I hear what you are saying, but... for me, in real time, before the 2nd down play was called, I was thinking, "McVay, what the hell are you doing?!?!"
The 2nd and goal call came with 1:47 left and Seattle had one timeout. As it unfolded, after the FG and subsequent kickoff, Seattle snapped the ball with 1:31 left.
Had McVay thought of his defense first and called a run play on 2nd and 3rd downs, at least 35 more seconds could have been killed, meaning Seattle would have had to start their drive with only about 55 seconds left.
In my mind, there is a HUGE difference between starting a drive (with no timeouts) with 1:31 and 0:55. With only 0:55, the D can funnel everything to the middle of the field and truly take away the sidelines. One pass completed in the field of play severely hampers the O.
Agreed that playcalling is an interesting mix of aggression and conservatism. In this case, I thought McVay was taking an unnecessary risk by going no-backfield on 2nd down. Would much rather he'd play clock-ball in that instance.
