1:08 remaining in the 2nd quarter. 3rd down with 14 yards to go, from their own 24 yard line. What are the historical odds of teams scoring in the final 1:00, when faced with a 3rd and 14 in their own territory???? Why is the team throwing the ball???? This play most likely cost the team the game. Was the play calling too cavalier? Should they have been more conservative????
And if they were more conservative there would be a post about how historically they are too conservative and they should have been more agressive....ala their last drive with 4 or 5 mins left. There will never be a happy medium.
They probably felt they could drive down the field and score at least a FG. And since they did exactly that with 55 seconds left, the thought was probably pretty good.
I don't mind trying for it there but Moore was having snap issues all day. Running a draw, forcing Dallas to burn a timeout and having the best punter in football punt it would not have been a bad call. Sparano has issues with when to go balls out and when to reign it in. The final drive of the fourth quarter is when he should have taken a chance and he went conservative.
We really did turtle it in on that last drive and play not to lose. We should have went balls out and instead we decided to play Wanny ball. I don't get it. We're 3-7 at that point. Why not try to put the game away instead of always relying on the defense to bail you out?
I don't think attempting a drive in that time was a bad idea, though once you hit 3rd and 14 that increases the odds of something going wrong. I would have guessed a sack or INT more than a bad snap that Moore dropped and then looked worse than a kicker trying to tackle in falling on it. Once we hit third and long it may have been best to punt, though I am fairly sure that Sparano wanted to try and keep the ball away from the Cowboys as much as he wanted a score. Remember, we then got the ball back and scored a FG with less time on the clock. I think in this case it was something of a flukely and poorly executed snap/play, but really execution has been a major issue all year long.
