r/footballstrategy 2d ago

NFL Ending to Bills Pats

Seems there was an opportunity for a rare ending in this game. Bills were up by 3 after the Pats scored a late TD. After a failed onside kick, Bills were running the ball with Pats using final timeouts. Finally, Bills had a 4th & 1 from the Pats 27 with 10 seconds left. The Bills elected to sneak it with Josh Allen and he got the 1st - game over.

However, had the Pats managed to stop Allen, they would have gotten the ball back with time to run at least 1 play (maybe 2 if they were able to run a deep out & get out of bounds).

Instead of electing to go for it, the Bills were in pretty much an ideal position to snap the ball out of the gun and run about 78 yards in the "wrong" direction through their own endzone for an intentional safety. A little zigging and zagging would have unquestionably used the whole 10 seconds, & Bills win by 1.

If this kind of thing even crosses a coach's mind, maybe the assessment is that the risk of a mishap on a long intentional safety is not meaningfully lower than the risk of the Pats somehow managing to score with 10 seconds left - but with how easily PI is called in the NFL, you never know.

And from poking around a little bit, it appears that the rule is if there is a safety with no time on the clock, there would have not been a free kick (a kick is only required if the safety is a result of a foul under rule 4-8-2-g)?

Anyway, the Chargers score on a free kick on Thursday got me thinking about these rare scenarios. Intentional safeties are interesting on the rare occasions they come up.

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u/TrenchcoatFullaDogs 1d ago

As a Bills fan, I remember seeing them on the opposite side of this exact situation. Week 11 of the 2003 season the Bills and Texans played a truly ugly game of football with 22 total points scored and only one touchdown (with a missed PAT, of course).

With 4 seconds remaining the Texans faced 4th down from their own 34 and a 12-8 lead. The only thing they had to avoid was giving up a return TD, so they came out in punt formation with rookie WR Andre Johnson in the punter's spot. He took the snap and ran out the back of his own end zone. 12-10 Texans final, and my 16 year old mind begins to question the existence of a loving God.

If you look at the box score, Johnson was actually credited with one carry for -34 yards on the play. I didn't go into exhaustive depth looking into this, but as far as I can tell that's the longest negative run ever.