It was 1:15 AM Monday morning and I was standing on the casino floor at Mandalay Bay. My blackjack table had just been closed on me and I still held a number of chips. I faced a decision. Do I push my luck? I was up on the night but had given back some of my stack in the last few hands. Do I go find a new table and see if I can grow my remaining stack or do I call it a night and head off to get a few hours sleep before my way-too-early alarm clock for my way-too-early flight?
As I placed my remaining chips in my pocket and debated where to go and what to do, I felt a slip of paper in my pocket. It was betting slip from the sportsbook earlier in the evening. At halftime of the Colts / Pats game I had taken the under on the number of points scored in the second half. The line was set at 24.5 points.
As you now know. After Bill Belichick decided to for it on 4th down, the Colts subsequently scored the game winning touchdown – which ended up being the 28th point of the game.
When I pulled out my now worthless betting sheet, I looked at the note I had written on it earlier. ‘WTF Belichick?’
At that point my decision was pretty easy. I went up and went to bed. Sometimes you have to know when to not push your luck.
As you doubtlessly heard re-hashed countless times over the last couple of days, Belichick’s decision to go for it on 4th down from his own 28-yard line possibly cost his team the game but what you haven’t heard is that it definitely cost Turner, Shadow and I around $200.
When it became clear that the Pats were going to go for it on that fourth, a murmur of shock and excitement swept through the entire Mandalay sportsbook, like I would imagine happened last spring at the end of the Super Bowl. No one present could believe what they were seeing and with an even 50/50 split between Colt and Pats fans (or more accurately people with money on the Colts and Pats) there was both cheers and boos when the play was ruled to come up short.
Even before the Colts inevitably scored, Belichick was being ridiculed (or as he quickly became known “f’ing Bill Belichick”) for the call. I tried to come up with a defense for him, though my heart wasn’t in it: he recognized even a punt would most likely lead to a Colt touchdown so he wanted them to score quickly so Brady would have time to retaliate. Of course, that became moot when the combination of Pats defense and Peyton Manning stall tactics lead to a score with less than 20 seconds left.
This has been analyzed to death at this point, so I don’t need to go into it any more, other than to point out the one thing that hasn’t been discussed much.
Did the Patriots actually gain that first down? Yes, Faulk juggled the ball, but only once before trapping it against his chest. By the best available views it appears to me that Faulk controlled the ball well on the other side of the 30-yard line before getting pushed back past the 30.
As you may notice in the replays the guy that actually made the call that he was juggling was the side judge directly behind him. Apparently, the side judge has x-ray vision because he was able to see through Faulk’s back and see that he was still juggling the ball as he was pushed back a yard and a half from where he initially touched the ball.
Which begs the obvious question – why is the guy with X-ray vision only a side judge?
Why didn’t any of the other refs point out the fact that Faulk only juggled the ball once? Did no other ref have a view of the play better than a guy directly behind the receiver?
If you ask me, the ref did not make the right call and the Colts probably would have scored regardless. But that doesn’t mean to say Belichick made the right decision in going for it. As anyone who has played blackjack knows you don’t always win when you follow the rules but you almost never win ignoring the rules.
Sometimes it is best to not press your luck.
