Andy Reid faced an afternoon of tough calls vs. Steelers
By Britt Zank
Reid chose to not review the play and it was the right decision. Every week I see people who for some reason cannot understand the NFL catch rules. It’s not so much as people don’t understand the rule as it is they don’t like the rule so they choose to see it as they think the rule should be instead of what the rule is. Article three, item one states:
Item 1. Player Going to the Ground. A player is considered to be going to the ground if he does not remain upright long enough to demonstrate that he is clearly a runner. If a player goes to the ground in the act of catching a pass (with or without contact by an opponent), he must maintain control of the ball until after his initial contact with the ground, whether in the field of play or the end zone. If he loses control of the ball, and the ball touches the ground before he regains control, the pass is incomplete. If he regains control prior to the ball touching the ground, the pass is complete.
In plain English, that means if you are hit by a defender at the same time you are catching a ball than you must hold onto the ball through the entire process of the catch. An easy way to look at it is if you want to be given credit for a catch when hit by defender at same time of catch than you need to maintain possession until you had the ball to the referee. Harris did catch the ball and get two feet down, but since Davis was in the process of tackling him, he had to maintain possession of the ball all the way to the ground. This did not happen as Davis ripped the ball from his hands. There is a 100% chance had the Chiefs challenged this play it would have been confirmed and the Chiefs would have lost a timeout.
In a game as tight as this one you can’t give away timeouts on challenges you have no chance of winning. Reid has been criticized his entire career for wasting timeouts, so I will commend him for not wasting one here.
Speaking of timeouts, I did have one minor decision that Reid made which I did not like. I did not like the Chiefs head coach calling the timeout with 2:05 left in the fourth quarter. By calling that timeout, it allowed the Steelers to call a pass play without any repercussions. No matter what happened on that play the clock was going to stop after it.
Had Andy saved the timeout and let the clock run to the two minute warning than the Steelers would have had a tough decisions. Do they run the ball to force the Chiefs to use their second timeout, or do they go for the first down and throw it. If you throw it and fail to complete the pass, then the Chiefs have two timeouts and 1:50 to go. They probably still throw it and go for the win, but you at least make the decision harder.
If the play worked out the same, the Chiefs would have gotten the ball with around 1:45 left and 2 timeouts. Instead they got the ball with 1:50 left and only one timeout. It was a small thing and the clock didn’t matter much in the end, but it was a mistake that could have cost the Chiefs if they needed that timeout or if the Steelers had completed the pass.
This was almost a mirror of the 2016 playoff loss to the Steelers. The Chiefs defense got ran all over and looked bad, but in the end they Smith enough to win the game. Minus the one fluke play off Phillip Gaines’s helmet, the defense held the Steelers to only 10 points. The offense was bad and Alex was bad. He missed seven wide open receivers including three for easy touchdowns.
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Reid’s decisions did not lose this game, nor where they even factors in the loss. His playcalling wasn’t great, but his decisions where mostly correct—especially the decision to go for the touchdown. In 2016 Smith played to not lose the playoff game. On Sunday, he played to win. While it seems like a small thing, getting a conservative coach like Andy to coach to win the game could be the change the Chiefs need in January.