Innovative clock management and game strategy are becoming the norm throughout all levels of football. From taking timeouts earlier in the 4th quarter in order to preserve more time (common), to never punting and always attempting onside kicks (rare), coaches are increasingly willing to use strategies that would have been frowned upon not long ago.
The St. Louis Rams embodied this new school approach in their upset victory of the defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks on Sunday.
At first glance, few things in football appear crazier than faking a punt on your own 18 yard line while nursing a two point lead with under three minutes to play. But consider the following:
Russell Wilson and the Seahawks offense had just completed three straight touchdown drives of 80 or more yards. On the day, Wilson became the first quarterback in NFL history to throw for over 300 yards while rushing for over 100 yards in the same game. Simply put, Wilson and the Seahawks were unstoppable down the stretch.
Rams head coach Jeff Fischer and special teams coordinator John Fassel knew it.
Old school thinking would be to punt the ball away anyways, and to put trust in your defense to keep the Seahawks out of field goal range.
The key to the risk assessment is this: There was 2:55 left on the clock. The Rams had two timeouts left. If the pass was not completed and the fake failed, the Seahawks would take over on the 18. They could only get one first down. The Rams could stop the clock three times (two timeouts and the two minute warning). With proper use of timeouts and barring extra first downs through penalties, the Rams would be able to get the ball back with some time left on the clock after the Seahawks scored. In other words, it would be difficult for the Seahawks to kick a winning field goal with no time remaining if the Rams were to fail on the fake punt.
Thus, a failed fake would serve to give the Rams one last chance with the ball. If the Rams had punted the ball, they have given the ball to Wilson with plenty of time and space to move the Seahawks into position to kick a field goal with no time remaining on the clock.
The downside to failure on the fake punt was no more than missing out on the upside of converting it. Failure was, as argued above, in many ways preferable to punting.
The upside to converting the fake was massive. It gave the Rams the opportunity to keep the ball out of Wilson’s hands altogether, and this is exactly how they won the game.
Thus, one can easily see why the balancing of risk versus reward led the Rams to attempt the fake.
Not to mention that the fake itself was built on solid fundamentals, not hit or miss trickery. The Rams motioned their gunner to the inside, in order to clear the flat for the personal protector – running back Benny Cunningham. Punter Johnny Hekker – an athletic 6’5” 227 pound ex star high school quarterback – then took his first step as if punting, before calmly throwing a spiral to a wide open Cunningham. In structure, it was nothing more than a common goal line or short yardage concept in which a motioning receiver clears space for a running back to outrun coverage to the outside, and it worked to perfection.
While the fake punt seemed like an enormous role of the dice, it is more usefully analyzed as an example of new school risk assessment, in which punting the ball away isn’t always the best – or safest – decision.
See the fake punt here: