The eagles ran that sprint right rollout play around the goal line all the ****ing time under Andy Reid, and it has always had a super low success rate. I dunno if its some requirement of coaches in the bill Walsh family to run that play around the goal line, forever trying to recapture Montana to Clark.

I seriously would have thought about taking a holding penalty to open up the field for that style offense. Give Kapernick more room to operate, but I know a coach would never do that.

The thing that rustled my jimmies: after Harbaugh blows through two timeouts and it is fourth down for the MOTHER****ING SUPER BOWL and his team looks totally disorganized, he saves the third timeout even though they were at that point highly unlikely to get the ball back if they failed.

I like this idea because it greatly reduces the chance of BAL driving for a FG on the next drive, since it'll almost certainly take two downs to get in, possibly 3. By passing on every down they basically give the Ravens an eternity (plus all their timeouts) to answer back.

Yep- 2PC on first TD is a must.

49ers were down 5 going into last drive. If they did the 2PC's right would have been more likely to only be down 3 and be able to kick a game tying FG if necessary.

This is a really good post.

One other nitty thing about the 2PC they did try (off topic, although I think it is a coaching thing in the sense that the QB needs to have this drummed into his head) is that it was ******ed for Kaepernick to throw the ball over everyone's head once he got pressured. 2PC's can't be returned in the NFL, so there's no downside to just throwing it into the crowd and hoping for a lucky bounce etc.

So i was gonna write a Devils advocate rebuttle then I realized why the first time was better

7 + 6 + 8 = 21, i was thinking that added up to 22 lolz

If you need 15 pts, then I am at least open to the reasonable counterarguments about how going for 2 on the first score isnt necessarily better.

But if you need 22 pts then it is no longer debateable, you need to go for 2 on the first score.

Down 15 I think u wait to go for 2 simply from a motivation factor. If you go for 2 and fail its a 9 pt game and your team probably wilts. I certainly hope that's the reason coaches wait to go.

I'm still perplexed by the 49ers play calling on their last 4 plays.

100% this.. A coach must keep his team in the game if he can.

Also it makes the opposing D play a litte more honest, knowing you're only down be score.

This makes no sense at all. The cases where you fail the 2PC aren't the relevant ones. Let's forget about failed early 2PC's for a bit and assume the chance of you winning the game if that happens is zero.

So the probability of winning the game is the probability of successfully driving for a second touchdown multiplied by the probability of making the 2PC. Would you have me believe the probability of successfully driving for a touchdown DECREASES if you've already made the 2PC? I would say it increases if anything. The only way to argue motivation is a reason to delay the 2PC is to argue that the probability of making the 2PC increases if you've already got the second touchdown in the bag. I don't buy that but it's a coherent argument.

Well said. For both this situation and the going for it on 4th down situation, the typical commentator only focuses on the bad that can happen if it fails and never even considers the good that happens if it succeeds or tries to weigh the pros and cons together.

If 2+2 doesn't understand why kicking an XP down 9 is ******ed then there is absolutely no hope for NFL coaches to ever get it right

NO NO NO.

in basically all respects other than the fact that you actually have to score twice, being down 2 scores is going to be better than being down 1 score. the defense is going to play softer, the offensive coach/coordinator is going to accidentally call a much more optimal game, etc. the players didn't wilt when they were down 28-6 or w/e, they arent going to ****ing wilt bc they are down 9.

The extent to which players wilt (or the defence gets softer, or whatever) if the early 2PC fails is irrelevant. The counterpart to failing the early 2PC is failing the late 2PC, where you will be down 2 as time expires. It doesn't matter how despondent the players are when the early 2PC fails because it's still better than having zero chance to win. It's like saying that if x is a positive integer, then x > 0, then having people start arguing about how big x has to be for that to be true.

EdBratz sure loves nonsensical narrative/emotional based arguments

How about we wait until they start trying a 2PC down 8 first. In that situation, every time you end up getting the second TD, you have thrown away ~10% WP if you didn't try a 2PC the first time.

Oh, but I guess we can't do that, because professional football players will get sore vaginas if the first 2PC fails and refuse to try as hard on the subsequent drive.

I was referring to late game situations. 2 min left all 3 timeouts, u fail on the 2 pt try I'm sure the defense is like oh well game over. As opposed to kicking, down 8 defense is pumped up ready to play. What is the difference anyway if 6 + 8 = 14 and 8 + 6 = 14. Ill take my chances with a team who has the defense on its heels and the offense trying to not make mistakes.

In regards to the SB SF should have gone for 2 when they scored to make it 28-19 if that's we are arguing. I was referring to late game situation.

i dont think they demonstrate the bolded. regardless, even if their is some decline, i think it is overshadowed by the tendency of the opposite team to run it into the line of scrimmage for 3 total yards and punt it back.

im saying, the defense doesnt have to be at its sharpest bc the offense will have packed it in far more.

While I tend to agree with you, there is some physiological basis for "momentum". I watched a documentary on testosterone, where they tested players' testosterone throughout a game. The players on the losing team's testosterone tends to drop throughout the game while the winning team tends to rise. It has to do with how much free testosterone the body is using any given time. It's nature's way of telling an animal that's losing a fight, "maybe it's time to get out of here and live to fight another day". I don't think it's out of the question that a big play on offense or big stop on defense, can be a spark that reverses this effect.

Another documentary I saw measured the core body temperature of artic trekkers as they trudged along the ice. After days and days of hiking in a featureless, horizon-less gray background, when they finally saw the tip of the mountain they were aiming for, their core body temperature went up a couple of degrees. So we know there is a physiological effect of "hope".

Now it's very likely these effects are so small at the professional level, as to not really make a difference. If I had to bet, I'd probably say that's the case. But you can't deny that football players get emotional. The team that's on the roll or roll smells bloood and is flying around more, while the team that's on the ropes seems to be on their heels, confused, making bad decisions. I don't think that's 100% a mirage.

Obviously as a pro, you have to overcome your motions and consistently played a high-level. But in football you can't completely shut out your emotions, because you need those as fuel. So it's a lot different than poker in that regard. If your body is telling you to flee and you're trying to overcome that with your brain, it's going to affect your play.

I just think it's an interesting concept, that can't be completely hand waved away. Sometimes our emotional brains are actually smarter than our rational brains. Not in poker, ever. But in something like football where coaches actually played the game, they may be drawing on insincts and emotional memories of physiological effects that still aren't fully understood. Not that they aren't also making a lot of dumb mistakes, like being too risk-averse due to selective memory.

If you're down 28-13. You score a TD with 2 minutes left to make it 28-19 and have to make a decision.

The worst case scenario is you miss the 2 point conversion.

If your 2 point attempt was first, the worst case scenario happens with 2 minutes left. But you have time to score twice.

If you go for the XP first, the worst case scenario happens with something like 15 seconds left and there's little time left to score again.