Point shaving

At the end of the game, it seemed odd that Brown ran of bounds at the 15 without the defender really challenging him. Then on the last Williams run, with less than 10 seconds to go, he let himself get pushed out of bounds and didn't really sell out for the pylon.

Then after the game, I checked the history of the line and it went from PIT-5.5 to PIT-4 at the last minute, which indicates a lot of late money on the Raiders to cover.

Is this a legit concern or a coincidence?

 

No, there was no point shaving. Old man Woodson somehow ran down AB. Also, AB could have been out of gas too, you don't know.
As for Williams, he tried, but it was also smart on his part. If he doesn't get in, time expires, and you have to go to overtime. If you get that close, you go out of bounds to go up by three.

I'm more curious how the field goal only took two seconds off the clock. That seemed awfully quick to me.

 

You have to realize at the end of the game both of these guys were bone tired, AB ran about 4 miles and had been hit all day, Williams was pounded for 4 quarters, being tired had more to do with it than them playing the odds for the vegas bookies, welcome to the board....

 

I think it was more of a case, that Brown thought we can make a FG from here and run the clock down to a few seconds and give Raiders won't get the ball back.

 

Did Woodson run him down? If you watch the reply, you'll notice that there was no contact, but admittedly Woodson had the angle and was probably going to get there. When was the last time you saw a receiver go out of bounds under those circumstances due to fatigue?

The rebuttal to your Williams comment is that Pittsburgh still had a timeout, which they used anyway, despite him going out of bounds.

 

Also If they were shaving points, did you notice Williams tried like heck to score his 3rd rushing TD and almost did?

 

Yeah, 99% sure it was Woodson. I thought AB could have beaten him, but as you said he had the angle. Woodson is a vet, he knew the right angle to take to get to him. Maybe if AB tried to cut it back in he could have gone the distance? Hard to say for sure.

 

Totally disagree with this.

 

Him going out at the one cost me a thousand dollars because of me having the Steelers and giving the Raiders 4.5 points. I don't think it was to shave points. I just think the game played out that way. I don't like losing the money, but I would much rather the Steelers won than winning the bet. The bet can be recovered over the rest of the games. Had they lost, that loss couldn't be recovered or erased. Beside everything was moving so fast at the end of that game it would have been hard to react to trying to shave the points between a field goal and a touchdown. IMO

 

Brown and Williams were not finishing.
They took the easy way out of bounds.

I only remember once Williams put his head down and finished.

 

The main thing I was concerned about was answered. They both protected the ball. Just for selfish fantasy points I wish that Williams would have scored but at least he and AB didn't fumble it away on either of those plays.

 

I was equally surprised by Brown going out of bounds. He had the step on woodson. There was a few incidents where I thought brown could have got more including some close first downs.

 

I kept screaming for Brown to go down and not score with so much time left. That was smart football on his part.

 

This

 

You related to Jesse and Frank? Welcome. I'm with Diamond - these guys had run their assess off all afternoon and their team had just somehow lost a 14 pt lead. Conservative decisions to run out of bounds with the ball firmly in hand at the end saved this game for the Steelers.

 

How many times have you seen a WR go for 284 yards? Not often..... then factor in the actual running on plays he doesn't get the ball. Woodson had the angle and AB was carrying the ball in the wrong hand.... best not to give up a fumble at that moment, IMHO. Plus, We won the game.

 

While I don't think it was deliberate point-shaving, Williams not going in the endzone was the really shocking part to me. Brown may or may not have made it and I think it makes sense to keep control of the clock at that point. Williams, however, could've easily gotten into the endzone with basically no time left. I'm not sure what he was told in the huddle but why risk a close, high-rising and difficult kick (it was as close as possible) when you can easily score and win the game?

I don't think it was point shaving but I do think it was poorly played.

 

never shave it to a point.

aluminum foil lined helmets could relay a message telepathically of course.

 

The players no way. Nothing really indicates this. My question for this would fall on the officials. At the end of the game with the late flags, especially the extreme lateness of the pick call, I would say the refs could have been influenced.

The game started to resemble the SND game of 2008 when the score was actually changed after the end of the game. And yes, that was the same situation with the late point spread swing.

 

Yeah, you all are probably right. But we've seen players forced out of bounds before, and those two plays looked different to me than other instances where guys were trying to protect the ball or manage the clock - the Williams run in particular.

Just an awkward coincidence that a few heavy bettors came in backing Oakland at the last minute.

As far as how it would be accomplished - giving up an opportunity for a (debatably) easy TD in favor of a FG where you win the game either way is pretty much the most straightforward way to shave points.

I am not sure how the line change would be communicated. How many hours before the game do they take away the player's phones?