So I've been thinking about the penultimate play against the Commanders and trying to fathom why on earth Eberflus said giving up 13 yards prior to the Hail Mary didn't matter.
Whatever we think of him as a head coach it's pretty much universally accepted that he is an excellent DC. He therefore must have had a good reason for his strategy.
I'm not saying I agree with it but I think I may have figured out his reasoning. It's a long explanation so please bear with me.
It comes down to Eberflus's love of analytics, which he's spoken about using in play call decision making multiple times since he's been in Chicago, and to a lesser extent the fact that scoring a touchdown was not the only way Washington could win the game.
Consider two scenarios for that second-to-last play.
Scenario 1: Allow the quick out as Eberflus did.
- Outcome 1: The pass falls incomplete and the clock stops.
Final Play: The Commanders throw a Hail Mary, snapping the ball from their own 35 yard line.
- Outcome 2 (what actually happened): The pass is caught and the receiver gets out of bounds stopping the clock.
Final Play: The Commanders attempt a Hail Mary, snapping the ball from their own 48 yard line.
Scenario 2: Defend the quick out.
- Outcome 1a: The Commanders attempt the pass anyway, it falls incomplete and the clock stops.
Final Play: The Commanders throw a Hail Mary, snapping the ball from their own 35 yard line.
- Outcome 1b: The pass is caught and the receiver gets out of bounds stopping the clock.
Final Play: The Commanders attempt a Hail Mary, snapping the ball from their own 48 yard line.
- Outcome 1c: The pass is caught but the receiver doesn't get of bounds.
The clock expires and the Bears win.
Any variation of this outcome is highly improbable because, as Eberflus himself said after the game, if the Bears defend the quick out then the Commanders are not going to attempt the throw.
- Outcome 2a: With the quick out negated by the defense, the receiver turns it up the sideline and Daniels tries to hit him with the pass falling incomplete.
Final Play: The Commanders throw a Hail Mary, snapping the ball from their own 35 yard line.
- Outcome 2b: With the quick out negated by the defense, the receiver turns it up the sideline, beats the coverage, Daniels hits him and he steps out of bounds around the Bears 40 yard line with 1 second remaining.
Final Play: Depending on the exact yardage gained and the kicker's range, the Commanders either attempt a long game-tying field goal to take the game into overtime or throw a Hail Mary snapping the ball from a spot closer than their own 48 yard line.
This outcome is unlikely. Not only would the throw be that much more difficult but the time would have been very tight. The Commanders would have risked the clock expiring before the play was complete. Also, with regard to the FG, the Washington kicker had already missed from 51 yards earlier in the game and has a poor record with long kicks. Although he made a career long 55 yarder earlier in the season in Baltimore, he's 3 of 9 for his career on kicks over 50 yards.
- Outcome 3: Both the quick out and the deeper sideline throw are negated by the defense so the play converts to a Hail Mary with the ball having been snapped at the Commanders 35 yard line. The defense has to adjust mid play and try to get everyone in position to defend it.
So in almost every scenario and in every like one the Commanders would have ended up throwing a Hail Mary.
The chance that the Bears could have ended the game on the penultimate play without it converting to a Hail Mary was virtually non-existent. If they covered the quick out the Commanders wouldn't have thrown it, as Eberflus said.
On the other hand giving up the quick out negated any outside chance of the Commanders being able to attempt a game tying field goal to send the game into overtime.
Therefore when Eberflus said it would have come down to a Hail Mary regardless he's really not wrong. The only question is whether there was a significant advantage for the Commanders to be throwing the ball with the line of scrimmage on their 35 yard line or their 48 yard line.
Firstly bear in mind that Daniels completed a 61 yard bomb earlier in the game. On this one the ball was snapped at the Commanders 21 yard line, Daniels effortlessly threw it from 8 yards behind the line of scrimmage at the 13 yard line. It was caught at the Bears 31 yard line so it travelled 56 yards in the air. He'd already demonstrated, despite his rib injury, that he had the arm strength to launch the ball the required distance for the Hail Mary pretty much regardless of whether the out had been completed.
Secondly Daniels ended up throwing the Hail Mary from the 35 yard line, a full 13 yards behind the line of scrimmage. Had the out route not been completed he could still have ended up throwing the Hail Mary from much the same spot.
The assumption has been that it was a definite advantage to be closer on a Hail Mary and be making a shorter throw. Do the analytics Eberflus is so wedded to actually support that though?
This graph only covers 2000 up until 2011, so it's dated. I couldn't find anything more current, but I'm sure NFL teams have the data. It does indicate though that there is essentially no significant difference in the probability of a successful Hail Mary for passes thrown anywhere between 50 and 70 yards. In fact if it's over 50 yards the probability of success is tiny.
Finally a couple of days ago ESPN reposted an article from 2019 about the strategies around Hail Mary's:
https://www.espn.co.uk/nfl/story/_/id/2 ... -defend-it
It includes comments from Kirk Cousins and Aaron Rodgers about the mechanics and placement of the throw. They both talk about how careful the QB has to be not to throw too deep because you can't afford for the ball to end up thrown or tipped out the back of the end zone. They stress trajectory and accuracy of the throw rather than it just being a heave up the field.
The article also talks about how many pass rushers to send against a Hail Mary. At the time the article was written it states "Coaches have sent more than four pass-rushers on only 15 of the 193 Hail Mary throws (7.8%). On the other hand, they have sent three or fewer rushers on 109 of them (56.5%), accounting for nine touchdowns against."
So Eberflus sending no more than 3 pass rushers is the most common strategy for defending Hail Marys. Furthermore the probability of completing one successfully is around 10%. 9/109 is only 8.26% which suggests it might be the better option although the small sample size for blitzing coupled with other factors, notably how far the ball has to travel, means it's probably not possible to reach any firm conclusion.
Anyway that's my explanation for Flus's comments and strategy regarding that penultimate play. I can understand why he favoured defending a certain Hail Mary over a play that would likely convert into a Hail Mary.
What I cannot understand is why he didn't call a timeout to discuss it with his players, especially when he was actually on the field trying to communicate with them just before the snap. He was even being pulled back off the field by his QB who was worried about him getting a penalty!
I also cannot understand why he didn't call a timeout before the Hail Mary either to ensure everyone was dialled in and focused on what they needed to do.
