I'm almost positive BB has specifically addressed the thinking behind never punting (I think around 2004ish). At that point he said something kind of lol like "it ignores the emotional impact that not getting the 4th down would have on a defense" or something. But he was definitely aware pretty early on and then proceeded to go on and have a stretch where he was relatively aggressive right up until Colts 4th and 2 (earlier in the year he did basically the same thing at the falcons iirc).
Pure speculation but I think he probably walked right up to the line of getting all the way there and then decided he was either too lazy or didn't have enough political capital or whatever to constantly make those decisions so now he just defaults to standard conservatard decisions. But I'd be shocked if between him and Ernie Adams they aren't aware that they're making incorrect decisions mathematically (even if they rationalize it somehow).
Found the article From 2003 -
http://static.espn.go.com/nfl/column...g/1453717.html
Quote:
Up in a fifth floor classroom, David Romer, a Cal-Berkeley professor of economics, writes a series of hieroglyphs on the board -- with a Sharpie, which, unlike a certain wide receiver from across the Bay, he did not pull from his khaki sock:
Ei Di(gt) Vi = Pgt + Bgt Ei Di(gt+1) Vi - egt
This, in the unimpeachable terms of the Bellman Equation, is the definitive proof that NFL head coaches should go for it more on fourth down. Really, no kidding.
"Teams should be a lot more aggressive on fourth down," Romer says with the precise air of a scientist. "On average, you'd be better off going for it, essentially, in any short-yardage situation, and then there are some cases even in longer yardage when you're in that position where neither punting nor a field goal looks very attractive.
"The usual assumption of profit-maximization implies that in their on-field behavior, teams should act to maximize their probabilities of winning. This isn't happening."
LOL Fassel:
Quote:
"This is a professor from Cal-Berzerkely?" asked Giants head coach Jim Fassel, in the true tradition of a former Stanford man.
Fassel turned a sheet with the equation on it sideways, then upside down in a humorous attempt to absorb its subtleties.
"What does the professor coach?" Fassel asked. "Maybe," he added, "he needs a few more classes to teach. Too much free time?"
Steve Mariucci, the 49ers head coach, has considered Romer's thesis. The difficulty, according to Mariucci, is maintaining a level head when everyone in the stadium wants you to go for it.
"The crowd is going 'Go for it,' and they're just drinking beers and just going for it," Mariucci said. "Sometimes you get swayed a little bit. So you've got to block them out and you've got to make sense of it all.
"So then you start thinking about that article the guy from Cal wrote and then you say, 'Well, what would he do in this situation?' "
Along with Mariucci, Bill Belichick of the Super Bowl champion New England Patriots is one of several NFL head coaches who has actually studied Romer's working paper, which, with references and tables, runs a stout 33 pages. Maybe it's because Belichick graduated from Wesleyan University with a bachelor's degree in economics.
"I think, basically, he was saying that if you get down there and don't score, you're putting the other team 80, 90 yards away from the goal line anyway, and the chances of them scoring aren't very good," Belichick said. "You'll probably get the ball back in good field position. And the percentages added up to his conclusion, which was to go for it."
Bill Walsh, another Bay Area professor with some serious tenure, is a believer.
"To this day, I can close my eyes and see 22 players," he said in his San Francisco 49ers office, where he still serves the team as a consultant. "I can see them moving and I can see the equation. My indicators would be somewhat different than (Romer's), but this (equation) is what it takes."
Walsh looked closely at the tangle of letters and numbers.
"It would be fine if I completely understood it," he said. "But I don't think you can get all the variables on one page. I don't care what the equation is, you can't get them all."
That said, Walsh agrees with Romer's basic premise.
"I think (coaches) can tend to be too conservative," Walsh said. "They can tend not to trust themselves -- in a sense, take the easy way out and, in this case, punt the ball."
Some more BB quotes...
Quote:
"Do we punt and use our timeouts?" Belichick asked. "Do we have confidence in our field-goal kicker? Are they going to blitz or not?
Quote:
On fourth down, it's either-or, in or out, liberty or death. It's the ultimate game of chicken.
"Everybody sitting in the stadium knows, hey, this is a big play," Belichick said. "If you go for it, that you're going to maintain possession and it's going to give you another opportunity to score, or you're going to give the ball to the other team and then you're going to have to go through another series of plays to get it back -- if you get it back."
Quote:
"The more third-and-ones you make, the more likely you are to go for it on fourth-and-1," Belichick said. "You also factor in the defensive side of the ball. How good of a short-yardage or goal-line team is your opponent? When you add those two up and you're real good and you don't think the other team is that proficient at it, that's one thing. If it's vice versa, then maybe that skews you.
"In the end, it's about intuition and recalling all of the experiences you've been through."
So if we're speculating it seems like he is or was at that point a believer in momentum and maybe is susceptible to base rate fallacy, though a lot of his bad decisions on fourth down lately seem to run counter to what's happened in the game so far as well.
