This Weekend in NFL Stupid highlights the dumbest moments and decisions in football throughout the season. Coming out of Week 9, we’re focusing on Denver Broncos game-management-challenged head coach Vance Joseph.
The stupidest of the stupid
It’s becoming an epidemic. Happens practically every week, even as coaches continue to get burned. Driving late in need of a field goal, they hit the point on the field at which their placekicker can feasibly strike a successful kick… and then they stop trying to gain yardage.
The latest culprit? Joseph, whose Broncos reached the Houston Texans’ 32-yard line with around 40 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, down by two. But instead of pressing to make things easier on kicker Brandon McManus, they let the clock run down, centered the ball with a run up the middle, used their last timeout with three seconds remaining and forced McManus to attempt a 50-yarder.
“Our field-goal line was the 35-yard line. We got to the 33,” Joseph later said. “So, at that point, yardage-wise we were good.”
Dude, ever heard of percentages? 50-yard field goals are good about 60 percent of the time, but 40-yarders are good about 80 percent of the time. Not running a safe play or two in an attempt to increase your odds by 20-40 percent is insane.
Bad karma, too.
Lightning round
Dumbest decision of Matthew Stafford’s career?
And on this day, Matthew Stafford officially became a Lion: pic.twitter.com/sV4NE5H4dB
— Hardy (@hardy985) November 4, 2018
Patrick Mahomes tried to stopped an already-stopped clock with a spike, for which he was penalized.
Is Joe Flacco being serious?
Final stupid word
Not done with Joseph, who hilariously attempted a 62-yard field goal with plenty of time on the clock late in the first half. The kick missed, allowing Houston to take advantage of a short field and move into field-goal range. Joseph then tried to freeze the Texans kicker, which is a ridiculous thing to do at the end of a half. It didn’t work and the Texans walked away with three bonus points before halftime.
We’ll let Texans head coach Bill O’Brien play us out…