I am seeing quite a bit of crying over the endgame of the Lions.. https://www.steelernation.com/2025/12/25/steelers-lions-controversial-aidan-hutchinson-sinful
But let me explain why the Lions deserved exactly what they got.
For those of you who arent hardcore into football strategy, that OPI at the end was an INTENTIONAL strategy, and one used in that particular situation more often than not.
In football, there is what we call "Advantageous Penalties" loopholes that, in the right scenario, can help, or at least not penalize your team enough to matter
A great example of this is the current " kicking the ball out of bounds on a kickoff after a personal foul"
Instead of giving it to a team on the 40 or further, it gives it to them on the 25. This penalty in that situation is advantageous...
Or say up a touchdown late in the game, a CB has a wr with a step ahead of him with the ball in the air... tackling him abd just giving him no shot at the catch is a legitimate strategy.. it penalizes you, but not as much as letting the play develop as is... you get another shot to defend, even if its on an untimed down.
So there absolutely are times taking a penalty isnt a bad thing..
There is also a philosophy that " Refs cant or wont call em all"
OL and DBs routinely hold, Wrs and TE's commit a lost of OPI, a lot of which is basically schemed into routes
It recently was a hot topic over on cleveland boards that the Steelers have a "just hold garrett if he gets past you" strategy
Now this strategy is used on most high end pass rushers by most teams... its why we are perpetually bitching about holds on Watt, or Harrison before him..
The logic is simple:
A. If you hold him....
- The refs may not see it
-if they do, they may call it once or twice, but they arent calling it more than three times..
-calling it causes a ten yard penalty and REPLAYING the down
B. If you dont...
-he sacks the QB, causing a yardage loss PLUS a loss of down
-There is a potential he causes a fumble
- there is a potential he rushes a pass, causing a pick
So the net sum of those two outcomes does steer teams to perpetual holding on high end pass rushers..
So lets flip back to the lions scenario..
first of all, lets look at the drive leading up to the last play...
There were several huge calls that went the lions way..
-an extremely close catch on 3rd and 13 that went to review and was upheld in the lions favor
-a correct call on an inadvertent trip while highsmith was trying to sack goff
-a DPI on 4th and 2, without which the game may have ended there.
The lions had three calls go against them that drive
- one was a false start
- one was an OPI on a clear pick play, this negated a TD grab
* let me note that the Steelers had been called on tge same type of pick play earlier this game, also negating a td grab
- and of coursectge final OPI penalty
Lets set it up:
4th and goal from the 9 yard line
8 seconds left
Down by 5 points
No timeouts
Two straight incompletions previously..,
So its fourth down... throwing another incompletion if nothing is open isnt an option
They had no run game all game, and being stopped short was a game ender
They had just been called for OPI, and tge Steekers had two opis.. in a league where one or two OPI's a game is typically the max and in a last play scenario it is rarely called on.
The strategy here is to run that quick route St Brown ran. If the CB vacated that spot, its a quick TD, if not, you do that push off and come back as he did.
99% of the time the other zone guy wont react that quickly... its almost always a Td
This is assuming refs rarely call opi in this scenario, but even if they do, this play should not take more than 5 or 6 seconds... it can be as short as 4.
St Brown was pushed back for 3 seconds ( clearly forward progress was stopped, btw)
Here is the loophole kicker.. you do that pushboff to completely eliminate the db who is most likely to make a play... and this is a td a very high % of times.. if they call OPI after that td, there are a couple seconds left
Even if he was stopped at the one, as he was, THERE IS NO 10 SECOND RUNOFF for non procedural offensive penalties. The clock is stopped..
So here are the typical potential outcomes of this play
1. Incomplete pass/int/no penalty .....someone screwed up.. game over, (which is a possibility on every single play, so it doesnt matter in this logic exercise)
2. The CB isnt in position-TD
3. The CB is in position and grabs hold of tge wr on the pushoff- DPI, td stands or another down
4. Pushoff isnt seen, second cb doesnt react in time -TD
5. OPI gets called, TD scored, time is on the clock, down is replayed
6. Other CB stops player short of the TD ( again not an easy thing to do on this play) penalty not accepted, end of game
So there are a ton of positive or neutral outcomes to this play.. and that push-off is absolutely planned.. its a calculated risk that typically at least gets you another down..
The problem they ran into was that the play was read and played correctly by the D, and he didnt score the TD, Because of a great stop.. and the lateral didnt happen until after the clock expired... and by rule there aren't untimed downs for offensive penalties...
