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Congrats to Pittsburgh for a stellar win over the previously unbeaten Philly squad! A fantastic game by both teams.

That being said, if you look at the last drive by Pittsburgh, it appears that the end game logic is a bit off.

Here is what happened:

1-10-PIT 50 (4:37) 16-Jose Macmillan pass complete to 86-Richard Hixson to PIT 38 for 12 yds.

1-10-PIT 38 (3:56) 16-Jose Macmillan pass complete to 82-Brad Benevides to PIT 34 for 4 yds.
2-6-PIT 34 (3:08) 16-Jose Macmillan pass incomplete, intended for 84-Berry Cheung.
3-6-PIT 34 (3:04) 16-Jose Macmillan pass complete to 84-Berry Cheung to PIT 26 for 8 yds.

1-10-PIT 26 (2:28) 31-Brandon Brown ran to PIT 24 for 2 yds.

Everything is going fine up to the 2 minute warning.

Timeout for two minute warning.

2-9-PIT 24 (2:00) 16-Jose Macmillan pass complete to 82-Brad Benevides to PIT 18 for 6 yds.
3-3-PIT 18 (1:56) 31-Brandon Brown ran to PIT 17 for 2 yds.
4-1-PIT 17 (1:15) 1-Benito Lopez 35 yard field goal is GOOD. PHI 23 PIT 27 ???????????

Is it really plausible that Philly would kick a FG here when they trail by 7 points with barely a minute left in the game? Sure they have all their time outs, but this is for all the marbles.

(1:12) 1-Benito Lopez kicks 74 yards from PHI 35 to PIT -9. Touchback.

If you answered yes to my above question, then is it really believable that Philly would not try an onside kick here? There is no way that they would ever do a regular kick-off. Even with all their time outs, there is no way that they could ever hope to get the ball back with any realistic amount of time that would be needed to score a TD.

This is not intended to diminish what Pittsburgh did. They played a great game and earned the title, but the end game logic should be examined to make sure that decisions are being made correctly.

Oh, but that is not all, Cork my friend! After kicking off long the Eagles actually forced a three and out, which should have given them the ball back with about a minute left, right? Instead, they only had 10 seconds because they did not call a timeout after the Steelers' first down run!

Nevertheless, a great win for the Steelers who, let's face it, had been on the short end of the breaks stick for most of the game. Cervantes, he of the 93% FG accuracy missed two FGs, including a 39-yarder. Philly fumbled twice and recovered, while Calvillo threw two interceptions. And of course, the magic play which I will talk about in another thread. Luckily the Eagles only ran it twice, but it's an unfair advantage to have a magic play!

Of course, McMillan did throw a key pick, so it wasn't all Philly. Other than that, I don't how we stopped them, but stop them we did! Bring out the champagne. It's time to celebrate!

Most likely Philly's hurry-up settings were set too low because they would not kicked long if they were in hurry-up. Probably influenced the FG as well.

Impressive win by FF to keep Philly from being the first 19-0 team!

I saw that as well which burned off a lot of time. Perhaps the Philly coach ate a bad cheese steak sandwich the night before the big game.

I did just look at the settings and his hurry up was set to 1 minute per score, so he didn't actually enter hurry up logic until the 2nd and 12 play with 35 seconds left.

Perhaps some sort of "end of game" logic should be added to prevent this from happening.

So it turns out both the Miami and the Philly game might have decided by settings we normally don't give a second look to... interesting

The default is 4 if you've never touched it, so someone had set it to 1 at some point. It won't get reset between owners unless the AI plays a game, though.

(Now everyone will be revisiting the misc game plan options screen ... :-) )

I actually toyed with this screen around mid-season, when I was noticing my team was sticking with an unsuccessful running game for just a LITTLE too long. I can tell you it DOES make a difference. Heh.