Did anyone else here see the Falcons-Cardinals playoff game on Saturday? The end of that game had me smiling from ear to ear.

The Cardinals went up by 13, 30-17, by recording a safety with 12:37 left in the game. Atlanta winds up getting the ball back with 7:51 remaining, down by the same score. After a nice drive, the Falcons score to get to within 6 points, 30-24, with 4:15 remaining. On the ensuing kickoff, the Cardinals get the ball out to their own 20, equivalent to a touchback, and 4:10 left on the clock, and Atlanta with all three of their timeouts.

Now, conventional coaching wisdom here says that you run the ball three times, eat as much clock as possible, punt the ball away, and leave it to your defense to save the day. And that’s what the overwhelming majority of coaches would do in that situation. But that’s not what Cardinals coach Ken Wisenhunt did. He started by calling a pass play, and not even a high-percentage one: it was a 20 yard completion over the middle from Warner to Fitzgerald. That first down took almost a minute off the clock, taking it down to 3:25. Next play, a handoff, which went for no gain (of course) because the Falcons were stacking against the run. Timeout Atlanta, 3:10 on the clock, now 2nd-and-10. Next play? A 25-yard completion down the left side from Warner to Breaston. 1st-and-10, the clock goes all the way down to 2:29, and the Cardinals are only about 10 yards out of field goal range.

Run up the middle on first down gets stuffed (of course), and the Falcons take their second timeout (of course), 2nd-and-8 with 2:21 left. Now, the only mystifying call of the series: the Cardinals try an end-around which gets stuffed for an eight yard loss, and Atlanta takes their final timeout, 3rd-and-16 at the Atlanta 46 with 2:17 left on the clock, and the Falcons have no timeouts left.

Once again, the conventional wisdom says call a high-percentage play, maybe a draw, run the clock down to the two minute warning, punt the ball, and count on your defense to stop them with under two minutes left and no timeouts. But that’s not what Wisenhunt calls. Instead, he calls a play-action fake that results in a 23-yard completion down the middle from Warner to Spach. That takes the clock down to the two minute warning, and three knees later, the Cardinals walk off the field victorious.

Now some will doubtless criticize the play calling here: if somebody for the Cardinals drops a pass, the clock stops “for free,” leaving more time for the Falcons if they get the ball back. And what if the ball is intercepted? But if you’re a playoff-caliber team, you count on your offense to win games for you, not simply to not lose them. The Cardinals stuck with what had worked all day, rather than suddenly changing their approach in the final minutes, and it suited them well. Dance with the one who brought you, as the saying goes.

Anyway, it was thrilling for me to see a coach NOT go all Mike Holmgren ultra-conservative in trying to protect a small lead.