The Playoff win HINGE POINT - does it really show a team's true Caliber

[*ochocincos*]

(02-12-2018, 03:03 PM)fredtoast Wrote: They ran the ball on 6 of their first 7 first downs in the second half.  They only "chose" to stop when they stopped gaining yards.  After gaining 12 yards on the first carry of the second half the Bengals only gained a total of 4 yards on their next 4 first down carries.  And by then they were down by 2 scores with just 6 minutes left.

1) That timeline is a little off and misleading. The Bengals were up 10-7 at halftime. By the end of the third quarter, they were only down 17-10. With 14:20 remaining, the Chargers kick a FG to go up by 10. Yes, technically this is two scores, but it's "just" a TD, XP, and FG difference. Not two TDs. It wasn't until the last 2:30 that the game got out of reach with Ronnie Brown's 58-yard TD run to put the Chargers up 26-10.

2) Here's when the rushing attempts came in the second half...
14:55 in 3Q - BJGE for 12 yards
14:16 in 3Q - BJGE for 3 yards
1:54 in 3Q - Bernard for 2 yards
14:10 in 4Q - Bernard for -1 yards
13:12 in 4Q - Bernard 0 yards
12:11 in 4Q - Bernard for 6 yards
6:37 in 4Q - Bernard for 12 yards

You accurately did call me out on being wrong about the rushing. I spoke incorrectly. I should have specified rushing with BJGE, who got a whole two carries in the second half when he had a YPC of 5.3. I get using Bernard more once the team went down by two scores, but that didn't happen until the fourth quarter.
It also didn't help that Dalton fumbled once, threw two picks, and was sacked a couple times all in the second half. But maybe if they team had chosen to run the ball with BJGE a few more times in the second half when it was clearly working in the first half, at least some of that stuff wouldn't have happened.