If you watched the whole Vikings game and their destruction of the Cowboys this past Sunday you probably saw the fourth quarter touchdown pass to Visante Shiancoe with 2:00 minutes left on the clock. At that point it was already 27-3, so the game was already well in hand for Minnesota. Also, consider that it was fourth and three and the Vikings coaching staff still decided to go for it. Maybe even a little more surprising is the play selection of a pass and not a run (even though a touchdown would have stopped the clock and so would a turnover on downs).
While I don't completely disagree with the decision, it seemed out of place to go for it on fourth down, especially when Brad Childress is the coach and the game was over way before that. Cowboys Linebacker Keith Brooking wasted no time following Favre to the Vikings sideline to show his objection to the call. Jared Allen swiftly shooed the disgruntled aging Linebacker away to deal with his team's embarrassing overall performance.
"I thought it was classless," Brooking said, via Kevin Seifert of ESPN.com. "I thought it was B.S. Granted, we get paid to stop them, but we had zero timeouts left. I didn't think there was any call for that."
Well Keith, your team didn't have any time outs left because Wade Phillips used all three of them after consecutive running plays from the Vikings offense with six minutes left. Even your Head Coach was prolonging the agony of defeat by stopping the clock. By doing so Phillips made it clear the Cowboys had not conceited the game but were still fighting. With that in mind, the Vikings took that to heart and emphasized their dominance with the late score. My mentality on the subject is just like playing Madden. If your opponent still has life you have to stomp it out of them (and always run up the score to pad your stats for post game bragging rights).
I love Visante Shiancoe's locker room response to Brookings comments.
"OK, we apologize," Shiancoe said. "I'm sorry. Better?"
But Childress's post game response is better.
"As Lou Holtz used to say, 'It's our job to score points and it's their job to stop us from scoring points."
Personally I don't really disagree with the real life call to go for it but I can see how an opponent would be upset. I wouldn't go as far to call it classless, but it was definitely unnecessary. But this is the playoffs, and if you don't come to play you deserve to be put in your place. My favorite rebuttal to Brooking's whining is: "If you don't like it, do something about it." That, the Cowboys could not do.
Any thoughts on the late touchdown or Brookings whining?
*
