Something Fishy’s Going on Here, Rick

So, today, Reilly put a post up on his (not)blog, Go Fish. It’s a rant about calling a timeout at the last possible moment before a field goal. Whatever. Ho hum.

But it gets interesting. Because someone the day before (for a New York Times blog) put up a post with Bob Costas’s remedy. Here’s Rick’s and here’s the one from the day before by Tony Monkovic, who borrows an idea from Bob Costas (and attributes it to him).

Now, I’m not going to say outright that Reilly stole the idea, but it’s definitely fishy. Here’s Mankovic:

It’s [iceing the kicker] a very strange moment in sports.

With the game in the balance in the final seconds, a coach hopes that a player on the other team succeeds.

[...]

Is there an equivalent to this in any other sport around the world? (After I finally get to the point, maybe readers will be able to find an example.)

Consider Dallas Coach Wade Phillips’s state of mind on Sunday night. At the moment he chooses to call a timeout to nullify Giants kicker Lawrence Tynes’s field-goal attempt, he becomes a Tynes supporter. If Tynes misses, Phillips has cost his team a sure victory and he stands to be vilified (although Tynes still has another chance to miss and lose the game). Phillips has essentially made a bet and wants it to pay off. He wants Tynes to make it, justifying his timeout, then he wants him to miss the next one.

[...]

On the game broadcast, Bob Costas suggested a solution: don’t allow timeouts in the last five seconds in field-goal formations. It seems simple enough. But it turns out there is no support for this.

So today, Rick posted this:

[...] the lack of a rule barring NFL coaches from waiting until the last nanosecond to call a timeout, making the kicking team not only go through the entire FG for no reason but also scream with joy and hug like the game’s over, because it isn’t. They have to do it all again.

[...]

Imagine if this happened in any other sport. Bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, 3-2 count, pitcher winds up, batter rips it over the left field fence, gets mobbed at home. Oops! Nope, the pitching team called a timeout seconds before it was released. Let’s do it all again.

Right, Monkovic brought that up as well, buddy. Just not in as idiotic a way.

There’s a simple fix. No team may call a timeout on a field goal attempt when the play clock is at less than five seconds.

[...]

Roger: Do it now. You’re welcome.

Yes, thank you, Rick for that very original insight. I’ve never heard that before….umm…except for when Costas said it and when Monkovic quoted Costas as saying it. I love how Reilly acts all high and mighty about “his” solution. “Thus I have spoken. Thus it shall be done.” Sure, it’s possible for different people to have the same ideas. But this post coming the day after Monkovic’s with basically the same argument, and the same solution is a little bit fishy. So take it as you will. At the very least, shouldn’t Reilly be checking to see if his articles, or posts, or whatever, have been done before? (Including, for instance, his last article on the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders) That sounds like due diligence to me. By the way, it’s very easy. The Mankovic post was the first thing that came up when I googled “timeout before a field goal.” Whatever. It’s the weekend. Have fun everybody.