Giants/Bucs Controversial Final Snap

    Who would have thought that a victory formation end of game kneel down would be a controversial topic this Monday morning? On what was the final snap of the game, taken with 5 seconds left on the clock, the Giants lined up for a routine kneel down to kill the final seconds. The Bucs lined up with three linemen over the center David Baas, and all three of them took shots at the center's knees. They all claim to have been trying to make a play on the ball, but why are you even doing this on a kneel down play? The chances of disrupting the snap and forcing a fumble on a kneel down are SUPER low. The play was honestly kind of dirty and unsportsman-like, in my opinion. It was a bush league play. Buccaneers head coach Greg Schiano claims it was just Buccaneers football. 

"I don't know if that's not something that's done in the National Football League. What I do with our football team is we fight until they tell us game over. And there's nothing dirty about it. There's nothing illegal about it. If people watched Rutgers, they would know that's what we do at the end of a game." - Head Coach Greg Schiano during post game interviews.

    What Schiano said post game bothers me on so many levels. Hmm...fight until the game is over, huh? What about when the Giants were driving inside of the 2 minute mark, and the Bucs defense just let them score a touchdown? On two consecutive plays inside the ten yard line, Schiano's "fight until the game is over" defense just stepped aside to let the Giants score. There wasn't much "fight" on those two plays. I understand the strategy behind this move, though. Its the same thing Bill Belichick did in last season's Super Bowl - let the opposing team score rather than run time off of the clock, in an attempt to give his quarterback a chance to win the game. This is a good strategy when your quarterback is Tom Brady, but not when its Josh Freeman. Freeman is nowhere near Brady's level (sorry). You should've just tried to get the defensive stop, Schiano. Don't sit there and tell the media your team fights until the final whistle when they took two plays off. I don't care what the strategy was behind it. Don't be a hypocrite.
    The Bucs coach also tried to justify the play by telling people to look at Rutgers game tape. Apparently, he coached that team to do the same thing. Sorry coach, but no one cares what your victory formation defense was when you coached college football. No one is saying "Hey, you know...that Greg Schiano guy might try to make a play on the ball if we go for a kneel down. I found these tapes of Rutgers victory formation defense, and it might be something we need to look out for!"
    Yes, I know there were no official rules broken by doing this, and that it wasn't illegal. But it's sort of an unwritten rule, that when a team lines up in the victory formation you almost have to concede defeat. There's nothing left that you can do. Your team is down on the scoreboard, and in most cases has no timeouts to stop the clock from running out. It's good sportsmanship, in my opinion, to just say "Okay, you guys were the better team today. There's nothing else we can do. Take the knee." It's almost like a sign of respect to the winning team.
    A lot of the reaction agreeing with Schiano is on this type of thinking, "Letting the other team just take a knee is like giving up! You have to fight until the clock says 0!" So, is EVERY other team that lets their opponent kneel down giving up? NO! That is ridiculous. The fact that I'm even writing this long of a blog about a kneel down play is ridiculous. Again, to me, it was an unsportsman-like move on Tampa Bay's part.

"I was on the sideline and I was kind of confused about it," said Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz. "It was a little bit of a cheap shot. You don't do that. Once I saw the offensive line get upset, I knew what they had done. You don't do that. As professionals, you understand what this game is. You don't take a cheap shot like that. There's a slim chance of a fumble, but it felt more like a cheap shot."

    The debate will probably rage on until this play is forgotten about all together. Some people agree with the Giants point of view about it (myself included), while others will agree with the Buccaneers side. All I have left to say is if you're going to preach about fighting until the final whistle, don't strategically have your defense take plays off. More importantly, maybe the Bucs wouldn't have had to try and make an improbable play on the ball if they hadn't given up 25 fourth quarter points. Maybe that play was a sign of frustration. That, or Schiano is just a sore loser.