This points to two things that I’ve started to believe:
-The developmental value of in-game reps is often very overrated
-fans often understate the fact that most coaches at a high level, know infinitely more about what they’re looking at than we do. Even the bad ones. They are soooo much smarter about football than the average person.
That doesn’t mean they’re always right. But the baseline knowledge is in a whole different space.
I think you are right here. Even in situations where the HC is ultimately "proven" to have been wrong, he *PROBABLY* came to that wrong conclusion through information that the rest of us simply don't have.
This is an important principle that applies elsewhere. The rest of this post probably belongs in weird history or something but it is an application of the principle so I'm just going to type it here.
General George Meade was in command of the Union Army at Gettysburg where a great Union victory was won. However, Meade has been criticized ever since for failing to substantially destroy the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. This criticism started almost immediately after the battle and though an exact quote is difficult to source, President Lincoln himself appears to have believed that a more decisive pursuit of the Confederates by General Meade's Army of the Potomac could have effectively ended the war.
Armchair Generals who have the luxury of "commanding" armies weeks, months, years, decades, or in this case more than a century and a half after the action have argued for years that Meade missed a golden opportunity. The argument makes sense on it's face.
Here is a map of the Union and Confederate lines on July 3, 1863 which was the last day of the battle. Note that the Confederates were to the North and West while the Union Army was to the South and East. In theory Meade's Army of the Potomac *SHOULD* have been able to cut off the retreat by Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, cut them off from resupply, and killed/destroyed/captured the bulk of the Confederate Army.
I've heard this argument ever since I've known about the battle but it occurred to me that Meade *MUST* have had some reason(s) for not doing something that, on it's face, seems to be the rather obviously correct military strategy.
A few years back I read this book, Retreat from Gettysburg: Lee, Logistics, and the Pennsylvania Campaign
this book, Retreat from Gettysburg: Lee, Logistics, and the Pennsylvania Campaign. If you are REALLY interested in US Civil War history, I recommend it. If not, not so much. Most of it is REALLY dry logistical stuff so it isn't very exciting but it DID answer my question. Meade had a lot of reasons not to pursue the Confederates more vigorously after winning the Battle of Gettysburg.
One reason was simply to preserve the victory. Meade knew that he had won a major victory for the Union and was hesitant to risk blowing that by potentially losing a major battle by overstretching his army trying to accomplish more than was realistically possible.
The second, and bigger reason was intelligence. Meade didn't have a lot of solid information about the status of the Confederates. He did, however, have very good information about his own forces and it was troubling. Despite ultimately winning the battle, Meade's forces had suffered around 25% casualties (those aren't all KIA, some were wounded and would return but they were NOT available to Meade in the immediate aftermath of the Battle). Additionally, the troops that he had available to pursue were exhausted after marching long distances to get to Gettysburg then fighting a major battle at Gettysburg. Finally, Meade's troops were critically low on supplies including food and ammunition.
They say that hindsight is 20/20 and from my office, 160 years after the fact, I KNOW that Lees problems were much worse than Meade's. Meade's forces had suffered about 25% casualties but Lee's had suffered s similar number of casualties out of a smaller force. Additionally, just like Meade, Lee's remaining forces were exhausted and while Meade's supply situation was critical, Lee's was borderline catastrophic.
I know this because I can look it up online and I read it in the aforementioned book but Meade did NOT have those options available to him. Apparently the Army of Northern Virginia didn't have internet access and Kent Masterson Brown's book was almost 150 years from being published.
Attacking Lee with understrength (by roughly 25%) units that were exhausted, hungry, and short on ammunition would have been a hell of a gamble. In theory it might have worked out but that brings us back to the first point. Why take that big of a gamble trying to turn a major victory into a war-ending victory when the downside risk is that you turn a major victory into a potentially war-losing defeat?
