I was getting annoyed on the Chiefs' last possession, the one where we had the ball on our own five with a minute left and were just doing kneeldowns.
On every kneeldown, the Patriots would create a big pileup by diving into our linemen.
It annoyed me because it's not going to work 999 times out of 1000. The general protocol of football is that if a team is kneeling down you let them do it because the game is essentially over. It's tradition, and it's generally frowned upon to do otherwise. (See Tom Nalen diving into Igor Olshansky's knees as an example.)
The Patriots were crashing hard into our linemen on every one of those kneeldowns even though Patrick was pulling off some of the greatest kneeldowns I've ever seen. Did you notice that? He was down in a split second and moving back. He may be the most talented kneeldown quarterback I've ever seen.
Having said all of that, the game ain't over until the final gun goes off, or Brady's bedtime, whichever comes first. If diving into the line works 1 time out of 1000, that's one extra game you're going to win. So it's good practice to do it from a pure win-loss perspective.
It makes me think that there should be a rule change to automatically take the clock down at the end of the game and the defending team can stop it by taking time outs, since kneeldowns are for the most part boring from a game perspective. Why should the league risk the knees of a Patriots player flying into them on a play that's essentially meaningless.
But back to the point. Was it good football that that Patriots were attacking our kneeldowns or bad sportsmanship?
Poll coming if I can keep Donta Hightower from diving into it. [Reply]
Put it this way: suppose Pat faked a kneel down, and suddenly threw it to a wide open TE who released off the line,who sprints downfield alone and scored a cheap TD. How would their players react? Would their fans boo?
I can understand both sides of the coin. I would lean towards not activity playing the kneel down.
My guess would be that when it gets to this point in a game the defense would tell the offense, "hey we are not going to try" and so folks know they are not going to try. Then at times will let them know, we need to try this time around. [Reply]
Personally, I don't like the kneel down rule. Play until the game is over. Make the other team earn it. How is it any different than any other play? Same with spiking the ball; to me, that's garbage. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Prison Bitch:
Put it this way: suppose Pat faked a kneel down, and suddenly threw it to a wide open TE who released off the line,who sprints downfield alone and scored a cheap TD. How would their players react? Would their fans boo?
To even ask the question is to answer it.
I would give all the Patriot players a free run and hit at all of our players, including coaches, if that happened! [Reply]
It's somewhat situational. Yesterday they had us pinned close to our goal line, and they were only down 1 score. It's not crazy for them to attack in that situation. I don't think it warrants doing it all the time just to fight to the end, but this was a situation where as a Chiefs fan I wasn't 100% comfortable that we had enough backfield room to work with. [Reply]