How I had to explain it to my football-illiterate mom

[akashicrecorder]

Mom's email:

Talked to Ann this morning. She was upset over the play clock during the game. You know I hardly knew what she was talking about, but I hung on to every word (I’m getting there). What’s your take on this?

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Football is a sport of nuance. Time plays a big role. I will try to explain what has come to light in recent days:

Of course you know that Billy Cundiff, our kicker, missed the field goal at the end of the game that would have tied the score and sent the game to overtime. It was a 32-yard field goal, which is considered a "chippie" for kickers: that is, easy, well within their range. (Kicks are only supposed to be difficult/complicated around 40 yards; very difficult over 50 yards.)

Anyway, kickers are very important to a football game. However, as you know, anyone in any sport usually has to warm up before they perform. But kickers are only on the field for one play--the play everyone depends on them for. For that reason they warm up on the sidelines. They trot on to the field when they are needed, spend a few seconds calming themselves down (it may be a very important moment), drowning out the crowd noise, lining up their body, aiming their foot, etc.

The "play clock" in football has 40 seconds on it. That means you have 40 seconds to do whatever you are going to do before "the ball is snapped" (which is when the guy goes, HUT HUT!) When the ball is snapped, a play in football has begun. Just like the quarterback throwing the ball or a running back running is a play, a field goal being kicked is a play. So if a team doesn't convert on third down, and they are within range for a field goal, they will use their fourth and final down to send out the kicker who has been warming up. They have 40 seconds to send him out there and let him get his mind and body right for the kick. Usually a kicker will use between 30-all 40 seconds to do this. Billy Cundiff had about seven seconds.

Obviously, something went wrong. Everyone watching the game wondered why this happened. The Ravens surely must have known kicking a field goal was a possibility. Their kicker surely must have known. Why were they so unprepared for their own field goal attempt? The answer: as I explained earlier, you kick field goals (usually) on fourth down. The scoreboard in the stadium, which the Ravens were going by, was a down behind. What that means is, it was showing the Ravens (and Patriots, and everyone in the crowd too, for that matter) that it was third down when it was really fourth down. When the Ravens learned it was actually FOURTH down, their last and final chance to do anything with the football, they realized they had to kick the field goal.

Unfortunately for them, they realized this after most of the 40 seconds on the play clock had been used up. As a result, Billy Cundiff had to SPRINT for dear life to his spot with about 10 seconds left. He was exhausted and frazzled, as was the entire field goal unit, which as I said before is usually out there far before the 40 seconds is up, communicating with each other and lining everything up. But with the play clock almost out, there was no time for that. No time for aiming, no time to calm down. No one really understood what was happening: they had been JUST been standing on the sidelines, thinking they might not even have to kick a field goal at all (believing it to have only been third down). Now all of a sudden they were out there rushing to get our most important field goal of the season off because the 40 seconds was almost used up. It was a haphazard mess. Cundiff missed BADLY.

If you want to be a conspiracy theorist, you'd point out that the Patriots are known cheaters and the stadium scoreboard that was behind all this--which was a down behind and said it was third down when it was really fourth down for most of the 40 seconds--could have been done on purpose. More practically (although I don't rule out the former theory), this misunderstanding was due to the fact that on our FIRST down play (try to follow this), we had gotten nine of the 10 yards you need to get ANOTHER first down. It looked like we had gotten the full 10, but we hadn't. No one realized this until it was too late. Sadly, blame also rests with the Ravens. There is no need to look at the stadium scoreboard to know what "down" it is. Gigantic orange markers (you can't miss them) right next to players indicate what down it is. That "down marker" was correct the whole time.

Blame also rests specifically with Cundiff. There is something known in football as "icing the kicker." When you ice someone, it's like psyching them out. If we had a basketball hoop in our backyard, and I told you if you make this next shot I'll give you $20, you'd probably prefer to line up your shot but not take TOO much time. Too much time and you start thinking about it, getting nervous, realizing what's at stake--basically psyching yourself out. Opposing teams in football will sometimes call a timeout for that reason just as the kicker is about to kick a field goal. They want to make him think about his kick a little more, get nervous, and hopefully miss it. For that reason, the team who is doing the kicking rarely wants to call the timeout themselves. It'd be like they were icing THEIR OWN kicker. (It'd be like instead of me making you think about your basketball throw for $20 for 5 minutes, you make yourself think about it for 5 minutes.)

All that said, Billy Cundiff sprinted out there without doing his routine and with his timing 100% off. He didn't want to call a timeout because he didn't want to ice himself. But he should have. Coaches won't call a timeout for their kickers, because they don't want to ice their own kickers, as I've explained. That's why coaches say to their kickers, "If you really want the timeout, call it yourself." Billy should have done that. Instead he rushed the most important play of our season.

[akashicrecorder]

Sorry if tldr. I think writing this email was another step in my therapy.