Bill Blew It: Belichick Commits a Bungle for the Ages

Did that just happen?

No, really. Did it?

Let’s get this out of the way: in terms of Boston sports history, what I just watched in the Patriots' 35-34 loss to the Colts ranks No. 3 on the all-time “Moronic Decisions By a Coach or Manager” list. I still have to give the nod to John McNamara's failure to remove Bill Buckner for defensive replacement Dave Stapleton (we are talking about a World Series vs. an important regular-season game) and Grady Little's blunder with Pedro Martinez (playoff situation), but this is an easy bronze medal winner.

Let’s get this out of the way, Part 2: I don’t care if Kevin Faulk was past the marker or not. Really not the point at all. He could’ve broken a tackle and turned it into a 72-yard TD and it STILL would have been an insane call. You can hit on 19 at a blackjack table and draw a 2, you know. Doesn’t mean it makes any sense.

(And I think Faulk actually had the first down, but it would’ve been too close to overturn.)

There are 32 head coaches in the NFL. I’m thinking that about half of them would be fired within 48 hours of going for it on fourth down from their own 28-yard line with two minutes to go and up six points on national TV. About half. And about half of those guys wouldn’t even be allowed on the team plane for the flight home. You think Todd Haley or Jim Zorn would even bother to show up at the office on Monday?

Well, Bill Belichick isn’t going to get fired. He could’ve had Stephen Gostkowski attempt an 87-yard field goal in that situation and his job would be safe. As, of course, it should be. We don’t need to run down what he’s done and why he’s the closest thing to Lombardi we may ever see (though Vince punts there.)

But Belichick, and Belichick alone, takes the blame for this loss. A loss, by the way, that means the following:

1. You can forget about the Patriots getting the No. 1 seed in the AFC. A win Sunday and they are a game behind Indy with seven games left. With the tiebreaker. Now they are three games back with seven left. Sans tiebreaker.

2. A 7-2 record would have put them in a tie with Cincinnati for the 2 seed. Now? They are tied for third with Pittsburgh, Denver (remember, the Broncos have the tiebreaker over the Pats) and San Diego.

3. If, and this is a big if, the Jets come into Gillette and win next Sunday, New York would be a game out of first in the AFC East with a sweep of the season series. Now you and I know that Belichick is going to turn the next six days of (completely legitimate) second-guessing into an “us against the world” act that will probably lead to Patriots 40, Jets 10. But at 7-2, the division would have been all but clinched. The loss makes this coming Sunday's game at least interesting.

Do I, at least to an extent, understand the temptation? Sure. The AFC title game of 2006 was kicking around in his head, I’m sure. And yes, Peyton Manning had just gone 79 yards in 2-1/2 minutes to score a TD. Without using a timeout. And sure, the Patriots had 477 yards of offense in the game. Tom Brady is your best player, let him make a play. And really, what’s another two yards?

Well, another two yards with two minutes to go and the game on the line is a lot different than trying to convert a third-and-2 at midfield in the third quarter. Two yards isn’t always two yards. You and I know that Brady and Belichick thought that if they got stopped, Manning was going to go 28 yards and score. Clearly, Belichick thought that. The reason he didn’t punt was that he thought Manning would go 70-80 yards and score. So, 28 yards was a lock.

But here’s the thing: A 70-75-yard TD drive wasn’t a lock. While Manning had a terrific game (28-of-44 for 327 yards and two TDs), it was by no means perfect. The Colts punted seven times in the game. Manning threw a pair of awful picks, including one the possession before. And unlike most Pats-Colts games over the last couple of years, the defense actually was getting some pressure on Manning. Oh, and P.S.: This is the No. 2 defense in the NFL this season. If this were a team giving up 40 points a week I think the decision would have been ludicrous but nearly defensible. But the second-best defense in the league?

(And don’t give me the “Well, the Colts scored, so it’s obvious Belichick made the right call” argument, either. The defense was put in a brutal spot. The Pats were in shock out there.)

Oh, and one more thing? If you are going to make the call and go for it in that spot, you better have three timeouts, because if you don’t convert, you are going to need them. I thought Al Michaels made a pretty good point — not having any timeouts left was nearly as dopey as the fourth-down call. (Al didn’t say dopey, of course, but I could tell that’s what he meant. I could always read Al like a book.)

Again, if you are going to assume that Manning is going to score if he gets the ball, you have to be able to stop the clock. I’d argue that having no timeouts left is even more of an incentive to punt.

This past week featured a lot of Brady vs. Manning stuff. Even before the game Sunday night, Andrea Kremer (decked out in a purple jacket with about 460 zippers; she looked like a backup dancer on the Jacksons' “Victory Tour”) had a story about a poll of NFL Hall of Fame quarterbacks and where they stood on the debate.

I was stunned that it was 13-1/2 to 2-1/2 in favor of Manning. I know he’s great, but that great? Blowout over Brady great? I don’t see it, to be honest. And Brady was brilliant Sunday night, maybe the best game he’s played since 2007. But I don’t think Colts coach Jim Caldwell fears him to the extent that, if the situation had been reversed, he would have gone for it on fourth down. And right now that’s the difference. And it leads us to this.

After all the years of reading and hearing about how Bill Belichick played with the minds of quarterbacks, now we have a quarterback playing with the mind of Bill Belichick.

And that might be the biggest shocker of all.