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Heroes and Villains

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I suspected that the NY media would go further than Yglesias’s throwaway comment after the terrific Jets/Steelers game (congrats to frequent commenter gmack!) yesterday in turning Jet kicker Doug Brien into a goat. And, sure, he deserves some of the blame. But not a lot. The media has been pretty savage, but looking over the tabloids this morning at least a few of the columns vilifying him incidentally identify the real culprit:

Brien’s first chance to win it came with 1:58 left in regulation. His 47-yarder hit the crossbar. He soon got his second chance — after Herm Edwards broke out the Marty Schottenheimer playbook and played not to win with two safe runs and a Pennington kneel from the 25.

Edwards is a good and underrated coach, but he completely fucked the dog yesterday. Let’s start with this fact: had Brien made the 47 yard try–which he kicked perfectly–it would have been the longest field goal by a visiting team in the history of Heinz Field. A frigid winter night on a slippery grass field within a wind-tunnel stadium–and you’re going to just kill a minute of clock and make your kicker kick a 43-yarder having just missed one from similar distance? Actually run a play intentionally losing another two yards to avoid having to kick off? Jesus Christ Herm, Marty Schottenheimer put on a clinic on how not to coach a playoff game; you don’t use him as a model. It also strikes me that the blame dumped on Brien should be pretty widely apportioned among the offense. Not just because they didn’t get close to a touchdown; the defense may not have given up the tying drive had they actually left the field for more than 20 seconds at some point in the second half. You play in terror of losing, you deserve to lose, and you probably will. Both of the final misses were extremely difficult kicks, and Brien does not deserve the goat label that will be hung on him.

But, in a sense, the inevitable Scott Norwood comparisons are apt, since Norwood didn’t deserve his vilification either. You miss a chip shot, fine, but a 47-yarder outside? And to make a general point, this is true of most historic goats. Even focusing on the fateful late inning of Game 6, Buckner’s responsibility is clearly no greater (and probably less) than Schiraldi, Stanley, and Gedman. Merkle was a victim of selective enforcement. Etc. Losses rarely come down to one athlete.

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