This year on This weekend in NFL stupid, we’re focusing on one extremely stupid winner with an honorable mention or two on a weekly basis. To close out Week 11 of the 2015 regular season, we look back on a questionably conservative decision from an interim head coach.
The winner: Miami Dolphins head coach Dan Campbell
Honestly, there wasn’t a whole lot of costly stupidity this week, at least in terms of game management. That’s why Campbell takes the title for an overly conservative decision that pretty much squashed his team’s chances of coming back Sunday against Dallas.
With Miami trailing the Cowboys 24-14 with less than seven minutes to play in the fourth quarter, the Dolphins were facing a 4th-and-6 just shy of mid-field…and they punted.
Going back 20 years, teams convert on 4th-and-6 about 37 percent of the time. But Miami had just completed an 11-yard pass and quarterback Ryan Tannehill was 2-for-2 for 34 yards on the drive. So you’d have to think that with that momentum they had close to a 50/50 shot at converting.
Instead, Campbell relinquished the opportunity, denying himself a 50/50 shot at moving into Dallas territory on what might have been a game-changing drive, all so that they could give the ball to a hot Cowboys offense (they had scored on their last two drives) 41 yards down the field.
Was gaining those 41 yards for the defense worth sacrificing those odds of converting? Of course not, especially that late in a two-score game. But NFL coaches rarely apply logic when making these types of decisions.
Utilizing all of the field that Miami had given them, the Cowboys responded with a 12-play drive that ate up almost all of the remaining time on the clock. When the Dolphins got it back with about a minute left, it was too late.
Stupid!
The runner-up: Those overseeing concussion procedures in Baltimore
Enough has been made of the fact St. Louis Rams quarterback Case Keenum was allowed to remain in Sunday’s game against the Baltimore Ravens after he reacted this way to having his head slammed into the turf:
Everyone around Keenum knew he had potentially suffered a concussion, as did Sunday’s backup, Nick Foles, who put his helmet on and started getting loose. But apparently, nobody of importance on the Rams’ sideline saw or it, or at least none of them felt compelled to pull him as a precaution. What’s more incredible is that the independent athletic trainers the league pays to attend games solely so that they can watch for these types of moments also failed to have Keenum removed from action.
The league is reportedly looking into it. If so, pink slips and/or heavy fines may be in order. Because this was just stupid on multiple levels.
