Please explain here what all the 'sitting on the lead' arguers mean

[Bonez3]

I need all you arguing that Gibbs is playing not to lose post how in the world it would not be wise to burn the clock against San diego- SAN DIEGO.

In what universe would it have been wise to throw a series of incompletions with 8 minutes to go. We, with 8 mins left, took 4 mins off the clock. Textbook football.

It is beyond my 20+ years of football to even ponder the so called 'playing for the win' idea. DOES ANYONE ACTUALLY THINK WE SHOULD HAVE THROWN MORE? I can't see how that is at all even remotely logical.

We should have won today, because we just about took enough time off the clock. We were banged up on both sides and would have been a huge win.

But, if you want to know what would happend if we didn't run off more time, well, just take what took place in OT and times that by 3.

I am never amazed at the lack of IQ by most fans. The gameplan today was perfect, especially for a team missing a large portion of its starters.

[MSJHWT]

I think the playcalling was fine bar the 3 and 18 PA fake call after the hold. I felt we shoulda let CP run it try to get 3-4 more yards before the FG, run the clock down to :04 and then kick the FG.

[mcgraw238]

Perfect? Not one ball was thrown down the field. We are as predictable as an open book. Run, Run, pass, punt.

Our most effective series (the Moss TD) included some nice intermeditatte routes. What happened to that type of play calling in the 4th quarter.

You don't pack up shop and try to run out the clock with 13-14 minutes left in the game as we have done two weeks straight and countless other times the last two years.

Every team is missing starters at this time of year, that's a poor excuse. Our biggest play makers were on the field today.

[Winslowalrob]

Well, in the last two series there was almost no intermediate or long ball play sans the Royal drop, and Brunell was not having that bad of a game, so in the third and long situations we might as well have gone in for the kill. It worked in Dallas, remember? Textbook football is a polite way of saying "playing not to lose," something I completely disagree with. Remember two years ago when Kansas city won like 13 in a row and lost the Bengals after the Chad Johnson garauntee? The MOMENT they went up a few points and got the ball back, they started chucking the long ball rather than trying to let Kansas City lose. It is not like I want us to turn into the Martz coached Rams or anything, but there are times when I know immediately what play we will call in the 4th quarter because of our situations. How bad is it when other teams know what plays we will use, stacking the line for Portis inside runs? When we started to move the chains in the penultimate drive we actually ran a play action that was dropped by Royal and a quick left out that was caught by Farris I think, two plays that were out of the so-called textbook and were still successfull. What about a WR screen, which would have cut time off the clock and in all likelyhood given us a first down? Or why settle for a 40+ yard field goal after the interception, why not try to cut that distance to 20 yards AND not give the chargers a chance to get the ball back by running the same plays from our successful offensive series? The moment we lock down is the moment we lose on offense. Just a thought.

[skinsrevival]

With 8 minutes left you try to score again and make it a two score game. You kill the clock with8 minutes left when you're up by at least ten. Especially when your punter sucks and the opposition is getting the ball back with good field position. It happened last week and it happened again this week. That's what sitting on a lead mean. A small lead at that. I'm not saying throw the ball down the field with the lead but move the chains.

[AKM311]

Im with you MSJHWT. I was screaming that when I saw a pass. If we are 4 yards closer, Hall probably knocks it in!

[RedskinzOwnU]

In a universe where the chargers have a top run D, and in a world where you know they will score on us if we don't hang onto the ball and score again, in a word where you could smell our 10 point lead not lasting a mile away - thats when you go for the throat. This isn't a team that can hang onto a 3 or 7 point lead late in the 4th quarter. Hell, they would probably lose an 8 point lead too. We have to get a double digit lead or we'll probably lose. I think this was proven today for the 3rd week in a row. When your running game is crap like it was today, you can't rely on it - so you throw.

[Bonez3]

I think the playcalling was fine bar the 3 and 18 PA fake call after the hold. I felt we shoulda let CP run it try to get 3-4 more yards before the FG, run the clock down to :04 and then kick the FG.

I do agree with this. But Imagine if we ran it for 1 yard and what the tribal counsel would say.

[Destino]

This is a simple question to answer. One score is not enough. Playing to eat clock is great...when you are up by 14. Playing to eat clock is not ok when you are up by a single score.

Why? Because playing it safe rarely if ever leads to points and it ALWAYS gives the team the ball back even if it is a minute or two later then if you passed it and went 3 and out.

