Jay Gruden Runs a Crappy Diner

Read this while eating: A ham and cheese sans cheese. (See below)

“Zero faith in Jay Gruden to even tie his shoelaces.” – Washington fan Josh L.

Imagine walking into your local sandwich restaurant and having the following interaction with your waiter, played here by Washington football coach Jay Gruden:

You: What sandwiches are good today?

Jay Gruden: Grilled cheese is always a great choice, in my opinion.

You: What kind of cheeses do you have?

JG: Actually, I think we just ran out of cheese.

You: You’re a sandwich store and you ran out of every type of cheese?

JG: Unfortunately, but don’t worry, we have tons of great sandwiches. Do you want a ham and cheese?

You: Sur—wait, didn’t you just say you were out of cheeses?

JG: Oh, yeah, good point, I forgot. How about a tuna sandwich?

You: Get me anything at this point.

JG: Would you like to upgrade to a tuna melt for an extra dollar?

You: [Tries very hard not to punch him while exiting premises]

Jay Gruden made a pretty confusing series of decisions against the Seahawks on Monday Night Football this week, which for the purpose of hyperbole I am going to call the single most frustrating and mind-numbingly idiotic set of coaching decisions in my entire blogging career!!!!!! At the beginning of the third quarter, Washington, down 17-7 to the defending Super Bowl Champion Seattle Supersonics, faced 3^rd & 1 on the Seahawks’ 9. Kirk Cousins barely got the snap off on time en route to trying a quarterback sneak that got stuffed for no gain. This was a pretty tame play call, but one that might have worked if Cousins had had a little more time to set up and pick his hole. (Whatever miscommunication occurred on the field is most likely not attributable to Gurden). Down ten points and needing three measly feet to get a fresh set of downs, Jay “Don’t Call Me Jon” Gruden elected to kick a field goal, thus going down 17-10.

This decision is not that controversial, or at least not as controversial as it should be. With few exceptions, coaches go with the safer of two options. Calling the game, Gruden’s brother lauded the move, noting that baby bro had taken the safe bet to keep the score within two possessions. (Interestingly, Jon “I Won a Super Bowl So Who Cares If You’re Mom’s Favorite” Gruden said he would think about going for it before his brother sent out the field goal unit.) It’s not productive to criticize statements made by conservative broadcasters in the heat of the moment…but it is a lot of fun so here goes: The pro-kicking argument based on keeping the game within two touchdowns is banal for two reasons. First, it was Washington’s first possession of the third quarter. There’s no reason to play the score this early in the game. Going down 17-10 is not much better than going down 17-7, as the Seahawks only needed a field goal (or a safety) to stretch that lead to three possessions—and they had 25 minutes of game time to do that. Second, kicking essentially tells your defense: “Go win this game for us.” Washington obviously needed to score a touchdown in order to tie the game, but they also needed to stop the Seahawks immediately after this field goal in order to have the opportunity to tie the game. Oh yeah, and also stop them every other time Seattle had the ball with a 7-point lead. Considering Washington’s best defense was the Seahawks committing penalties (including 3 TDs nullified in the game), I don’t feel great about the chances of this happening.

Jay Gruden absolutely should have gone for it. Generally, underdogs should play aggressively and favorites should play conservatively. (This is all relative.) When your team isn’t as good, you need to make the game higher-variance in order to win the game. Going for the first down—which, once again, was only one yard away, Cousins and co. didn’t exactly need to cross the Red Sea to pick it up—is a high-risk, high-reward strategy. Scratch that: it’s a moderate-risk, high-reward strategy that could have potentially brought the underdog to within a field goal. Still, playing it safe is what coaches do. They have a system, and they stick to it.

… Which makes Gruden’s next decision so perplexing. Down 17-10, having just pussyfooted around in the red zone, he has kicker Kai Forbath try an onside kick. This needs to be repeated: Gruden declined to try a 4^th & 1 from Seattle’s 9 only to try an onside kick on the very next play. This needs to be repeated a third time: Gruden didn’t want to pick up a yard deep in Seattle territory, then went for a freaking onside kick 30 seconds later.

Let’s do some really simple math together. If Washington had gone for it in the red zone and succeeded, they’re looking at three or four chances to score 7, and even if they don’t get a TD they can fall back on the field goal. If they go for it and fail, then they get no points but at least Seattle has to drive 90 yards to get a touchdown. Which they’re capable of doing, but they can do that whether you give them ball on downs or on the kickoff. And yeah, Washington’s offense isn’t great, but then again they only need one stinking yard, and Cousins and Morris can always fall back on the read-option. With the onside kick: if Washington recovers, they have to drive about 45 yards to get a touchdown. Not a sure thing, especially considering Seattle’s fearsome defense, but definitely possible. If Washington doesn’t recover, then you give Russell Wilson a short field to work with. Now, kicking onside isn’t a bad idea in a vacuum. Like I said, higher variance plays are a great idea for an underdog. But, and this next part is going to get its own paragraph:

Why the f*** would you not be aggressive in the red zone then immediately try an onside kick??!?!?!

Compounding the mistake is that Washington had been kicking short all game in an effort to keep the ball out of Percy Harvin’s hands. Usually when an onside kick succeeds, it’s because the returning team assumes a kick to the end zone. In this scenario it was just the opposite. To summarize: Gruden went super-conservative when being aggressive was easy, then decided to be super-aggressive when aggression was hard.

No, Gruden, I do not want any cheese on my tuna. I just want to pretend like it’s 2012 and Kyle Shanahan is calling plays.