Rex trusted his defense, it just proves he's not bullshitting everyone, he really believes in our team and it shows. Calls like that go a long way in the locker room.
I wanted the onside kick. At best we were looking at the ball back with just over a minute and no timeouts. People talk about how the Jets got lucky with Shwartz throwing the ball to stop the clock. What about losing 15 seconds on the sanchez TD? that was huge.
Had Suh hit the extra point and they're up by four I think Rex would've onside-kicked. That's a far more desperate situation given the time left. Either way I'm sure Rex was convinced we'd stop them, but I don't think he'd chance it coming down to a 90 yard TD drive. Down by three you kick deep, stop, get it back at the 20 worst case. That's only 50-55 yards needed. Had the Lions played it correctly it still would've been difficult to do - lucky for us they shot themselves in the foot with the clock management - but it's higher success rate than an onsides.
It comes down to time left. With one timeout and the 2:00 warning there was time to get a 3-and-out and get the ball back, so you want the better field position as you will need to get in FG range with no more imteouts and limited time. If it was after the 2:00 warning and one timeout I think they'd have onsides kicked.
If u have a good defense. u always kick deep as long as you know you can get the ball back with about 1 minute and 30 secs left. if you can't and they can kill it or almost kill it no matter what, then you go for the onside kick
The Lions cost themselves about 40 seconds, so it wouldn't have been impossible but harder for us to get in FG range in time. Had they made the extra point we'd of course have gone for 2 after Sanchez's TD, and depending on how that went might have onsides kicked if we failed the 2. Without Detroit's incomplete on 3rd down or the late hit we don't use the handoff to Greene at the end either, we'd have to play it differently but it could have been done.
I reckon alot had to do with the conversation Rex had with Westy. My guess is the MW said go long and hope for a fumble, if not pin them deep.
The other thing is you know their QB was out of the game and there was a real good chance of getting the ball back with little time and needing a FG, so the question is where do you get it? I think that's why they kicked it deep.
I would go deep. With the timeouts and about 3 mins on the board, we could have afforded one FD and still would have had a chance. And the way the D started to play, we had a better chance of getting the ball and getting the FG than getting ball after a possible Lions FG and trying to go for a TD. There was a similar issue in the GB game where Ryan had to decide going for it on 4th down or punt/FG. We went for it, failed, GB went 3 and out and punt. Their punt put us in a hole.
