Superbowl

This is old news by now, but I have been out having my colon re-sectioned so you know...

I wasn't very into the game on the day as I wasn't feeling very well (hence the re-sectioning) and was watching it in less than ideal conditions. Anyways I think the Saints definitely earned it. They figured out a way to slow down  the Colts offense enough, got the key turnover and made a couple of unconventional decisions that turned out well. Freeny's decreasing effectiveness thru the game didn't help the Colts for sure, but that's life.

One thing that I wanted to point out here is I thought it was kind of funny that the commentators kind of completely missed the point of the Saints going for it on 4-2 at the goal (and not making it) and the onside kick.

I'm all for coaches being "unconventional", but i think too much focus gets placed on the unconventional parts of decisions, and not the conventional things that really still end up deciding things. On the 4-2 where even though the Saints failed to score a touchdown or a field goal. Yes they did pin the Colts down, yes the Colts failed to move the ball and had to punt, and the Saints ended up getting the field goal anyways. But you know why that all worked? Because the Saints didn't let the Colts score, because they played good defense. If they had taken the field goal instead and kept the Colts from scoring that would have been even better. If the Colts had stopped the the Saints and then driven the field for a Touchdown, I think we would have had a completely different game.

The on-side kick turned out well for the Saints because of one of the most conventional things about football that everybody kind of ignores. When a football is loose among a bunch of players, there really is no good way to properly decide who really got possession of it. Especially in a really big scrum like the one you get in an on-side kick. On the replay it certainly looked like a Colt had the best chance at the ball, but then 3 or 4 Saints got on top of him and guess what? They had it by the time the whole thing was broken up. This is kind of the same thing as the very conventional thing that turned the Patriots decision to go for it on 4th and short in their game against the Colts into such a disaster. Football really just has a lousy way generally of deciding where to spot the ball. How did the officials decide the Patriots didn't get a first down on that play? I'm still not sure, it looked like they did to me.

Look I'm not trying to says these are bad things to do. I think going for it on 4th down and short yardage situations is obvious. And I think teams should try more on-side kicks. If you were a team that figured out how to get good at recovering on side kicks, say to the point where you could guarantee yourself a 40-50% recovery rate, wouldn't you use that to your advantage? And if you had a stellar defense and a good running game? Why would you ever not onside kick it and go for it on 4th and short out of the other teams field goal range all the time? That has just seemed obvious to me as a winning strategy for years if you can make it happen.