A two-score deficit situation that's always bugged me

Vandy/Tennessee. UT had played pretty OK and was leading the Dores by 10 with less than 30 seconds left. Vandy had driven to within the red zone, but had no TOs left. Clock's ticked down to about 10 seconds. Vandy's QB goes to the shotgun, looks toward the end zone, but takes a sack. Tick tick tick, game over.

...

Why not just kick the FG there? Consider the givens: You have no TOs, you have to get an onside kick, everything's gonna have to be bang-bang. You have points ALREADY there for the taking. Flip it around...let's say you do get the touchdown. That leaves you with less than 10 seconds to recover an onside kick and...well, the tie's pretty much out of the question, as time just wouldn't permit a FG try at that point. So you'd just be tossing a Hail Mary...which you would have been going to do anyway. Only in this scenario, you'd have the added difficulty of scoring the first TD.

Vandy didn't play well enough to win, but still. Why not milk everything you can out of the end of the game?

 

Similar situation in the Cardinals-Giants game yesterday, except the Cardinals did the right thing.
Giants kick the FG to go up by 11, 37-26, just inside the two-minute warning. Cardinals get the ball back, drive to about the Giants 25 with 40 seconds left and kick the FG to make it 37-29. They didn't get the onsides kick, but at least they gave themselves a shot.

 

NFL coaches aren't as smart as we'd like to think.

 

Whose post are you replying to there?