This Weekend in NFL Stupid highlights the dumbest decisions in football throughout the season.
The winner: Cincinnati Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis
They weren’t likely going to win anyway, but Lewis basically cemented Cincinnati’s fate with 10 minutes left in a 16-point game when he decided to have Mike Nugent kick a field goal on a 4th-and-goal from the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 9-yard line.
You know that with a backup quarterback you’re almost certainly not going to score two more touchdowns, so when you’re inside the 10-yard line in the fourth quarter and can move to within one score with a touchdown (combined with a two-point conversion) you simply have to take that shot.
Instead, Lewis took an illogical, overly-conservative approach. And when the Bengals got the ball back five minutes later, AJ McCarron was forced to try to make magic happen down two touchdowns.
Lewis’ move practically conceded the game.
Runner-up: Indianapolis Colts head coach Chuck Pagano
Pagano needlessly allowed the oldest quarterback in football to be exposed to two separate injuries on Sunday.
First, Matt Hasselbeck was crushed by a hit from Roy Miller with Indy trailing by 10 points in the second half. But a few plays later, Pagano allowed Hasselbeck to return to a one-sided game, causing the 40-year-old to take several more beatings behind a broken-down offensive line.
Eventually, he was injured again in a game the Colts trailed by three scores and was finally pulled. But now, Indy might be forced to start Charlie freakin’ Whitehurst in an important Week 15 matchup with the Houston Texans.