So for all the crying about that game, understand this.. they were trying to exploit a loophole. They are not victims at all
But let me explain why the Lions deserved exactly what they got.
For those of you who arent hardcore into football strategy, that OPI at the end was an INTENTIONAL strategy, and one used in that particular situation more often than not.
In football, there is what we call "Advantageous Penalties" loopholes that, in the right scenario, can help, or at least not penalize your team enough to matter
A great example of this is the current " kicking the ball out of bounds on a kickoff after a personal foul"
Instead of giving it to a team on the 40 or further, it gives it to them on the 25. This penalty in that situation is advantageous...
Or say up a touchdown late in the game, a CB has a wr with a step ahead of him with the ball in the air... tackling him abd just giving him no shot at the catch is a legitimate strategy.. it penalizes you, but not as much as letting the play develop as is... you get another shot to defend, even if its on an untimed down.
So there absolutely are times taking a penalty isnt a bad thing..
There is also a philosophy that " Refs cant or wont call em all"
OL and DBs routinely hold, Wrs and TE's commit a lost of OPI, a lot of which is basically schemed into routes
It recently was a hot topic over on cleveland boards that the Steelers have a "just hold garrett if he gets past you" strategy
Now this strategy is used on most high end pass rushers by most teams... its why we are perpetually bitching about holds on Watt, or Harrison before him..
The logic is simple:
A. If you hold him....
- The refs may not see it
-if they do, they may call it once or twice, but they arent calling it more than three times..
-calling it causes a ten yard penalty and REPLAYING the down
B. If you dont...
-he sacks the QB, causing a yardage loss PLUS a loss of down
-There is a potential he causes a fumble
- there is a potential he rushes a pass, causing a pick
So the net sum of those two outcomes does steer teams to perpetual holding on high end pass rushers..
So lets flip back to the lions scenario..
first of all, lets look at the drive leading up to the last play...
There were several huge calls that went the lions way..
-an extremely close catch on 3rd and 13 that went to review and was upheld in the lions favor
-a correct call on an inadvertent trip while highsmith was trying to sack goff
-a DPI on 4th and 2, without which the game may have ended there.
The lions had three calls go against them that drive
- one was a false start
- one was an OPI on a clear pick play, this negated a TD grab
* let me note that the Steelers had been called on tge same type of pick play earlier this game, also negating a td grab
- and of coursectge final OPI penalty
Lets set it up:
4th and goal from the 9 yard line
8 seconds left
Down by 5 points
No timeouts
Two straight incompletions previously..,
So its fourth down... throwing another incompletion if nothing is open isnt an option
They had no run game all game, and being stopped short was a game ender
They had just been called for OPI, and tge Steekers had two opis.. in a league where one or two OPI's a game is typically the max and in a last play scenario it is rarely called on.
The strategy here is to run that quick route St Brown ran. If the CB vacated that spot, its a quick TD, if not, you do that push off and come back as he did.
99% of the time the other zone guy wont react that quickly... its almost always a Td
This is assuming refs rarely call opi in this scenario, but even if they do, this play should not take more than 5 or 6 seconds... it can be as short as 4.
St Brown was pushed back for 3 seconds ( clearly forward progress was stopped, btw)
Here is the loophole kicker.. you do that pushboff to completely eliminate the db who is most likely to make a play... and this is a td a very high % of times.. if they call OPI after that td, there are a couple seconds left
Even if he was stopped at the one, as he was, THERE IS NO 10 SECOND RUNOFF for non procedural offensive penalties. The clock is stopped..
So here are the typical potential outcomes of this play
1. Incomplete pass/int/no penalty .....someone screwed up.. game over, (which is a possibility on every single play, so it doesnt matter in this logic exercise)
2. The CB isnt in position-TD
3. The CB is in position and grabs hold of tge wr on the pushoff- DPI, td stands or another down
4. Pushoff isnt seen, second cb doesnt react in time -TD
5. OPI gets called, TD scored, time is on the clock, down is replayed
6. Other CB stops player short of the TD ( again not an easy thing to do on this play) penalty not accepted, end of game
So there are a ton of positive or neutral outcomes to this play.. and that push-off is absolutely planned.. its a calculated risk that typically at least gets you another down..
The problem they ran into was that the play was read and played correctly by the D, and he didnt score the TD, Because of a great stop.. and the lateral didnt happen until after the clock expired... and by rule there aren't untimed downs for offensive penalties...
So for all the crying about that game, understand this.. they were trying to exploit a loophole. They are not victims at all
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