quote:
What does Prevent Defense Mean?

This is a defensive strategy used in football when the defense believes the offense must pass the ball. This type of defense can take many forms, but it typically makes use of at least seven defensive backs, leaving only four defensive linemen. The goal of this strategy is to "prevent" the offense from gaining any significant yardage or scoring a touchdown in a single play, hence the name of the strategy. This defense will allow the offense to gain yardage within a limit that still prevents it from gaining the yards it needs to score.

Many articles on this...look it up.

That definition sums-up the utilization errors of the strategy itself. It makes no distinctions between the actual amount of points needed for the win, nor does it take into account the simple factor of time remaining on the clock.

Prevent D is a horrible strategy for attempting to prevent an opposing offense from moving into FG range for instance. Simply because ... while the one single play might move them to within FG distance, the most an offense might hope for is a 1st down and the clock would resume once the ball is set for play. If a team has no timeouts remaining then the play is wasted because, while the field position may be withing range of the kicker, there would be no time remaining to get set and get the play off.