With his team down 17-13, Atlanta Falcons coach Dan Quinn elected to kick a field goal on 4th-and-goal from the 1-yard line, with only 2:56 remaining in the game. The kick, obviously, did not give the Falcons a lead, nor did it tie the game. It left the Falcons down one point and needing a stop to get the ball back and then drive all the way back down the field for a second score.

Independent of the fact that the Falcons did not get that stop (the 49ers achieved two first downs on the ensuing drive and ran out the clock with kneeldowns), the decision was a horrifyingly terrible one. As SBNation's Rodger Sherman pointed out, electing to kick a field goal was such a poor choice that Matt Bryant knocking the kick through the uprights actually lowered the Falcons' chances of winning the game.

Quinn attempted to defend the decision to kick after the game. 

"I’ll get right to the start of it, the sequencing at the end of the game, the fourth-down play, I chose to kick it there. Thought we were getting the stops defensively, we’d get the kick, get stops, use our timeouts and then go attack on offense," Quinn said, per the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "We’re a really good two-minute team on offense. So, that was the reasoning for it. We didn’t stop them on the third down, they converted. Really that’s where the game took place, so I wanted to make sure I explained our thinking going into that one."

If Quinn had that much confidence in his offense, it would probably have made more sense to let them go for the touchdown. If he had that much confidence in his defense, it would probably have made more sense to go for the touchdown and, if they did not convert, let that defense make a stop and get the ball back. Instead, Quinn came up with some backwards logic, kicked, and his team lost.

Dan Quinn defended a bad decision. (USATSI)