Although honestly I don't see a ton of difference between a fake punt when up by 30 and the Bucs trying to blow up victory formation. Both are doing something foolish when the game is already decided. You could even argue that the latter is worse because it is more likely to expose someone to a needless injury.
I said it then, and I'll say it again now, the Bucs/Giants game was NOT already decided. The lead was less than a touchdown and while it is extraordinarily improbable, it is nonetheless entirely possible for a team to force a fumble on a kneel-down play.
Since a Schiano-coached college team successfully did precisely that and recovered said fumble and won the game, it shouldn't have been a shocker that he'd consider revisiting that strategy.
Though it is unlikely to work in 99.9% of attempts, it still has a higher probability of changing the outcome of a game than conceding a one-possession game with time on the clock. That strategy never works.
Sorry, but to me what Schiano did was try to win, what Carroll did was try to rub a loss in an opponent's face.
As for the "needless injury" charge, nobody would expose themselves to needless injuries if they played a full 60 minutes and didn't assume the other team would just lay down for them because the clock was "close enough" to being at zero.
By that logic, why not contend a hail mary is the offensive equivalent of actually playing the final play on defense like the game was still undecided? It's extremely rare that it works (unless there are replacement refs) and that many WRs and DBs going up for a ball like that is surely exposing someone to needless injury. That team needs to just accept that they didn't win by the time the clock was close enough to triple-zero so they should just let it go and try again next week.
