Stranger than Fiction

If someone would have told you that the Titans would attempt four onside kicks in the first quarter, and that they'd recover three of them....you would have spit in his eye and called him crazy. In fact, if you were writing a movie about an underdog football team playing a big game against a rival, and someone suggested you write it so that the underdog team attempts four onside kicks in the first quarter and recovers three of them, you'd have that person fired from your writing staff immediately, after spitting in his eye and calling him crazy.

It is just incomprehensible. I can't get my brain around the fact that they've done this....and that freaking Jeff Mr. Conservative Fisher is the one calling those trick plays. These CBS announcers are freaking out...as well they should. Has this ever been done before? Is it lunacy? Is it pure nerve? Is it desperation? Do you really call Fisher smart for calling four first-quarter onside kicks just because they recovered three? I mean, isn't it conventional wisdom that onside kicks are for desperate times in the game specifically because they're such a low percentage play? Well you watch...now we'll see nothing but football analysts and gurus calling Fisher smart. They'll call him a genius. They'll call him clever. They'll call him ballsy. But if they'd not recovered one of them....he'd be called stupid.

I think the best you can say about him is that he's got guts....and maybe nothing to lose. I don't think it's smart. But then again, the game is tied, so....

And Drew Bennet rides the pine in my fantasy league because usually the prospect of him catching three TDs in the first quarter is just as crazy as thinking a team would onside kick it four times. This is already the game that will get the most press...the most editorials written about it....the most buzz.

On a side note, I certainly hope, as a Colts fan, that future opponents stupidly start onside kicking it every time, because football cannot defy the logic and sense of good math for too long. Right?

Geez. Just figured someone ought to post about it, get this ball rolling. Certainly the onside kick gambles have worked so far today for Fisher....but you can't tell me that he's just an absolute genius for it. He's just got a horrible enough record, and an injury depleted enough team, to take some ridiculous risks. They paid off, but it doesn't make them less risky.