Taking the safety would've been moronic

[rmilia1]

No one is ever going to convince me that the odss of fumbling a snap are lower than the odds of a team getting 2! onside kicks, making 2! 50+ yard scoring drives and doing it all with no tieouts in less than 45 seconds. Sorry. Yes the Niners won and thats great for them but I can promise you it was NOT the safer way.

 

[abaskin18]

No one is ever going to convince me that the odss of fumbling a snap are lower than the odds of a team getting 2! onside kicks, making 2! 50+ yard scoring drives and doing it all with no tieouts in less than 45 seconds. Sorry. Yes the Niners won and thats great for them but I can promise you it was NOT the safer way.

You'd rather risk injury on a special teams play before kneeling down once than simply kneeling down twice?

Even without the risk of injury being factored into it, I want the quickest route to a win and so did Harbaugh.

 

[deep9er]

No one is ever going to convince me that the odss of fumbling a snap are lower than the odds of a team getting 2! onside kicks, making 2! 50+ yard scoring drives and doing it all with no tieouts in less than 45 seconds. Sorry. Yes the Niners won and thats great for them but I can promise you it was NOT the safer way.

safer way or mathematical odds?

for the life of me, can't think of anything simpler - and safer - than two kneel downs?

 

[rmilia1]

safer way or mathematical odds?

for the life of me, can't think of anything simpler - and safer - than two kneel downs?

I meant safe as in safer way to winning. I dont give 2 shits about player safety because they take that chance every play they make. Either way the Niners went they were HUGE favorites to win but the chances of fumbling a snap are MUCH MUCH MUCH greater than the odds of the other 17 things happening that needed to for Seattle to win if they had taken the safety. Period.

 

[imac_21]

I meant safe as in safer way to winning. I dont give 2 shits about player safety because they take that chance every play they make. Either way the Niners went they were HUGE favorites to win but the chances of fumbling a snap are MUCH MUCH MUCH greater than the odds of the other 17 things happening that needed to for Seattle to win if they had taken the safety. Period.

How many times has a team fumbled in victory formation?

Are the Niners more interested in your bet, or keeping their players healthy? What happens if Seattle recovers the first onside kick, then during their drive Aldon Smith or Justin Smith or Patrick Willis or Navorro Bowman or someone else gets rolled up on tears an ACL?

Do you think Harbaugh might care about losing a difference maker on defense for the rest of the season?

What if during the onside kick, with the hands team on the field, Crabtree or Davis gets blasted in the head and has a serious concussion and has to miss multiple weeks?

Yeah, Harbaugh should take that chance (in a game that was already remarkable chippy and violent) rather than risking two victory formation snaps.

GTFOH

 

[BINGO]

I'm pretty sure the risk of injury and not the risk of losing was the impetus for Harbaugh's decision. The risk of losing with either decision was going to be EXTREMELY remote. However, the same cannot be said about the risk of injury.

Well said Bem!

 

[imac_21]

Well said Bem!

Yet Bingo, you have argued against the decision consistently. I still haven't seen you acknowledge that the Hawks could have onside kicked, despite your insistence last night that they had to punt to us.

 

[abaskin18]

I meant safe as in safer way to winning. I dont give 2 shits about player safety because they take that chance every play they make. Either way the Niners went they were HUGE favorites to win but the chances of fumbling a snap are MUCH MUCH MUCH greater than the odds of the other 17 things happening that needed to for Seattle to win if they had taken the safety. Period.

Even in victory formation... Wow, you're somethin' else. Carry on.

 

[jordan20_3]

I can't believe the posts I'm reading about saying Harbaugh was stupid for not taking the safety. For people who don't have money on the game, why the hell would he risk another play when the game is already in victory formation time?

Also, why would he risk an injury making meaningless plays like the kickoff (and more defense if something weird happened and the Seahawks recovered). Or even if they didn't recover, what if the kicker got it to the 1 yard line? You can't do victory formation then.

It was the right absolutely the right decision. Anyone who says otherwise is simply wrong.

I agree with you, at first I was like why give those points up then then after I thought about an onsite kick and crazy play at the end anything could happen. Harbaugh was smart

 

[Kinzu]

No one is ever going to convince me that the odss of fumbling a snap are lower than the odds of a team getting 2! onside kicks, making 2! 50+ yard scoring drives and doing it all with no tieouts in less than 45 seconds. Sorry. Yes the Niners won and thats great for them but I can promise you it was NOT the safer way.

So taking a knee at your opponents 35 yard line with 43 seconds left in a game when they have no timeouts is not a safe way to win?

Even if the snap is fumbled, which probably happens less than 1% of the time, the Seahawks would still need to go around 65 yards in less than 40 seconds with no timeouts just to tie the game. This is not college football where the clock stops for first downs either.

