There is a serious debate over what to do in football games when you’re ahead. It requires understanding what your team is capable of doing, but some people think you should try to run out the clock, while others think you should do what helped you get a lead.
As we learned during New England’s 25-point comeback in Super Bowl LI, Dez Bryant is squarely on Team Keep Doing What Worked. Bryant tweeted out this note before New England’s torrid comeback reached its conclusion.
— Dez Bryant (@DezBryant) February 6, 2017
Sure, it’s easy to look back and say “Atlanta should have kept chucking it” considering what we know happened. Sports fans are always great at making declarative statements after we know the outcome of something, which is always rough, because there’s always the chance that the alternate plan that a fan wanted to see wouldn’t have worked out.
But considering how the Falcons blew a 25-point lead in the second half of the Super Bowl, and considering how they are the best downfield passing team in the NFL and just stopped trying to do that, we can safely say that Bryant is correct. As for what Atlanta should have done instead, well, we’ll never know, but Dez caught called it.
