David Haugh‘s attitude in his column for the Tribune toward Rex Ryan‘s decision to fake punt in the second quarter seems to be typical. He thinks it was a bad decision and it certainly was in that it didn’t work.
“‘They wouldn’t put (Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez) in the game and punt the ball, you’re not going to make the starting quarterback block,’ (Bears special teams player Rashied) Davis said. ‘They did what I thought they would do. Maybe they thought we’d panic.’
“Or maybe Ryan’s arrogance in thinking he couldn’t possibly guess wrong loosened the Jets’ grip on a winnable game in a New York minute.
“‘It could have been,’ Davis said. ‘From watching ‘Hard Knocks,’ (on HBO), he seems like an arrogant guy.”’
But I’m not inclined to criticize Ryan too much for being bold. His defense was performing well and he didn’t want to kick to Devin Hester. Seen without the benefit of hindsight, I didn’t have a big problem with the decision.
Having said that, as implied by Davis, perhaps Ryan or one of his coaches should be worried about how they ran the play. It’s evident that the Bears picked something up on tape. Vaughn McClure reports for the Chicago Tribune:
“(Jets utility man Brad) Smith was told the Bears called out, ‘Fake,’ before the play.
“‘You could tell they kind of knew,’ he said. ‘They get paid too.”’