I will give you that a fumble on the kneel down would have led to a higher % chance of the Seahawks getting back into the game. It's easier to hit a 65 yard pass than it is recover 2 onside kicks inside of 43 seconds, but it's also highly unlikely to fumble and lose it from the victory formation. Why do you think the formation surrounds the QB? If there is a fumble it's going to be a 49ers dog pile on the ball.

By kneeling the ball you take almost any chance of a win out of the other teams hands. Seattle had no chance to make any more plays happen at that point. They needed us to screw up. If I'm the coach and have the option of putting the ball in my teams hands and trusting them not to make a mistake or giving the ball to the other team and hoping they can't make a play; I'm freaking taking the ball every single time. Why give your opponent the chance to pull a rabbit out of the hat if you can just take the hat?

Another thing to point out is the fumble would have to have been on the first kneel down. If it was on the 2nd I'm not sure any time would have been left for a miracle play anyway.

 

[joshuar56]

An on-side kick is a lot bigger risk than 2%, and a kneel down is a lot lower risk than 1%. The kneel down risk is like 0.001% or maybe lower.

Except Seattle would have to get the onside, score, and then attempt another onside and then score again, all in the span of 45 seconds. I'll take being up by 2 scores and the other team free kicking over possession on downs only up by 1 score.

 

[joshuar56]

Even if the snap is fumbled, which probably happens less than 1% of the time, the Seahawks would still need to go around 65 yards in less than 40 seconds with no timeouts just to tie the game. This is not college football where the clock stops for first downs either.

Seattle would have had to go just as far if they recovered a free kick, and they're down by 2 scores rather than one.

 

[joshuar56]

I agree with you, at first I was like why give those points up then then after I thought about an onsite kick and crazy play at the end anything could happen. Harbaugh was smart

Except you can't score 9 points on a crazy play at the end of the game... Do people really not understand this?

 

[abaskin18]

Except you can't score 9 points on a crazy play at the end of the game... Do people really not understand this?

And you can't score 7 without the ball...or get hurt in victory formation.

Do you really think lack of understanding the number of points Seattle could score on one play is what's plaguing those of us who agreed with the decision?

 

[deep9er]

if you go statistically, ie mathematically, yeah the odds for recovering two on-side kicks and scoring both is lower than fumbling a snap. but this isn't any 'ol snap, it is victory formation?

has there ever been a fumble in victory formation? cause except for Schiano's one time 'antic', the defense doesn't react. even if Alex did fumble it, the defense isn't penetrating.

can't get any simpler than taking two kneel downs.

 

[joshuar56]

if you go statistically, ie mathematically, yeah the odds for recovering two on-side kicks and scoring both is lower than fumbling a snap. but this isn't any 'ol snap, it is victory formation?

has there ever been a fumble in victory formation? cause except for Schiano's one time 'antic', the defense doesn't react. even if Alex did fumble it, the defense isn't penetrating.

can't get any simpler than taking two kneel downs.

I'd rather it take 6 or so crazy things to happen in order for Seattle to win than 1 or 2.

 

[erckm510]

Amazing how the NFL announcers couldn't figure this out. They were very hung up on the 2 score to 1 score thing.

 

[deep9er]

I'd rather it take 6 or so crazy things to happen in order for Seattle to win than 1 or 2.

2 simple kneel downs, KNEEL DOWNS??!!

why even continue playing when you can kneel down two times? why focus on the complicated, longer version, rather than the simple, shorter one? victory formation is probably the simplest thing you'll see in a football game.

anyway, you won't change your mind no matter, so i'll leave this alone already.

 

[Robotech]

I agree with the decision to not risk injury. The only way those two points would matter is if there were a tie at the end of the season and the NFL needed to use a tiebreaker. Extremely unlikely that those two points would matter. I cannot remember a single instance where point differential determined a tiebreaker in the NFL. Can anybody? If NFL teams thought that scoring a few extra points is important because of tiebreaker scenarios, then you would see teams kicking field goals at the end of games (assuming that they lead by at least 9 points) instead of kneeling down.

 

[rmilia1]

How many times has a team fumbled in victory formation?

Are the Niners more interested in your bet, or keeping their players healthy? What happens if Seattle recovers the first onside kick, then during their drive Aldon Smith or Justin Smith or Patrick Willis or Navorro Bowman or someone else gets rolled up on tears an ACL?

Do you think Harbaugh might care about losing a difference maker on defense for the rest of the season?

What if during the onside kick, with the hands team on the field, Crabtree or Davis gets blasted in the head and has a serious concussion and has to miss multiple weeks?

Yeah, Harbaugh should take that chance (in a game that was already remarkable chippy and violent) rather than risking two victory formation snaps.

GTFOH

I actually won my bet because they didnt take the safety so Im happy with that. It was just a stupid move regardless of whether it worked or not and to answer your question I think the only time I can remeber a team fumbling a victory snap was once but that is still 1 more time than i remember a team getting 2 onsides kicks, driving 70 yards and then 40 yards to score with no timeouts in the last 40 seconds of a game