The result? A good offensive team gets several cracks at a defense that has given up big plays all season. You don't have to be a hall of fame coach to know that a Big Play Offense against a defense prone to giving up such plays is going to score in crunch time if given several tries.

Thus sitting on a one score lead is a mistake. Is that simple enough to understand?

If you need examples of this please see the last two redskins games.

If you want to win, score. Score a lot of points. If you want to lose opt not to score.

And BTW - if you run it 3 times in the 1st-3rd Quarter and punt it's called "a horrible offense". If you do this in the 4th with the lead suddenly it's "playing it safe". In my view doing this is always "a horrible offense" becasue no matter when you do it, it leads to the same result = you lose.

[Bonez3]

Well, in the last two series there was almost no intermediate or long ball play sans the Royal drop, and Brunell was not having that bad of a game, so in the third and long situations we might as well have gone in for the kill. It worked in Dallas, remember? Textbook football is a polite way of saying "playing not to lose," something I completely disagree with. Remember two years ago when Kansas city won like 13 in a row and lost the Bengals after the Chad Johnson garauntee? The MOMENT they went up a few points and got the ball back, they started chucking the long ball rather than trying to let Kansas City lose. It is not like I want us to turn into the Martz coached Rams or anything, but there are times when I know immediately what play we will call in the 4th quarter because of our situations. How bad is it when other teams know what plays we will use, stacking the line for Portis inside runs? When we started to move the chains in the penultimate drive we actually ran a play action that was dropped by Royal and a quick left out that was caught by Farris I think, two plays that were out of the so-called textbook and were still successfull. What about a WR screen, which would have cut time off the clock and in all likelyhood given us a first down? Or why settle for a 40+ yard field goal after the interception, why not try to cut that distance to 20 yards AND not give the chargers a chance to get the ball back by running the same plays from our successful offensive series? The moment we lock down is the moment we lose on offense. Just a thought.

I just don't think analogies apply today. We were outmatched on both sides of the ball. We had a ten point lead- we don't have a go for the jugular O. It was the best possible scenerio imagined, and you don't blow that by chucking the ball around and giving the better team more oppurtunities to win. I'm sorry, it's not sexy but it's the right thing.

I really do believe that if we started airing it out with 13 mins to go (only up by 7 now) we probably lose by double digits.

It pains me to say it but the fact is our O had one job- to run the ball to win.

[New]

If Robert Royal catches the damn ball we win this game! Too bad this team continues to be haunted by one play per game. We have to play PERFECT football in all three facets of the game. That is alot to ask any team week in and week out. Hell its alot to ask the fans to bear week in and week out. Guess it aint over till its over and here's to winning next week and the either the cowgirls beating the gmen as we're one up on the girls heading down the stretch! HTTR!

[jbooma]

I am never amazed at the lack of IQ by most fans. The gameplan today was perfect, especially for a team missing a large portion of its starters.

Maybe instead of throwing stones you should stop and think for a second. In the Tampa on 3rd and 2 we get a first the game is over. In this game when we got the ball at the 30 if we tried a quick playaction pass who knows, instead we run and get a penalty and go back.

There were a couple of other drives in the 4th we run both on 1st and 2nd and then were forced to try and make a 3rd and long and did not. You can not have 3 and outs in the 4th period, all we needed was 3 fricking points in the 4th, thats it, we did nothing.

[NoCalMike]

Bottomline is, Gibbs is teaching this team how to win. Running out the clock works when you have the right personnel. The Redskins obviously don't have a good enough O-line/TE to be able to open holes for the RB. You say running out the clock is a bad strategy, Look at the Dallas Cowboys of the 90's, they would get a lead and just pound the ball with Emmitt Smith in the 4th quarter until the other team was begging for mercy, EVERY DEFENSE knew it was coming, but their offensive line was too damn good to be stopped.

Gibbs has the right idea, the only thing I question is whether he should be calling these types of games when he HAS TO KNOW the personnel on the field presently, is not capable of carrying out his scheme to fruition. I mean it is a similar situation with Portis and the Running Scheme, you watch the difference between Betts and Rock, and how they follow blocks and wait for holes, with that of Portis who is more of a "get the ball and fly" RB who still runs into way to many walls because he simply doesn't want to stick to the scheme.

[Bonez3]

Maybe instead of throwing stones you should stop and think for a second. In the Tampa on 3rd and 2 we get a first the game is over. In this game when we got the ball at the 30 if we tried a quick playaction pass who knows, instead we run and get a penalty and go back.

