An Experiment in Scotch

So San Fran is down by 7 with under two min­utes to go, they have a 4th and 10 on the 28 or so. If they kick a field goal, they still have to score a touch­down to win. As a coach, you have a chance to send a mes­sage to your play­ers that you aren’t giv­ing up, even if the sea­son seems lost. Instead, Mike Nolan kicks a mean­ing­less field goal. I just don’t under­stand why you’d ever do some­thing so dumb if you really are try­ing to win. Even if you have all your time­outs, I can’t believe you have a bet­ter chance of recov­er­ing an onside kick over mak­ing a fourth and ten from the 28. Even if you don’t make it, you have the oppo­nent at the 28 with all your timeouts.

As it is, you just look like you’re not try­ing to win.