Romeo Crennel didn't think twice about the repercussions of his coaching decision. He was trying to get the Houston Texans a win. The Texans took a 36-29 lead over the Tennessee Titans on a Brandin Cooks touchdown reception with 1:50 to play and Houston had to kick an extra point to extend the lead to eight -- and make the Titans score a touchdown and convert a two-point attempt just to force overtime. Instead, Crennel decided on going for two to give Houston a nine-point lead, making it a two-score game and putting the game out of reach. The decision backfired as Tennessee later tied the game and forced overtime, winning the game in the extra session by a 42-36 final.
"I wanted to go ahead and get the two points," Crennel said on the decision to go for two. "I felt like that would kind of put if out of reach for them. And if we had gotten it, we would have been in much better shape. As it turned out, we didn't get it, and then with the touchdown and the extra point they tied it up and then we're in overtime. And then we didn't perform in overtime, and they win the game."
A simple explanation for Crennel's thinking. If the Texans convert the two-point attempt -- which ended up being an incomplete Deshaun Watson pass to Randall Cobb -- they take a 38-29 lead and put the victory out of reach for Tennessee (by making it a two-score game with 1:50 to play). If Houston kicks the extra point, the Texans lead 37-29 with Ryan Tannehill and the Titans offense having to go the length of the field to score a touchdown and convert the two -- just to force overtime. Failing to convert the two-point attempt kept Houston's lead at 36-29, as Tannehill led Tennessee on a nine play, 76-yard drive that resulted in a 7-yard touchdown pass to A.J. Brown with four seconds remaining in regulation. Tennessee just had to convert the extra point to force overtime instead of going for two.
The aggressiveness was an indictment of Crennel's day, as the Texans went 3 for 3 on fourth down. Crennel wouldn't have been faced with the decision to go for two if Ka'imi Fairbairn didn't miss an extra point attempt earlier in the game -- which may have also played a factor in the decision to go for two. The extra point wasn't exactly automatic, even if it was Fairbairn's first miss of the year.
"The thing is that sometimes if you go for it and you don't make it, then they begin to wonder why you went for it in the first place," Crennel said. "That's the nature of this game that we're in. When you win, when you're successful, everybody feels good about it. When you lose and you're not successful on a play, then everybody feels usually bad about it."
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October 19, 2020 at 10:10PM
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Here's why Romeo Crennel went for two instead of taking an eight-point lead in final minutes of Texans loss - CBS Sports
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