Sports Nut: The Ballsiest Call in Super Bowl History.

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Sports Nut NFL 2011 The ballsiest call in Super Bowl history. By Brian Burke Posted Monday, Feb 06, 2012, at 01:30 PM ET Bill Belichick may have made one of the gutsiest calls in Super Bowl history: instructing his defense to allow the Giants to score the go-ahead touchdown with just a minute remaining. The only gutsier move would've been for the Giants to respond by not scoring. Instead, Ahmad Bradshaw's six-yard run and subsequent pratfall into the end zone may have been the most counterproductive score of all time. That run came on second down, with 1:04 remaining. Here's why the Giants didn't want a touchdown in that situation. The best-case scenario for New York would have been to run the ball one more time, draining the clock and forcing the Patriots to expend their final timeout. Then, with just a few seconds remaining, send in the field goal unit for what would have been a 99 percent kick in perfect indoor conditions to take the lead by a point, leaving virtually no time for the Patriots to respond. Using Win Probability (a simple estimate of who's going to win based on score and other variables), we know that if Bradshaw been able to stop his momentum and fall prior to scoring, the Giants would have had a 0.98 WP—in other words, a 98 percent chance of winning. While it looked as if Bradshaw was pulling the video-game trick of burning an additional second or two prior to scoring, he told reporters after the game, "I tried to declare myself down and tapped down ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Who Was That Guy in the Toga With Madonna? And What Was He Doing? The Gutsiest Call in Super Bowl History That Shrink on Gawker Blabs His Patients' Secrets. Are Therapists Allowed To Do That?	Advertisement
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