They say success has 1,000 fathers and failure is an orphan. Well, the NFL’s ultimate late-game failure has one and only one prime mover.
Bill Belichick.
Beyond his failure to properly prepare his players to not attempt a Stanford band play in a tie game with no time on the clock in regulation, Belichick could have avoided all of it with one very simple decision.
Take a knee.
Three seconds remained. The Patriots were 55 yards from paydirt. They had no timeouts. And they ran a draw play.
Under certain circumstances, a draw play in situations where the defense fully expects a pass can be effective. That wasn’t one of those situations; enough players were lined up deep to eventually keep running back Rhamondre Stevenson from getting to the end zone.
The Patriots were never going to score a touchdown in that moment. Only bad things could have happened. Beyond the nuttiest of all nutty outcomes, someone could have gotten injured on a completely meaningless play.
So that’s the real failure. Belichick should have instructed his team to take a knee and play for overtime. Of all NFL coaches, he’d be the least likely to fail to recognize that and act accordingly.
It’s fair to wonder why it happened. It’s even more fair to pin this one directly on Belichick.
All he had to do was instruct quarterback Mac Jones to take a knee. Belichick didn’t, and he’s given the NFL the most embarrassing late-game gaffe since Joe Pisarcik tried to hand the ball off to Larry Csonka, and Herm Edwards picked it up and scored a game-winning touchdown.