To Kick? Or not to kick?

The Panthers won (!) Sunday after a long drive capped by a DeAngelo Williams touchdown run, putting the Panthers up 28-21 over Tampa Bay. At the time, it made me nervous – I thought going for the TD under those circumstances was not necessarily a bad call, but not the highest-percentage play, either. Yes, the Panthers won, but as a purely academic discussion for people who love football, this is an interesting case.

Here’s my reasoning: The Panthers have managed to burn off eight minutes running the ball on 14 of 15 plays, including 12 consecutive plays straight up the middle. Running the clock is a good thing; it leaves the Bucs with less time to score once they get the ball back. But then Williams scoots into the end zone with 1:21 left on the clock. (Of course, what was he supposed to do? Fall down on the one-yard line?) No, the Bucs are probably not going to make it down the field the old-fashioned way in one minute (29 seconds by the time they actually took possession)… But they had already scored on a kick-off return, and the Panthers’ special teams coverage is among the worst in the NFL.

The argument against running the clock down to two seconds and then kicking a chip-shot field goal is that the Bucs had already blocked a Panther kick in the second quarter. But that came at the Bucs’ 34-yard line; kicks from right under the goal, where John Kasay would’ve been there at the end, are successful 98 percent of the time. One has to weigh the odds of the kick being blocked against the odds of Tampa Bay returning the ensuing kickoff for another touchdown – and me, I do NOT like those odds.

So Coach Sara would run out the clock, kick a field goal, and win by three rather than seven. Worst case scenario: kick misses, or is blocked (neither likely) and the game goes to overtime. (Kind of ironic, since in every other situation I HATE play-it-safe kicking...)

(This is kind of funny: I was thinking about down sides to kicking in that situation, and I thought of the play-off tie-breaker that looks at margin of victory, and wondered if that could be a factor later in the season…….. And then I remembered that I was talking about Carolina and Tampa Bay.)

In other sort-of Panthers news… the Eagles signed Will Witherspoon from the Rams. Good for you, ’spoon! Witherspoon, of course, was one of the many players on the Panthers’ formerly top-rated defense cut to make room for the DeShaun Foster Fund. Also, the Jets placed Kris Jenkins on injured reserve, ending his season. I hate it for him, but the obnoxious Jets fans who’ve been ragging the Panthers for cutting Jenkins when he’s sooooooo good kinda deserve it. (Guess what, Jets? He’s also soooooooooo injury-prone. Enjoy.)

Read the play-by-play for the game, and FootballOutsiders' take.