There were a couple of other drives in the 4th we run both on 1st and 2nd and then were forced to try and make a 3rd and long and did not. You can not have 3 and outs in the 4th period, all we needed was 3 fricking points in the 4th, thats it, we did nothing.

I was only refering to today, because it is clear SD is a better team and Gibbs PREPARED and coached a group of guys almost to a victory. YOU JUST DON'T THROW THE BALL TODAY WITH THE LEAD- ESPECIALLY TODAY.

As for TB game, I also agree to run it there. Look, 2 yds is expected on the ground, if you don't get, dare I say, you don't deserve to win.

[Commander PK]

This is a simple question to answer. One score is not enough. Playing to eat clock is great...when you are up by 14. Playing to eat clock is not ok when you are up by a single score.

Why? Because playing it safe rarely if ever leads to points and it ALWAYS gives the team the ball back even if it is a minute or two later then if you passed it and went 3 and out.

The result? A good offensive team gets several cracks at a defense that has given up big plays all season. You don't have to be a hall of fame coach to know that a Big Play Offense against a defense prone to giving up such plays is going to score in crunch time if given several tries.

Thus sitting on a one score lead is a mistake. Is that simple enough to understand?

If you need examples of this please see the last two redskins games.

If you want to win, score. Score a lot of points. If you want to lose opt not to score.

And BTW - if you run it 3 times in the 1st-3rd Quarter and punt it's called "a horrible offense". If you do this in the 4th with the lead suddenly it's "playing it safe". In my view doing this is always "a horrible offense" becasue no matter when you do it, it leads to the same result = you lose.

I completely agree with this assessment. Our defense is NOT strong enough to continue to rely on them to stop the opponent several times late in the game. We don't put enough points up. 2 weeks in a row we've witnessed almost the exact same thing. Why are we not going for the "killer blow?" Another touchdown would have put the game out of reach, but it's like you can almost sense them thinking. "We'll put it in the hands of the defense." The offense NO killer instinct.

[TD_washingtonredskins]

I'm not sure...I too was frustrated while it was happening but then remembered how mad I was last week when Gibbs abandoned the run with a 3-point lead.

I (and we as fans) can't have it both ways...just because it didn't work, doesn't mean he played it wrong.

All in all, if we are going to blame Gibbs for the 4th quarter play-calling this week, then we have to give him a pass last week.

After thinking about it, I'd rather do it like we did this week. We have to get to the point where we can get first-downs late in the game and extend drives. Another pass here or there wouldn't have killed us, but the second they fall incomplete, I'm wondering why we are abandoning Portis.

If CP pops one big run (like LT did when Marty kept feeding him) we're not having this debate, we're talking about how the 1980s in DC are back and Gibbs has rediscovered how to close games.

[Destino]

I was only refering to today, because it is clear SD is a better team and Gibbs PREPARED and coached a group of guys almost to a victory. YOU JUST DON'T THROW THE BALL TODAY WITH THE LEAD- ESPECIALLY TODAY.

As for TB game, I also agree to run it there. Look, 2 yds is expected on the ground, if you don't get, dare I say, you don't deserve to win.

Sorry but that's crap. In todays NFL or any NFL of any year ever it is not smart to sit on a ONE SCORE lead when your defense has been prone to giving up big plays. Daring a team to score on you and praying for your defense to do what they've been RARELY able to accomplish puts all the odds against you.

Had we gone out and played aggressive football we may have scored again and won the game.....had Brunell thrown a pick we'd have lost, which we did anyway. The only difference being we would have gone down swinging as opposed to curled in the fetal position hoping things go our way.

[jbooma]

I was only refering to today, because it is clear SD is a better team and Gibbs PREPARED and coached a group of guys almost to a victory. YOU JUST DON'T THROW THE BALL TODAY WITH THE LEAD- ESPECIALLY TODAY.

As for TB game, I also agree to run it there. Look, 2 yds is expected on the ground, if you don't get, dare I say, you don't deserve to win.

Sorry but all we need to do is score more points, we do not do that. I had a bad feeling when we were up by 10 today knowing that would most likely be the last we score on O since that is what we do.

We have to score more then 17 points a game, when the D holds SD to 17 points when the can easily score 30+ we should win.

[skinthemboys]

It doesnt matter how the coaching staff calls the game any given week. If we lose they are going to recieve critisizm for their playcalling, even if they've called the best plays. People just want someone to blame. Hell, If you ask me, I blame robert royal for dropping a critical 3rd down pass that hit him right in the numbers that would have given us a first down. But hey, Thats just me.

