The 1st one was on his own 42 or 43 yard line after Miami just made i 14-7, they don't get it and Miami is well on its way to tying the game up in a flash after being down 14 points. The second one they should have @ least kept Welker on the field to make the Fins cover him and think about the pass.

One thing I believe is that on 4th down and short in the 1st half, or early in the 3rd quarter depending on the score when you are in 32ish to 48ish yard FG range you should always take the FG because even if you get the 1st down, there is a good chance you'll end up kicking a FG anyway later on in the drive.
There are conditions to this, for example if your kicker sucks or you have an elite offense and you will get a TD a large percentage of the time if you do convert.

The one where he punted it was 4th and inches and would have kept the drive alive. The one where he went for it, it was 4th and a full yard and by going for it turned down a sure 3 points. I would have done it opposite.

this is why 13 year olds playing Madden are awesome at these decisions

it is one of the few things they can focus on and directly effects the outcomes of their games.

I'm the biggest homer on this forum but I completely agree with you. I was absulutely shocked he didn't go for it on 4th and inches. I thought that was kinda a no brainer. Very inconsistant for Belichick. And not taking those three points I thought was stupid since the three points would have made a significant difference in the game.

Even Madden tried to fix this, a couple of years ago they came up with a fair play feature where they forced you to punt on most fourth downs if you played online. So dumb.

the thing that is starting to annoy me is when "analysts" are now saying that Belichick's knowledge of the teams mediocre defense is what made him go for the 4th down at Indy when simple equations (in this thread) show the decision is not that sensitive to your own defensive ability.

Indy scoring % is inversely correlated with defensive quality.

yes, and they have to score whether the 4th down fails or they receive a punt - i.e. it's on both sides of the equation

4th and 2 or less you should always go for it unless it's the 4th quarter and you're in a position where for some reason, making a field goal is almost as good as a touchdown. The math just isn't even close. Kicking a field goal or punting on 4th and 1 is terrible anywhere on the field.

Bump for Saints-Bucs game today,

Saints lead 17-10 and have fourth and a foot to go from their own 40 with 2:30 left in the game. Tampa had been moving the ball fairly well with ~200 yards in the 2nd half. Sean Payton elects to punt which gets returned for a touchdown to tie the score.

I'm guessing we will hardly hear anything about this.

how many timeouts did they have

Bucs had 1 timeout.

Oh also if the LS was any decent they would've gotten a first down on the punt since the other guy jumped offside.

Yeah Payton has been such a pussy lately. Irritating.

i thought worse was denver/eagles where denver punted on 4th and 2 from their own 17 with about 2 min left and the game tied. what are the eagles, 85% to win if you punt (guessing 70% to win in reg and 30% to go to OT)? whereas if you convert on 4th, denver is better than 50% to win. and i have to think they are at least 50% to successfully convert.

Well, this is a little different because you are playing against the Bucs offense and not the Colts offense, and if you give up a TD you are still 50%+ to win. I'm sure going for it is still correct, but it's a lot closer.

also I think time can actually come into play with the Bucs offense, it wouldn't have with the Colts offense

we should change the name of this thread to something like "discussion of 4th down decisions"

I actually asked Brian Burke (Adv NFL Stats) to calculate this using WP. You can see his answer if you look at the most recent Games of the Week comment section. It turns out to be really close.

In the same comment section, he says Andy Reids decision to punt with a 4th and 1.5 from midfield late was really terrible.

Recently came across this blog post:

http://mgoblog.com/diaries/fourth-do...ver-punt-tebow

• never kick a FG within the opp's 7 yard line
• never punt in the opp's territory
• never kick a FG when it's 4 yards or less to go

Against a good defense, you kick FGs more often.


But if you have a *really* good offense, you never kick a FG and only punt if in your own 25.



The post is about college football, though.

These charts have to be significantly different when facing a professional defense...

your opponent's offense/your defense is probably just as important, especially for the punt/go decisions