Then there was Arizona Cardinals coach Bruce Arians' choice to play a cover-zero defense and send an all-out blitz on the last play of regulation against the Green Bay Packers; as everyone knows, Aaron Rodgers took advantage of that strategy by throwing a desperation pass for a tying touchdown. At least Arians' team won 26-20 in overtime.
Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid was lambasted for overseeing a slow-as-molasses offense that basically gave itself no chance to erase a fourth-quarter deficit in a 27-20 loss to the Patriots in the divisional round.
Down near the end zone, Bill O'Brien's club sent in J.J. Watt for a wildcat formation,Jerseys NFL Wholesale, with Vince Wilfork blocking, and the run play got stuffed. On the next play, the Chiefs intercepted Brian Hoyer, and that was that.
Ron Rivera of the Carolina Panthers and Gary Kubiak of the Denver Broncos certainly hope to avoid that in the Super Bowl.
"When you've only lost one game, you're probably making some pretty good decisions,Cheap Jerseys Authentic," former NFL player and head coach Herm Edwards said with a chuckle. "If you win the game, you're not going to be second-guessed as much."
And Kubiak gets credit for overseeing a team that has won 11 of its 14 games this season that were decided by seven or fewer points.
Makes sense. But take a glance at social media during any NFL playoff game, and there is plenty of questioning of coaching going on.
Another example came right at the start of the postseason, when the Houston Texans were still facing only a surmountable deficit in what would become a 30-0 wild-card loss to those Chiefs.
Then again, given the way they've managed things so far this season, there is little reason to suspect they'll make a memorable gaffe on the sport's most important stage next weekend.
"You look at that situation and you go, 'Well, OK, if you kicked the (earlier) one, then he probably would have won the game.' That's easy to say after the fact," Edwards said. "But he put the ball in the hands of his best player, and in that game, I think he just felt: 'Got 'em on the ropes right now, we're going to try to make it.'"

Even those NFL coaches who are, in theory, the very best around have been making some decisions this postseason that made folks jump up from their couches and scream "Why?!"
"There's a purpose to everything he does, and there's a reason to everything he does. He just doesn't do things to do things," said John Elway, Kubiak's boss with the Broncos. "And as a player, you respect that,cheap nfl jerseys, and I respected that. That, to me, is why he's been successful."
"That's part of the game. Part of the job. Everyone has an opinion," said Edwards, who made a total of four trips to the playoffs during stints coaching the New York Jets and the Chiefs from 2001-08.
"You don't get caught up as much in that as a coach. As that game's being played out, you figure out what your strengths are when you have to make decisions. You don't rely on what people think you should do, and the players understand that. They trust you."
Clock management, timeout usage, whether to try to run the ball late while leading to drain time off the clock instead of risking stopping it with an incomplete pass — all of those sorts of decisions go into coaching a winning team.
Other than what could have been a disastrous second half in the divisional round against the Seattle Seahawks, when a 31-0 halftime lead dwindled to 31-24, Rivera has generally avoided being called out for sideline mistakes.
Kubiak is only the seventh coach to go to the big game in his first season with a team,Cheap NFL jerseys China, handling the "Should the QB be an ineffective Peyton Manning or an inexperienced Brock Osweiler?" situation with aplomb for months.
And all can give rise to bad-mouthing.
It's happened over and over, even from the likes of the sport's universally acknowledged "genius," Bill Belichick, whose New England Patriots lost to Kubiak's Broncos 20-18 in the AFC championship game. Belichick drew his share of criticism for passing up field-goal opportunities in the fourth quarter and instead letting Tom Brady and the offense go for it on fourth down — and failing.
Rivera, who some thought was close to being fired not too long ago,Jerseys Cheap Wholesale, has pulled all the right strings in guiding the Panthers to a 17-1 record and role of favorite on Super Sunday.
There sure is more temptation for hindsight when the ultimate result doesn't go a coach's way, of cour