[TD_washingtonredskins]

Sorry but that's crap. In todays NFL or any NFL of any year ever it is not smart to sit on a ONE SCORE lead when your defense has been prone to giving up big plays. Daring a team to score on you and praying for your defense to do what they've been RARELY able to accomplish puts all the odds against you.

Had we gone out and played aggressive football we may have scored again and won the game.....had Brunell thrown a pick we'd have lost, which we did anyway. The only difference being we would have gone down swinging as opposed to curled in the fetal position hoping things go our way.

And that's a great scenario based on how things panned out. Listen, we lost last weekend because we didn't sit on our lead...we lost this week because we did.

Had we gone down swinging, I'd have been pissed, because that's just stupid football.

Now, I agree that we can mix in some passes, but even when we tried to we botched it...we ran Portis 3 times for 11 yards and first down, so next thing we do is run a play-fake and hit a wide open Royal for about 10 or 15 yards...no wait, he knocks it down to ensure no INT...

You can't knock Gibbs for losing confidence in execution. We're not good enough yet to step on other teams' throats...so our best bet (even though it hasn't worked) is to try to shorten the game once we take the lead.

[Bonez3]

Sorry but that's crap. In todays NFL or any NFL of any year ever it is not smart to sit on a ONE SCORE lead when your defense has been prone to giving up big plays. Daring a team to score on you and praying for your defense to do what they've been RARELY able to accomplish puts all the odds against you.

Had we gone out and played aggressive football we may have scored again and won the game.....had Brunell thrown a pick we'd have lost, which we did anyway. The only difference being we would have gone down swinging as opposed to curled in the fetal position hoping things go our way.

So, you're saying give us a better chance of losing in possibly winning.

OK- you need to take 5 quiet minutes and read what you wrote and understand that you agree that running the ball was right after all.

Go down swinging, that's rich :laugh:

[Mister Happy]

Personally, I'd rather have more points than less minutes. Ironically, the thing that burns the most clock is a nice long methodical scoring drive, not run-run-pass-punt. Those 3 and outs only don't use up very much clock.

Are we really to the point where every pass is a costly mistake waiting to happen? If so, go ahead and run out the clock, but if you have any faith at all in the passing game, go for the kill. An incomplete pass runs off a few seconds less than a run, but a complete pass runs off more time. A first down runs off even more time.

We had a 7 point lead with 14:04 left. The previous drive we went 9 plays for 79 yards and ate up 4:58 of clock. So we did the run-run-pass, and gave them the ball with a 7 point deficit and 12:26 left.

Instead we could have tried to score. At the worst, we get the ball back with a tie game and 12:00 left. More likely the failure would result in maybe a minute less off of the clock. However, we also could have had a similar drive to the last touchdown drive and given the Chargers the ball with 9:06 left and a 14 point deficit. If we had less success, we would have maybe given them the ball with worse field position and maybe 12:00 or 11:30 left.

If we did the run-run-pass, we were guaranteed to run off some clock and not lose the lead, with a small chance to score or take a lot off of the clock. If we go for the kill, we have a small chance to lose the lead or slightly less time off the clock, but we also now have the chance to run off a lot more clock and potentially score some points.

Honestly, the risk in going for the kill is not that big, but the payoff is huge.

[Destino]

So, you're saying give us a better chance of losing in possibly winning.

OK- you need to take 5 quiet minutes and read what you wrote and understand that you agree that running the ball was right after all.

Go down swinging, that's rich :laugh:

try to stay with me here - Playing not to lose almost always results in a loss.

Read that over and over again until you understand it.

[Operations]

Yeah, this week Gibbs is an idiot for running too much in the 4th quarter. Last week everybody was ready to crucify him for NOT running the ball in the 4th quarter. Fans are always ready to hang the coach out to dry for "bad playcalling" when you lose.

The truth is, Gibbs can still call a good game. BUT OUR TALENT ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH TO WIN A LOT OF GAMES. Whatever the call is, players have to execute, and our players aren't good enough. We have a number of pretty good players, but not enough really really good ones.

Gibbs has done a good job of giving us a chance to win EVERY SINGLE WEEK (except in New York, ahem).

[TD_washingtonredskins]

Those who are condemning our 3 and outs have to keep in mind that Gibbs isn't playing to punt. Those runs are allowed to gain yardage. Keep in mind that many active coaches win games by playing keep away late in the games.

So, for people to make these arguments as if Gibbs is intending to go 3 and out, it shows some frustration on their part. We're trying to gain yardage and get first downs, it's just not working.