Before we go any further, we need to define what a mayday field goal actually is. Broncos coach Sean Payton said he calls it “hurricane” now, and other teams might refer to it as “lightning,” but whatever you call it, teams have similar parameters.
- Running clock
- Offense has no timeouts left in the half
- Third down, in or near field-goal range
- Inside of 40 seconds, all the way down to 17 seconds on the clock
The Athletic talked to two recently out-of-the-game special teams coordinators and three other current NFL staffers who work closely with coaching decisions, and all five agreed that an NFL team should not sub out their existing defense for the field goal block defense when they are operating in a “mayday” field goal situation. There’s not enough time to guarantee a clean substitution (under two minutes, the officials don’t stand over the ball to allow a man-for-man substitution) and the chances of blocking a field goal are miniscule.
“Defensively, we would never substitute an opponent’s mayday situation for the exact reason (of) what happened the other night,” said Mike Priefer, longtime special teams coordinator for four NFL teams, most recently the Cleveland Browns.
Over the past five seasons, just 2.2 percent of all field goal attempts have been blocked across the NFL (86 of 3,925), and it’s been even less common with the game on the line. Over the same span, just 1.8 percent of all potential game-tying/go-ahead field goal attempts in the fourth quarter or overtime have been blocked (7 of 392).
Buffalo has actually had better-than-average results on this play. The Bills have blocked 2.7 percent of all opponent field goal attempts under head coach Sean McDermott, the seventh-highest rate across the NFL since his first season in 2017. That includes 7.1 percent of potential game-tying/go-ahead attempts in the fourth quarter or OT by their opponents (1 of 14).
But that’s still not enough reward to risk a more likely and unnecessary result: Having too many men on the field.
“You don’t want to give them a second chance,” Priefer said. “Whatever 11 is on the field, in a mayday situation, nickel or dime, keep them out there and make sure you don’t have more than six on the line of scrimmage on one side of the center or the other, and make sure you come off the edge.”
Is every post on this sub about the Bills now?
Gonna start by saying Priefer is a garbage human.
But he ain’t wrong. Whoever was responsible for making that substitution should have been the one to be canned.
My first reaction realtime was “they have to give us the opportunity to sub, I wonder if that means we can sub slowly and kill the clock?” Then afterwards my reaction was to turn off all the lights in my house and drink in silence.
It worked against the Vikings last year, we figured no one would notice!
Now here’s a productive discussion!
The Bills got confused and thought that was the Toronto Series, thus they assumed they could play with Canadian rules — 12 men.
Isn’t there quite a few pretty odd rules for field goals though? Like he already mentioned the no more than 6 on either side of the center. And then there’s things like can’t hit the center and the snap is different too. I imagine if you’re a guy who hasn’t really played much special teams itd be more likely to get a pre snap penalty or just a penalty in general, especially if you’re an entire unit of players not typically on special teams.
I’ve been saying this all week, just keep your regular defense out there and make sure they don’t beat you with a trick play. If they want their kicker to be hurried off the sideline for their walkoff attempt rather than set up exactly where he wants to be thats on them, if they hit the kick with that kind of pressure there’s really not much that couldve been done anyways
Seriously, why would their offensive coordinator do this?
What’s even more questionable is that the Broncos weren’t running real offensive plays beforehand only kneel downs so there was no reason why the Bills couldn’t have started with their field goal unit on the field
Poor job of situational coaching by the Bills. Broncos decided to put the kicker under intense pressure when they didn’t have too and the Bills bailed them out.
There’s been too many times we’ve lost games due to stupid shit like this. I appreciate what McDermott has done for this franchise but damn idk if I wanna continue on this path
This path was the way in Buffalo long before McDermott was here. He helped us do better things, but the stupid, most costly shit will always be with us. We need to admit that, and find a way to win anyway.
I’ve said it before but Kalyn Kahler is the best football journalist out there right now.
I’ve said it before on here, but I think Kalyn Kahler is the best football journalist in the game right now.
What if you want a defense that goes higher than 11?
…but this one goes to eleven.