The Great Escape (From Kansas City)

Take that PETA! You can't keep us down, not in a BBQ hub like Kansas City!

We won, the Broncos lost, so for at least one more sweet week we have life. Its a hell of a long shot that we'll still be in contention a week from now, but whatever. You take what you can get in this league, especially with the season we've had so far.

I think gave myself a headache from replaying the final touchdown call from Josh Lewin about 50 times. Josh is typically pretty excitable to begin with, but he's literally screaming his head off when the Chargers take the lead. Great Stuff, though I think I need some Advil now.

One thing that really is baffling to me is this clip of Norv's post game press conference (Sorry but I can't embed from that site). Specifically, right around the 0:56 mark, when he says something to the effect of "We wanted to give ourselves a chance to go score. The way onside kicks are in this league you have a pretty good chance. Roughly 50-50".

What?

First off, is Norv actually saying that the decision to onside kick was some bold master stroke? Christ man, there was one minute left and you're down 5 points. What other option is there? Even with all the timeouts the best you can hope for if you kick it away is for them to bleed a bit of time, force you to use your timeouts, and then maybe get a good punt return.

Maybe Norv didn't mean that, exactly. Its hard to tell with the context of this clip, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. But the second part is crazy.

50-50 for onside kicks?

Um... Norv? The odds of recovering an onside kick aren't "good" at all. You're right, 50-50 would be pretty good. Except its not 50-50. It varies by year, but generally its about 2 in 10. As in 20%. As in less than half as much as 50%. And keep in mind, too, that stat includes "surprise" onside kicks which the defense isn't as ready for. Recovery rates for when the "Hands" team is out there tend to be lower.

This is disturbing to me. We all have our problems with Norv, but whatever his shortcomings he always struck me as a pretty football savvy guy in an academic sense. If he had any strength as a coach (and the jury's out on that) it was his deep knowledge of football in general. So the fact that he somehow thinks recovering an onside kick is a 50-50 proposition is scary. Maybe it doesn't really matter, since onside kicks are a desperation move and Norv's belief about their success don't really affect when to try or how often we recover. But what else is he misinformed about? What other vital information is missing?