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Belichick did the right thing

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Timmy

white swans need love too
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Is it better to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally?

Any NFL football fans know what happened on Sunday night (US time).

Bill Belichick (head coach of the New England Patriots) decided to go for 2 yards on 4th down, on his own 29 yard line, up by 6 points with just over 2 minutes to play. But, on that 4th down play, the Patriots didn't get the 2 yards. The ball was thus turned over to the Colts, who scored a touchdown and won the game by 1 point.

It was a great game, and a great ending. But, Belichick has been tongue-lashed and lambasted for his decision, I think very unfairly.

Weird to be bringing this up on an Aussie stock forum, but this story has spilled into financial newspapers and blogs for, I believe, very good reasons.

Anyway, some of the stories I have read, and some of the comments that make sense to me:

Source: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/16/bill-belichick-is-great/

Source: http://fridayinvegas.blogspot.com/2009/11/monday-morning-quarterback.html

Source: http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/25516.html

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704431804574540100532247022.html

So, is it better to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally? (Yes, unfortunately Bilichick failed unconventionally ...).
 
I've seen some of the articles that the New York Times published earlier this year going through the statistics on going for it on fourth down as opposed to punting. I think there's even a college in the States where the head coach always (and I mean always) goes for it on fourth down and never has his special teams punt because he's figured that on the statistics he's more likely to win than not.

But I think the issue is (as the first comment on the Freakonomics blog states), Belichick went for it on the fourth down as a once-off, an outlier. The statistics are predicated on a team going for first downs on fourth downs all the time.
 
McCoy Pauley said:
I think there's even a college in the States where the head coach always (and I mean always) goes for it on fourth down and never has his special teams punt because he's figured that on the statistics he's more likely to win than not.
Click to expand...

The WSJ article talks about
Kevin Kelley, a high-school football coach at Pulaski Academy in Little Rock, Ark., who has become famous for his strategy of virtually never punting.
Click to expand...
Could be him?

But I think the issue is (as the first comment on the Freakonomics blog states), Belichick went for it on the fourth down as a once-off, an outlier. The statistics are predicated on a team going for first downs on fourth downs all the time.
Click to expand...
That is an interesting point.
 
Many parts of the story made very little sense to me, at least until I researched that 'punt' refers to kicking a ball, as opposed to placing a bet
 
I would have thought it was all about managing risk and the probabilities that go with it. I personally would have thought punting gives you the higher probability of winning the game, at least then you are forcing the opponent to come up with good plays to win the game.

The problem was the situation of the game and the field position he was giving up. Because he was giving up such good field position with so little time left the chances of him facing total ruin (losing the game) if his play failed were significantly higher.

While it is great having stats saying attempting to get the 2 yards slightly increases your chances of winning surely this situation is like tossing a coin - each coin toss has only a 50% chance of a head or tail no matter what the previous data suggests. So while over time he might have an edge he was virtually betting everything (winning the game) on this one random outcome.

You would probably also need to look at the situation of the entire season as well ie if his team are 6-1 his play takes on slightly less significance but if they are 3-3 and fighting for a spot in the finals the risks slightly increases.
 

Yes field position is a critical 'parameter' in football although his own 29 yard isn't good field position
 
Not good field position, but punting it would likely have resulted in far better field position than if the conversion failed. I think Nomore4s raises an excellent point: while the conversion attempt may have had a slightly better ev, by choosing that option Belichick was overbetting.
 
Wysiwyg said:
Yes field position is a critical 'parameter' in football although his own 29 yard isn't good field position
Click to expand...

It is for the other team, when you hand possession over only 30 yards out instead of 80.
 
This is interesting... and illustrate where people judge the soundness of a decision based on the outcome.

To illustrate:

Suppose you play a coin toss game. Heads you win $2, tails you lose $1. You bet head... a sound decision. But tail came up.. does that change the soundness of your decision?

But I totally agree with the point regarding the circumstances.

Given the same coin toss game, but you are only allowed to play once. The wager is now heads you win $2m, tails you lose $1m. Will you still play?
 

I'd say that Belichick thought that if he had the Patriots punt, Manning would have less of a chance to score a touchdown but the chance would still have been high anyway - how many times has Manning driven the Colts for a score in the last two minutes of a game? I reckon it would be a reasonably high percentage.

However, if the play had come off and the Pats get a first down, the Colts would not have had the time to mount the winning drive - in fact the clock would have been managed to ensure the Colts don't get the ball back.

I'd say that at 6-2, the Patriots are unlikely to get home field advantage through the playoffs. At 7-1, the chances of getting home field advantage increase significantly. I reckon that would have been a factor.
 
McCoy, letting in a score to have a chance to counterattack has been done before, which in this case sounds like it would have given the Patriots about 2 minutes to get into position for a field goal. Field position is important, but so is time management.
 
Timmy said:
The WSJ article talks about [Kevin Kelley] Could be him?
Click to expand...

Yep, that's right.

ESPN video interview with Kevin Kelley: http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=4577094&categoryid=null

Story back on Kelley and his high school team from 2007: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/071113 (you'll need to scroll down a little, but the story notes that on 4th-and-1, a team has 75% of converting the fourth down). A number of the quotes from Kelley are eerily predictive of what Belichick went through after the Colts-Pats game.

This was the story I remember reading a few months ago: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/jon_wertheim/09/17/no.punt/index.html
 
Wysiwyg said:
Yes field position is a critical 'parameter' in football although his own 29 yard isn't good field position
Click to expand...
In addition, protecting profit (the points ahead) with field position AND 110 % committed defense. Either but preferably both of these two trailing stops would have increased the chance of success considerably.
 

Hmm, maybe my lack of sleep last night is catching up with me but I'm not sure I understand your point, Mr J. Can you explain it to me again?

On time management, the Jets lost because Maurice Jones-Drew decided (apparently on his own accord) to take a knee at the Jets 1 yard line rather than score the touchdown and give the ball back to the Jets when a successful field goal would give the Jags the win. Gerrard took the knee on the next two plays and they accordingly kicked the winning field goal.

Apparently Rex Ryan was telling his defenders not to tackle Jones-Drew in the hope he'd get into the end zone, score the touchdown and give the ball back to the Jets.
 
I'm not sure I understand your point, Mr J. Can you explain it to me again?
Click to expand...

As you just pointed out yourself, there is some history of letting the opposing team score, to allow your team a chance to counterattack. We've got two choices here.

If the Patriots punt, there's still a good chance that the Colts score. If the Patriots get the ball back, they will very likely be short on time to make their own drive to field goal range.

If the Patriots go for it and fail, they let in the touchdown and go for a game-winning drive of their own and with 2 minutes on the clock. If the Patriots convert the 4th, they have a decent chance of putting the game beyond a touchdown, and a chance of running out the clock completely.

The problem is that when the Patriots failed, they didn't let Indy score. Instead they let them use up the clock. 2 minutes inside 30? I don't know the stats this year, but I imagine Indy has a pretty good conversion rate inside the redzone. How's the Patriot's defense at the moment? For the coach to go for it but not be willing to let the Colts score, he has to be damn confident his defense (which was clearly overpowered in the 4th) can stop the opposing offense. It also suggests he didn't have confidence that his team's offense could strike back.
 
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