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What Were They Thinking: Jason Kelce, Percy Harvin and Bill O'Brien

Robert Deutsch / USA TODAY Sports

What Were They Thinking is a weekly post where you get to relive the foolish decisions from the week that was in the NFL. Enjoy the insanity. 

Texans take an unnecessary risk

Down 14-0 to start the second half Sunday against the New York Giants, the Houston Texans faced a fourth-and-1 at their own 46. Instead of punting it away, Bill O'Brien decided to do the unthinkable. 

O'Brien was needlessly ambitious here for several reasons, with the first simply being the time left in the game. With a whole half left to play there is no need to get that aggressive. It's a high-risk, low-reward decision. Even if you make it, you still have to drive a significant distance to get into scoring position. It's not like they were deep in Giants territory. 

Second, the Giants offense had already proven to be inept up to that point. They had already turned it over twice inside the Texans 15 during the first half, so it's not like O'Brien had to worry about the G-Men running away with things. Houston's defense is the strength of their team and they should have relied on it. 

Lastly, Arian Foster, out with a hamstring injury, didn't play. Having your best back unavailable in short yardage isn't ideal, and tasking rookie Alfred Blue with the chore is another factor O'Brien should have considered. 

Needless to say, New York took advantage of the good field position and added a field goal. Houston was never really in the game after that. 

Jason Kelce gets too aggressive

Normally you want to encourage your offensive linemen to race downfield and get blocks on screen passes, but not if they do what Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce did Sunday. 

Down by 10 against Washington, the Eagles ran a quick screen to receiver Jeremy Maclin, who promptly took it 80 yards to the house. However, it was called back because of an illegal block downfield by Kelce. 

It's important to note Kelce's effort should be applauded here, but it needs to be better focused. Maclin was well ahead of the pack and the chance the player Kelce blocked would have tracked him down was extremely remote. The lineman should have just avoided him. 

The Eagles will miss Kelce as he went down with an abdomen injury later in the game, and were fortunate they eventually did score a touchdown on the drive, but wiping seven points off the board is never a positive.

Washington wastes a timeout

Washington Redskins head coach Jay Gruden made both a good and bad decision in the final two minutes on Sunday.

Trailing 37-34 with 1:56 left in the game and facing a fourth-and-10 at the Philadelphia 41-yard line, Gruden made the right decision to go for it. However, the Redskins still had all their timeouts available, until Gruden decided to burn one before that fourth-down play. 

This is significant because the clock was stopped at that point and Gruden presumably just called it to discuss the fourth-down play. In that situation it's far more important to save the timeout in case you don't convert, which the Redskins didn't. 

There was still 1:47 left when the Eagles took over on downs in their own territory and theoretically still enough time for the Redskins to get the ball back on a three-and-out with about 1:30 left and try to drive into position for a tying field goal attempt. If they had all their timeouts, that is. 

The Eagles ultimately ran out the clock, but Gruden made it a little easier for them. 

Percy Harvin gets overconfident 

The Denver Broncos staged a furious comeback to force overtime against the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday, and for a moment it looked like Percy Harvin was trying to help them out. 

After Denver scored to cut the Seattle lead to 17-12 midway through the fourth quarter, Harvin fielded the ensuing kickoff four yards deep in his end zone. In this case it would have been far better to take a touchback.

Brandon McManus's kick drifted right and dropped near the edge of the end zone boundary, forcing Harvin to corral it by contorting his body to stay in bounds. (Given his injury history, I'm also somewhat surprised Harvin didn't strain a hamstring while doing this.)

By the time he regained his balance and moved laterally to position himself to move up field, Harvin had lost precious seconds and the Broncos' coverage team was already on him. He only made it to the nine-yard line, putting the Seahawks in terrible field position, where they eventually had to punt the ball back to Peyton Manning.

We're not sure, Jerry. We're not sure. 

Even though he cost his team 11 yards of field position, the Seahawks can take solace in the fact that Harvin's Iron-Man streak is going on 12 quarters now.

Maybe the Rams are tanking?

Things are bleak in St. Louis these days and Rams head coach Jeff Fisher did his best to make them bleaker Sunday. 

Up 21-17 in the third quarter versus the Dallas Cowboys, the Rams faced a fourth-and-1 at the Dallas 15-yard line. Instead of taking a chip-shot field goal and going up by a touchdown in the second half, Fisher elected to go for it and Zac Stacy was stuffed. 

I'm all for taking risks, but they need to be calculated. This one clearly wasn't. 

First off, Kicker Greg Zuerlein has the leg to make a field goal from the Rams' old home in Los Angeles, so a 32-yard attempt in a dome is no problem for him. It's all but guaranteed he makes it in that situation. 

Second, in case the Rams forgot to look at the depth chart, they're using their third-string quarterback right now! No offense to Austin Davis, but he's not exactly Kurt Warner back there. Any points you can get you have to take.

Finally, the Cowboys and Tony Romo, to put it nicely, don't have the best track record of closing out games late. So taking a touchdown lead and relying on your defense, who already had a pick-six at this point by the way, puts you in the best position to win the game. 

Wouldn't you know it? The Cowboys took advantage and won the game by, you guessed it, three points. Fisher must really want to get that No. 1 pick next year, but he has to make sure he doesn't get fired in the process. 

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