Original Airdate: Monday, November 16, 2009. This is a part of the 93-Second Sports Shot series. 93-Second Sports Shots air weekday nights at 6pm.

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In yesterday's thrilling edition of Sunday Night Football, in which the Colts defeated the Patriots 35-34, it wasn't at all surprising to see Peyton Manning, one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, drive for 30 yards and fire a strike to Reggie Wayne from 3 yards out with 17 seconds on the clock for the winning touchdown. What WAS surprising were the events which led to that drive. With time running down to 2 minutes remaining in the fourth quarter and the Colts left with just one timeout, Bill Belichick and the Patriots faced 3rd down with 2 yards left to go at their own 30 yard line. Converting that 3rd down would have iced the game, giving the Pats the opportunity to run down the clock and escape with a 34-28 win. But Tom Terrific's pass was tipped at the line of scrimmage and incomplete. 4th and 2. Time to punt, right? Wrong. Belichick defied coaching standards and elected to go for it on 4th down, rather than improving field position and giving the ball to Manning. Brady completed a pass to Kevin Faulk, but Faulk fell a couple inches short of the first down on a questionable spot. The Colts took the ball and, as they say, the rest is history.

In a world of constant speculation, Belichick's decision not to punt will go down in the books as a horrible one. Most will say, “What could he possibly have been thinking, running the risk of giving the ball to Manning with such a short field?” But the situation isn't quite that simple. The average punt nets 39 yards of field position for the punting team. We've all seen what Peyton Manning is capable of in late-game situations. Whether he had to drive 30 yards or 70, odds were that the Colts would score, especially considering Manning had a full 2 minutes and a timeout with which to work. When you factor in that the Patriots have converted nearly 60% of all 4th and short scenarios since Brady became the starter, going for it on 4th down suddenly seems like the obvious move from a pragmatist's point of view. Simply put, Belichick wanted to put the outcome of the game in the hands of his offense and not his defense. An offense that had gained 477 yards and just needed 2 more versus a defense that would end up allowing 35 points. Seems like an obvious choice to me. There are plenty of reasons to dislike Bill Belichick. This valid coaching decision is not one of them.

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