11-17-2013, 08:53 AM
I'm with you, if I'm going to blame any particular player for this loss (not that I really condone doing that) it's absolutely Ty Montgomery. Here are some mistakes I remember off the top of my head:
1) Dropped that long pass that probably would've been a TD, resulting in a 3-and-out on our first possession. And that was a drop, hit him right in the hands, couldn't have been placed better.
2) Dropped 2 other passes that were pretty catchable, though I don't recall if those ones ended up being important.
3) Repeatedly insisted on taking kickoffs out of the end zone from 5+ yards deep and then not being able to get the yardage (average return of 17.8 according to ESPN, though I don't know if this includes the penalty we got on his only one that went longer than 25). This probably cost us between 10 and 15 yards of field position on every kickoff but the one he didn't handle (where the receiver wanted to take it out but was dissuaded by another player).
4) Basically the same as above, but trying to be the hero on the final kickoff costing us something like 6-7 seconds of clock. If he just runs straight and goes down instead of pointlessly dancing around, we at least get a play to try to set up the hail Mary, but we didn't even get that.
5) Tipping that Hogan pass up into the air for no reason whatsoever. He had just been pushed out of bounds, he has to know that the best thing that happens there is we get an illegal touching penalty, and the worst is what did happen.
He did some good things too, but 37 total yards (outside of kickoffs) isn't great, especially when you consider what it should have been. I'm not going to say he cost us the game, but if you want to blame a player, I think he's where you have to start.
1) Dropped that long pass that probably would've been a TD, resulting in a 3-and-out on our first possession. And that was a drop, hit him right in the hands, couldn't have been placed better.
2) Dropped 2 other passes that were pretty catchable, though I don't recall if those ones ended up being important.
3) Repeatedly insisted on taking kickoffs out of the end zone from 5+ yards deep and then not being able to get the yardage (average return of 17.8 according to ESPN, though I don't know if this includes the penalty we got on his only one that went longer than 25). This probably cost us between 10 and 15 yards of field position on every kickoff but the one he didn't handle (where the receiver wanted to take it out but was dissuaded by another player).
4) Basically the same as above, but trying to be the hero on the final kickoff costing us something like 6-7 seconds of clock. If he just runs straight and goes down instead of pointlessly dancing around, we at least get a play to try to set up the hail Mary, but we didn't even get that.
5) Tipping that Hogan pass up into the air for no reason whatsoever. He had just been pushed out of bounds, he has to know that the best thing that happens there is we get an illegal touching penalty, and the worst is what did happen.
He did some good things too, but 37 total yards (outside of kickoffs) isn't great, especially when you consider what it should have been. I'm not going to say he cost us the game, but if you want to blame a player, I think he's where you have to start.