Some of its historical.. 2pt conversions have a 45% conversion rate historically.

50% in OT is just intuitive.

The 15% is an estimation.. but as the article I linked says it's a little higher when a team is playing all or nothing.

Maybe Rex Ryan, but he would do it because he's cocky, not for the right reason.

So, if you are BB do you defend your call and educate the opposition or, safe in your job, do you say "I had faith in our offense, it was close" like he did.

Just curious if he was really on the fence or if he is intentionally avoiding strongly supporting the call ("you'd be an idiotic not to go for it") so that others reevaluate their decision (i.e., "don't teach the fish.")

I actually thought about this in the shower this morning
It's an interesting spot

this could be the play that educates the world on 4th down decisions

I doubt it though

IDK, most business managers/executives take the low risk route with various decisions - including hiring - for the same reason. Many of them are smart.

I don't think he's worried about educating the fish because pretty much no other coach has the balls and/or job security to make a call like that. He probably just doesn't want to waste his time explaining himself when no one is going to get it anyway.

He failed going for it, it's not going to educate anyone. That's why it's so hard for coaches to do things like this, if he gets it people talk about Belichick's big balls for a few minutes, if he fails it spawns condemnation from every corner of the sports universe. Hell, I remember earlier this year Charlie Weis went for it on 4th and goal from the one and was stopped, but the defense forced a three and out and the offense marched back down and scored the very next drive to take the lead against BC. Even after reaping the benefits of good field position 95% of the fan base thought it was the dumbest thing they'd ever seen, just accept the fact that sports fans are mouth breathers and be done with it.

This.

Add Scott Van Pelt and whoever his partner is to the clueless list.

Actually I think this play is going to educate a few people - with articles like Posnaski's showing the true "percentages" as opposed to Tony Dungy's mythical percentages that don't actually correlate to any real numbers. Now will those people make any difference in NFL coaching going forward? Probably not. But I have a feeling the debate will be a little more intelligent the next time around.

This actually seems like a much easier decision than the one we're discussing. I would expect the difference in WP between going for it and punting to be closer to 20% in that scenario, especially if you give NE 1 or 2 timeouts. In that situation going for it and allowing Indy to score a TD on the first play seems best by a distance as you'll have a good 1:30 left to drive to score a field goal for at least a tie and ~55% of the time it will be to win.

I've just spent a while trying to do a proper calculation and not being able to work out why everything seemed wrong and eventually realised it was because it was just so obviously correct to go for it. If we assume NE converts on 4th and 1 65% of the time, which seems reasonable if we were saying 60% on 4th and 2 and that Indy scores after we punt 35% (again if we assumed 30% from 70, then 35% from just short of midfield seems reasonable) of the time (and assume there is never enough time for another drive) then it's immediately obvious that going for it is correct. The probability of converting alone is roughly equal to the probability of winning the game if you punt so when you add the chance of scoring a FG after failing (and letting Indy score) then your chance of winning by going for it will be better by a decent margin.

See, I think the only people who will be convinced by those arguments are those who already agreed with them, plus one article on CNNSI will be dwarfed by everyone flipping to Sportscenter to hear Trent Dilfer rail on about how BB should have played not to lose. 95% of the people who thought it was an idiotic decision last night will never see an EV calculation, and of the 5% who do, most will either not understand it or will just dismiss it out hand as a bunch of nerds. Forums like this are just so far outside the mainstream when it comes to sports discussion.

Yeah BB obviously just didn't feel like explaining it. Can't blame the guy. Plus it's BB, do you really expect the worst interview in sports to come out with "well our probability of getting the first down plus the probability that we stop them plus the probability that we re-comeback given the time we save not punting exceeds the probability of our defense stopping Indy if we punt?" Never.

Colin Cowherd did exactly this on his show this morning. While holding the EV calculation in his hand he railed on about how horrible the decision was.

LOL MEDIA

ok so far i have seen deion sanders agree with it but for the wrong reasons.

jaworski said he understood it (lol, he obv didnt) and would agree with whatever bb did, tho he, jaws, woulda punted.

and gruden was the closest to agreeing for the right reasons, tho he was clouded by recency bias bc manning crushed his team in 2003 when he punted twice.

It isn't a universally good spot to go for it. It is good because Pats Offense is really good, Colts offense is really good, Pats defense isn't good. If everyone understood the math behind the situation, most teams would still be correct in punting.

FJM tears Cowherd to shreds, for anyone who missed it the first time: http://www.firejoemorgan.com/2006/01...n-cowherd.html

FB post from "friend" who is a losing poker player who has scoffed at my suggestions to read various poker books.


"Going for 2 yds. on your own 28...ATROCIOUS!"


He's a lawyer, but a rather dumb one.

One of these decisions that pissed me off the most was Pats/Ravens 2007. Billick was facing a 4th and 1 at his own like 35 yard line if I remember correctly with like 3 minutes left. Pats had 2 time outs IIRC. McGahee had been shredding the Pats D all game. Billick had a chance to, at the very least, kill the rest of the Pats timeouts and pin them deep with little time left. I don't think he even considered going for it. Punted, and predictably Brady ate them alive for the win to stay undefeated. At the very least he should have lined up for it on 4th like he was going for it and forced Belichick to burn another timeout.

edit: it was 24-20 ravens

To be honest I'm not a fan of football, but the times I've watched, the ONE thing I never quite grasped was why the hell nobody EVER goes for it on 4th down......I mean obviously I don't know the math behind it or the offense/defense strategies or ANYTHING, but really, it's always mind boggled me why coaches NEVER go for it. Just watching football it would seem that some of the time it would be better to go for the 1st down (is my phrasing correct here? haha)

Please change your avatar

This post is from a while ago, but I think it illustrates that one of the major flaws in the average person's thinking is with risk aversion:

For the Pats fans, going for it on 4th is atrocious because OMG if you don't make it the colts are probably going to win.

For the Colts fans, they want the Pats to punt because OMG if they go for it and make it they win the game.

The issue is that you're putting a huge part of the win probability of the game into one play which takes place immediately. Because of risk aversion, people on both sides don't want to do that -- they would rather have the risk spread over a larger number of future plays, even if that decreases their win probability. Hence the illogical "BB is gambling recklessly" comments -- folks can't see that it's a gamble either way, since they are incapable of weighing short term risks versus overall win probabilities. So that's how you can have both sets of fans wanting the Pats to punt there, and neither can see the inherent contradiction.



Oh and to everyone complaining about how the mainstream response is tilting them: you do realize that this is why you make money at poker, don't you?

Who says we make money at poker?