If you're given a 15 yard penalty in your favor after scoring a TD, what are you doing? (1 Viewer)

I have never been an advocate for going for two in any quarter but the 4th. In the NFL, points are at a premium. You take the gimmes. Go for two WHEN YOU NEED TO, not to get cute. And being a Saints fan for 40+ years, EVERY cell in my body KNEW with absolute certainty that not picking up the extra point when we should have was going to come back and bite us. It's the Saints way. We find ways to torture our fan base with probability busting occurrences.

You scored a TD and IMMEDIATELY gave momentum back to the opponent by simply not kicking the XPA. I was furious when he did it and that hasn't changed. Sometimes Payton suffers from the "I am the Smartest Guy in the room" disease and does incredibly dumb stuff. Only the Saints could manage to score a TD, get a personal foul penalty called in our favor and manage to turn it into an advantage for our opponent. SMH.

Even in the NFCCG, even though the quick screen to MT is usually money, the risk of dropping the ball and stopping the clock is what ultimately allowed the game to be in the hands of the officials. If we run there, we might pick up the first but more importantly, the clock keeps running and we may be able to run ANOTHER running play and again, scoring a TD or picking up a first, running the time and kicking a FG and the Rams would have almost no time to score the tying FG or TD. But we threw it, the pass was defended and now were were in a 3rd down and the infamous no call happened. Sometimes you just simply have to play the odds and take your best chances.
 
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Kick the XP, short kick from the 50 and try to pin them deeper with ST coverage.

Or hell. An onside kick from the 50, even if you fail, would probably put the ball around the 35-40. Theyd start on the 25 with a touchback so only giving up 10 yards might be worth the risk.

But taking the ball on the 1 yard line as opposed to the 2? IDK. I just don't know. Just doesn't move the needle enough for me that early in the game. That failed 2 pt conversion, led to another failed 2 point conversion. Instead of 2 XPs and a tied game at 48.
 
If you can do a Younghoe kick, the other thing a 1st quarter onside kick from the 50 does for you is you have the opportunity to just blast a member of the opponent's hands team, likely a starting RB or WR. That dude has to just stand there and focus on the ball while your LB blows him up. Might remove him from the game.

There's no defenseless receiver rule on onside kicks (yet).
 
When the penalty was called I thought for sure Payton would take the penalty on the kickoff try something there. I would have like to see them kick the ball hard into the turf right down the middle of the field and hope for a big bounce that makes it a jump ball at about the 35 or so.
 
W/the way the team has run up the middle or Drew w/the over the top, the 2pt conversion was a good call! It should have been converted; if it was EVERYBODY would have called it a genius move.
Same thing w/the fake punt. If the ref would have called holding properly, it was a 1st down(regardless of the "unknown" PI rule). If it would have been complete, the Dome would have exploded & put a dagger in the heart of SF! They trashed the D most of the game so an extra 30 yards likely wouldn't have caused them any more trouble. 2 more point would have done nothing overall, as they had the ball in the red zone & we did NOTHING to stop them, so a TD would not have been a surprise.
I do think that Payton blew a few calls, but NOT those 2.
I was constantly waiting for "Ambush", especially to open the 2nd 1/2.

If either play would have worked as designed, we would all be calling Payton a genius!
 
I’d attempt an onside kick like the one ATL did where their guy just blazed right past the first line of defense and made it a 1V1.

if you’re already kicking from basically mid field, the worst it could be is giving them the ball at their 40. I’d take that risk every time. You’re gambling for an extra possession and only spending a first down or two if you lose.
 
I’d attempt an onside kick like the one ATL did where their guy just blazed right past the first line of defense and made it a 1V1.

if you’re already kicking from basically mid field, the worst it could be is giving them the ball at their 40. I’d take that risk every time. You’re gambling for an extra possession and only spending a first down or two if you lose.

Especially when they were getting 16 yards a play. Wouldve been worth the try.
 
You people are losing your minds over 2 points not scored when the defense gave up 6 touchdowns. Unbelievable.
Yeah it made zero difference in the game. People think if we had that extra point plus the other one from the 2nd missed conversion we would've tied but many other variables along the way would've changed. Fir example, had we just kicked the Extra point on that earlier score, when we were down 42-33, we would've been down 42-34 instead. Which means when we scored that TD it would've brought us to 42-40, instead of 42-39. At 42-39 we kicked the extra point to make it 42-40, had it been 42-40 prior to the try, we would've gone for 2 to tie and missed as we did anyway and it would've stayed......42-40, so we ended up right where we would've been anyway had we kicked that earlier extra point.
 
Kick the XP, short kick from the 50 and try to pin them deeper with ST coverage.

Or hell. An onside kick from the 50, even if you fail, would probably put the ball around the 35-40. Theyd start on the 25 with a touchback so only giving up 10 yards might be worth the risk.

But taking the ball on the 1 yard line as opposed to the 2? IDK. I just don't know. Just doesn't move the needle enough for me that early in the game. That failed 2 pt conversion, led to another failed 2 point conversion. Instead of 2 XPs and a tied game at 48.
But if we had 48 and SF had needed a TD to win, they wouldn't have just taken a knee to set up a FG try, they would've tried for a TD, and do you really think our defense was going to stop them the way they were playing that day?
 
You're the head coach. It's your call.

To my knowledge no head coach has every thought of what should be insanely obvious.

You kick the extra point and then at midfield you conduct an onside kick. No discussion, end of story, only smart thing to do.

Someone please explain why teams kick the ball almost into the stands in this situation and have the opponent start the drive at the 25?

So you're gonna tell me that the opposing team having the ball somewhere probably between their 33 and 38 yard line with an onside kick attempt doesn't justify the ultimate benefit of stealing a possession?
Maybe they should just assess the penalty on the opponents next offensive play. Its a meaningless penalty on a TD play. Get the 1 yard, or kick the ball out of the endzone? Great options...?‍♂️
 
There is less risk with the onside as far as field position but you completely lose the elongate of surprise so success rate is no better than at the end of game. So I guess you go this route when you are playing the Saints but all others still need to consider all options
 
Anyone hating on the call simply doesn't understand basic stats and analytics. Lutz PAT% this year is 97%.

The expected value(EV) of an extra point kick is 1 * 97% = .97 points of EV.

I don't see 2019 stats anywhere, but using 2018's stat of 60% success rate of 2pt conversions(from the 2 yard line), then we can assume that the conversion rate from the 1 would be improve. But, using the 2yd success rate of 60%, we have an expected value of

2 * 60% = 1.2points of EV

Going for 2 yields more points over the long term than an extra point.

Of course game situations play a role in this decision, but this decision being so early in the game lends itself to being a fine decision. Sean Payton is correctly aggressive, and all of your armchair GMs wouldn't last a second in the NFL playing the conservative game of yesteryear.

 
Don't remember which game it was other than it was a home game, but earlier this year the Saints took the 15 yards on the kickoff and Lutz put the ball perfectly on the goal line forcing a return and pinning the opposing team around the 10 yard line.
THIS! I was going to reference the same play. THIS is what we should do every time... unless of course we would be going for the 2 pts in 4th quarter anyway. Why in the world SP didn't go back to this when it worked so great before?
 

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