deep”, Bills get the ball on their 30. Failed onside kick should give the Bills the ball on the Lion’s 45.  So you’re giving up 25 yards for a less than 5% chance of retaining possession. Probably not smart analytics but not entirely nuts.  What screwed it up was Hollins making a really nice play to put the ball on the Lion’s 5 yard line.

 

Also, I liked Lion’s final onside attempt.  Reminded me of our onside kick in Comeback Game. Christie dribbles it directly in front of him, Pike wipes out defender and Christie falls on the ball. We stole the play from Denver which used it against us the previous year.  Detroit kicker had to contort himself to kick it “straight”, there’s no element of surprise and it may be borderline illegal under new rules but it’s better than most attempts I’ve seen.

[Motorin']

The other part of it too is, if you kick away and the Bills drive down the field and score you've lost 4-8 mins of game time and have no chance to come back from a three score deficit. 

 

If the Bills are going to score on that possession, you want them to do it as quickly as possible to preserve time. 

 

Campbell could have managed his TO's better and had a minute - 90secs left when they tried the second inside kick as well. 

 

 

[Captain Hindsight]

I thought it was the right call. I love Cambells aggressiveness. I think it suits a town like Detroit and the team in general.

 

If they had recovered that kick, he would have been lauded a genius

[transient]

It was an acknowledgement that they couldn't stop the Bills offense. It was analogous, IMO, to the first time Bill Belichick let someone score a TD to preserve clock and try to get the ball back in Brady's hands. He was trying to get the ball back to close a gap that was only likely to widen when the Bills got the ball, anyway.

[Process]

Having to declare it is so dumb. The new kickoff rules stink. 

[Logic]

I'm with Kyle Brandt. It was the Lions admitting they knew they couldn't stop the Bills offense. It was them saying "we have a better chance at recovering an onsides kick than we do at stopping the Bills from scoring". 
 

 

[Low Positive]

It's not crazy at all when you consider the level of injuries that Detroit had on defense coupled with the insane level of Josh Allen yesterday. Campbell, for good reason, didn't want to give the ball back to Josh. 

[Matt_In_NH]

I mean they were not stopping the Bills offense, might as well take the 5% chance?  25 yards is one roll out and pass to an RB

[Sestak4ever]

6 minutes ago, Logic said:

I'm with Kyle Brandt. It was the Lions admitting they knew they couldn't stop the Bills offense. It was them saying "we have a better chance at recovering an onsides kick than we do at stopping the Bills from scoring". 
 

 

100% 👍

[Sweats]

I think the Lions just ran out of answers and options at that point cause they weren't going to stop our O and basically admitted defeat with the onside kick at 12 minutes to go........7% chance to make it and you still felt like that was your better option than to give JA any more time on the clock?

 

After Hollins ran it down to within the 5-yard line, you could see the Lions players were dejected and beat. I mean, the last thing you want to do is give JA another opportunity with the ball on a short field.

 

I can't slight Campbell for the call.......he was trying to ignite his team by creating a spark..........unfortunately, JA was the extinguisher.

[HOUSE]

I hope every team gives us the ball at mid field so we can score easy touchdowns from the 3

It was a brilliant call...

Edited December 16 by HOUSE

[Sweats]

Imagine your mindset with 12 minutes to play, down by 10 and you feel an onside kick is your best option?!?..........we were in their heads, and THIS is the mentality that i've been hoping for from the Bills since McD came in.

[transient]

5 minutes ago, Sweats said:

Imagine your mindset with 12 minutes to play, down by 10 and you feel an onside kick is your best option?!?..........we were in their heads, and THIS is the mentality that i've been hoping for from the Bills since McD came in.

Honestly, I don't understand why Detroit didn't try an onsides kick after every possession from that point forward. They've already abdicated any defensive expectations at that point. They've accepted the Bills are going to score every time they get the ball. They've basically accepted that it doesn't matter where the Bills start from on the field at that point, the outcome will be the same. Why not try to steal a possession every chance they can. The benefit of doing it with 12 minutes left should have been that it would have given them multiple opportunities to do it.

[DapperCam]

I think it was an okay decision if you don’t think you can stop the Bills offense. Because if you kick it away and the Bills burn 5 minutes and get a FG then it’s over anyway.

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

Defending that call seems like an utter refusal to admit other highly touted coaches make horrible mistakes.  that decision was absolutely horrendous and this board would’ve crashed from all the hate posts if mcd did it 😂
 

if they could’ve kicked a surprise onside kick like the old days I wouldn’t have disliked it that would’ve changed the success probability a lot 

[Billsfed1]

Said it before and i’ll say it again…top 3 coaches rn McDermott-Reid-Campbell

[HOUSE]

What did you really expect from Pete Gogalak ? A smart passing play?

[QB Bills]

Agreed. That was totally the right call. The odd thing was they didn't do it again after their next TD. 

 

Also, no way McDermott would ever even think of doing that. He sounded confused by the decision in his postgame presser. 

[Shaw66]

36 minutes ago, Logic said:

I'm with Kyle Brandt. It was the Lions admitting they knew they couldn't stop the Bills offense. It was them saying "we have a better chance at recovering an onsides kick than we do at stopping the Bills from scoring". 
 

 

Well, Campbell is also a crazy gambler, so there's that. 

 

But I completely agree with Brandt's point that if it made sense to do it when they did, it had to make sense to do it when they scored again. The fact that they didn't do it again means either (1) Brandt's right - Allen was in their heads or (2) the LIons aren't very good at the details.  

 

I think it might be (2), because I also don't get why the Lions didn't take the field goal when they were in the red zone and the clock running.  They needed two scores, they were saving timeouts so the Bills couldn't run out the clock, they had to save themselves some time for another drive. 

 

Whatever, Allen's amazing. 

[Kelly to Allen]

Allen is on an all time heater. He had to steal a possession from buffalo. Not the greatest decision but I get it. 

 

It's a helpless terrifying feeling playing Allen 

 

The dude scored 42 frickin points in 21 minutes last week. It's nuts