King Kaufman makes an interesting observation vis-a-vis the Giants' squib kick debacle last night:
On Monday night, Fassel mismanaged the clock at the end of regulation, and he called a play that backfires almost as often as the prevent defense, a squib kick, which backfired. As shocked as I was watching Fassel, who I think is a good coach, suffer this serial mental breakdown, I'm even more amazed that as far as I've seen he's not getting any of the blame for it.I agree that this play, much like the vaunted "prevent defense" or almost anything other than a play action pass in a goal line situation*, seems rather obviously not to work. But coaches don't get criticized for them because they somehow got to be the "by the book" solution.
I started noticing the squib kick at the end of games when the 49ers were doing it in the early 1980s. (This is also around the time I was becoming a serious fan, so it may have an earlier provenance.) While this generally has the desired effect of precluding a run-back for touchdown--an exceedingly rare event, regardless-- it almost always seems to yield better field position than regular kickoffs. But if coaches were to start ordering "regular" kickoffs with seconds remaining on the clock, and someone were to run one back, they'd never hear the end of it.
*See almost any Gregg Easterbrook Tuesday Morning Quarterback column for a discussion of this phenomenon.
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