If you haven’t seen the final play of today’s Houston/Jacksonville game, I highly recommend you go to nfl.com and check it out.

Not just because it’s one of those finishes that will go down in football history, and not just because Gus Johnson describes it with perhaps the single most disorienting call of all time.

This play demonstrates one of the areas in sports where I think coaching ignores common sense.

Glover Quin, the Houston defender who tries to knock the ball down, did what he was taught to do. He could have caught the ball easily, fallen to the ground and the game would have been over. But some coach, probably some coaches, actually, going back to his days in Pop Warner, told Quin he should knock the ball down to the ground.

The theory behind this line of thinking is by knocking the ball down rather than trying to catch it, the player won’t a) deflect the ball unintentionally into someone else’s arms and/or b) won’t fumble the ball after he catches it.

Of course, as today’s play clearly demonstrates, scenario “a” is ridiculous. Whether you are intentionally or unintentionally deflecting a ball, there’s always a chance someone else will be there to catch it. As for scenario “b”, that’s simply playing not to lose.

If you’ve got a chance to catch the ball in that situation, catch it and do everything you can to keep it secure while getting to the ground as soon as possible. A lot more goofy things have got to happen on a catch-and-fumble for the offensive team to end up with a touchdown than need to occur when you just try to knock it down.

I compare this to baseball’s dumbest unwrittern rule (well, it may not be the dumbest. Baseball has a lot of dumb unwritten rules). For the life of me, I will never understand why a team won’t try to throw out a base stealer when they have the lead in the ninth inning. You know, when the A’s are trailing the Red Sox, 5-1 in the 9th, and a player tries to steal second and the catcher doesn’t even attempt to throw him out. Why not make a throw? What harm can be done?

The announcers always say “Well, his run doesn’t mean anything.” So? If it doesn’t mean anything, who the heck cares if the catcher throws the ball into center field? What if the runner falls or just stumbles halfway between second and third? What if he over-slides second? It’s a free out, an out you’ll be wishing you tried to get when Hideki Okajima walks the bases loaded.

Am I right, Gus, or am I right?