TWTW: No Icing
Matt Bryant lines up for a 49-yard field goal to win the game. Though he’s a veteran Pro-Bowl kicker, he might be a tad nervous. After all, this is a pretty big kick.
A second ago it looked like his team, the Atlanta Falcons, was going to lose to the Seattle Seahawks.
It would’ve been an ugly loss. The headlines would’ve mocked the Falcons and their coaching staff for blowing a 20-point lead. Atlanta would have been the latest No. 1 seed to go down without winning a playoff game.
While this was a makeable kick for Bryan, especially indoors, it was no chip shot. Just as the ball is about to be snapped, the whistle blows. Someone from Seattle called timeout.
Though the whistle has blown, the ball is snapped. Bryant follows through with the kick even though the play won’t count. His kick is wide right the whole way. No good. But, of course, it doesn’t count.
Congrats, Seahawks. You just gave Bryant, an NFL kicker, a practice shot. A mulligan. A freebie.
Now Bryant knows exactly how he wants to hit the ball (if he didn’t already). He can make an adjustment. He has a minute or two to gather his thoughts. To block out the heat of the moment that was there moments ago, when the kicking team came on to the field moments after a pass to Tony Gonzalez got them in range.
Not only have you given Bryant — one of the best in the world at his craft — a free practice swing, you’ve given him a mental breather. A chance to give himself whatever sort of pep talk he needs to. Maybe he’ll think about his wife and two young sons, and the third — Tryson — who died of SIDS at three months old in 2008 — and realize that in the grand scheme of his life, this kick isn’t really that important, that it’s just a game. Maybe he’ll think about Gonzalez potentially playing in his final NFL game, about to go a 16th and possibly final season without ever winning a playoff game, and he’ll make up his mind to make the kick for his teammate.
Whatever it was, Bryant’s next kick, the one that counted, was right down the middle, a perfect, never-in-doubt game-winner.
I realize that the ‘icing’ team isn’t planning on the kicker getting a practice kick. In fact, my guess is that’s what Pete Carroll was mad about after the timeout was called — that Bryant was able to go through with the kick. But the ball is in the center’s hands, and who’s going to stop him from snapping it or the kicker from kicking it? What does Carroll expect the officials to do? Should the referee run in between the long snapper and kicker to intercept the snap? Should the umpire attempt to block the kick?
This is why icing is stupid. The kicking team knows it’s coming now, and they’re going to take the mulligan you give them. And that badly defeats the (flimsy to begin with) purpose.
Assuming the kicker does get a free shot, it’s basically the same as a batter facing Mariano Rivera in the 9th inning getting a free look at his best pitch, an extra strike.
Sure, Bryant could’ve made the “practice” kick when Seattle iced him, and if he did, it might seem less certain that he’d make the next one. I’m sure Pete Carroll knew after that first kick missed that there was almost no chance he’d miss it again. So on some level I am criticizing them in hindsight (for what it’s worth, studies have been largely inconclusive).
But that’s not really the point. The point is that “icing the kicker” is a myth. There’s really no way to prove that it has ever “worked”. Sure, kickers have missed kicks following a time-out from the opposing coach/team, but I think it’s silly, especially at the NFL level, to think the kick was missed because the kicker got cold feet after having a few minutes to think about it.
Even at the college or high school level, you could easily argue that a timeout helps the kicking team, by giving the field goal unit more time to get organized, make sure they have the proper personnel onto the field, and maybe even give the long snapper a couple practice snaps.
Coaches are copycats, and often risk-averse. Generally football coaches are a little more willing to think outside the box than their dunderheaded counterparts in baseball dugouts, but for the most part, coaches and managers will stick to long-established strategic tradition simply because it’s a long-established strategic tradition (see Gardenhire, Ron). It’s easier to answer to the media, fans, your boss, etc., by saying ‘I just did what is always done in that situation’ than it is to explain why you deviated from the norm.
Also, icing the kicker is ‘doing something’. Not icing the kicker is ‘doing nothing’ and coaches like to feel like they’re doing something.
But to me, icing the kicker is just giving him more time to prepare. He’s ready for the time-out. He knows it’s coming. Make him hurry up and kick it. And then maybe, if “icing the kicker” goes the way of the drop-kick, the bullpen cart and the two-line pass, some coach can think outside the box by bringing it back 15 years from now when the kicker least expects it.
* I’ve picked on Manti Te’o enough over the last couple weeks, time to move on to his dad. This is the kind of thing you half expect from a high school soccer mom, but the father of a Heisman finalist should know better.
* Good grief was the Brent Musburger/Katherine Webb story an overblown bunch of nonsense.
There was nothing ‘creepy’ about Musburger (and Kirk Hirbstreit) complimenting AJ McCarron’s girlfriend during the BCS title game telecast. OK, maybe it seemed a tad much, but it’s silly that ESPN apologized (for crying out loud, he said she was beautiful, not that he wanted to see her in her underwear), and the reaction from some, like, Michigan State journalism professor Sue Carter, was far more embarrassing.
Sue really sounds like she’s a lot of fun.
Thankfully, Webb and her family appear to be normal, well-adjusted human beings that reside on this planet.
* I shouldn’t be surprised by now, but one of the dumber things I’ve written of late got an unusually large amount of responses, the most common of which was to go here. For the dozens or so of you who admitted to sharing my denim dilemma, I guess it’s worth a shot. Ballroom jeans? I see what they did there.
