Hmmmmm....

[tcwest10]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2173143


Game was at Pittsburgh. Brady completed his last 12 passes.
Still...could he have done it in half the time ?

[hkHog]

Yes, quite easily. Just look at the play-by-play of that last drive (note the yellow words and numbers):

New England Patriots at 1:21, (1st play from scrimmage 1:14)

1st and 10 at NE 38 (1:14) (Shotgun) T.Brady pass to K.Faulk pushed ob at PIT 45 for 17 yards (J.Farrior).

1st and 10 at PIT 45 (1:06) (Shotgun) T.Brady pass to P.Pass ran ob at PIT 31 for 14 yards.
Penalty on PIT-D.Townsend, Illegal Contact, declined.

1st and 10 at PIT 31 (:57) C.Dillon up the middle to PIT 31 for no gain (C.Haggans, C.Hampton).
Timeout #2 by PIT at 00:50.

2nd and 10 at PIT 31 (:50) T.Brady pass to D.Givens to PIT 25 for 6 yards (I.Taylor).

3rd and 4 at PIT 25 (:05) A.Vinatieri 43 yard field goal is GOOD, Center-L.Paxton, Holder-J.Miller. 23 20

So, they had an extra :51 given to them but with :57 seconds left they had the ball on the Steeler's 31 in range for a 49 yarder and the clock was stopped because on the previous play the WR managed to get out of bounds. Basically, if they hadn't had the extra time they could have won the game quite easily with :06 on the clock. You can't tell me Vinateiri misses that kick, he is called "Mr. Clutch" for a reason.

On the last two plays the only picked up 6 yds and ran :52 off the clock. It wouldn't have made any difference.

If the :52 had not been added this is what the drive chart would look like. The orange numbers are the things that would have been different:

New England Patriots at :29, (1st play from scrimmage :22)

1st and 10 at NE 38 (:22) (Shotgun) T.Brady pass to K.Faulk pushed ob at PIT 45 for 17 yards (J.Farrior).

1st and 10 at PIT 45 (:14) (Shotgun) T.Brady pass to P.Pass ran ob at PIT 31 for 14 yards.
Penalty on PIT-D.Townsend, Illegal Contact, declined.

1st and 10 at PIT 31 (:06) A.Vinatieri 49 yard field goal is GOOD, Center-L.Paxton, Holder-J.Miller. 23 20

[Irn-Bru]

No Pittsburgh fan would be okay with that explanation, nkHog. . .each and every one of them would want Vinateiri kicking that 49 yard field goal instead of the 42 yard one.

I know he's Mr. Clutch, but the wind in that stadium does strange things (especially for longer kicks). Think about if this had been a Skins - Cowboys game at home that we 'lost'. . .


Anyway, I agree that at this point it pretty much just sucks for Steelers fans. Probably, New England would have done it anyway (probably), but obviously there's no way to correct the error now.

[Gibbs' Hog]

Whatever. It kind of sucks for the Steelers, but the game was tied near the end. Don't get me wrong; if the Skins were on the wrong end of that stick, I would probably be pissed, but it's not like the Pats came from behind to win with 15 seconds left.

If the score were 20-16, with the Steelers leading, and the Pats scored a TD with 15 seconds left, I could understand a controversy.

I'll bet they watch the game clocks a lot closer for the rest of the season though. That kind of mistake should be unacceptable - and I'm actually very suprised that no one noticed it when it happened; very odd.

[HailSkins94]

The Stallers should of never let them back in the game. They had them down and couldn't deliver the knock out punch, much like the Dallas game. Just can't do that in the NFL today, especially to the Super Bowl champs. Clock wasnt a factor at all in my opinion, lame excuse.