On Sunday, Bill Belichick eschewed a punt on fourth and two from his 29 yard line with 2:03 on the clock and a six point lead. The tactic failed and the Colts scored the winning touchdown with 13 seconds left. On Monday, not to mention Tuesday through Friday, the recriminations flew.
This is a baseball post: I promise.
You can imagine the blowback from a coaching decision that defies conventional wisdom and then backfires. What particularly bemuses me is how the sports media has infused this decision with a moral characteristic. Repeatedly the decision is being called "arrogant."
This is a baseball post: I promise.
The advanced analysis of sabermetrics have been around for 30 years. But in the football universe, this kind of research is new. It'll be 20 years, at least, before the sports media figures it out. But here's what is already known about situations like this: If his goal was to win the game, Belichick's decision was easily defensible.
I won't crunch all the numbers for you, but on average, teams make fourth and two about 60% of the time. They prevent teams from entering the end zone from 30 yards out about 30% of the time. From 70 yards out, that number increases to about 70%. So on average, going for it could be expected to yield success 72% of the time (60% + [30%x40%]), about the same as punting.
It's important here to note that these are facts, not matters of opinion. People will argue against the above with "logic," but they are dueling with spirits. Conventional wisdom has been proven wrong by the experience of thousands of NFL games.
Of course, these are not "average"teams. The Boy Horses had scored touchdowns on their last two possessions and have this special Peyton tool they use to carve up defenses in the final minutes. The Patriots spin fourth and two into gold like Rumpelstiltskin. There was more reward and less risk than usual to going for it. It was a much better decision than "on average."
Aside: In fact, teams punt way too much in general. There should be virtually no punting at all between the 40s, because the real estate gain does little to decrease the odds of the opponent scoring. But giving up the ball reduces the chances of your team scoring nearly to zero. New research has found this to be fact. It's not debatable.
This is a baseball post: I promise.
Not content to be ignorant about football, the sports media feels the need to demonstrate ignorance about psychology. They've decided that because Bill Belichick appears arrogant, his decision must have been borne of arrogance. How else could he knuckle up his head so badly? I don't know how a decision designed to advance your team's interests can be "arrogant" or "humble." I don't know how it could be "generous" or "miserly." Or "weak" or "strong" or "tall" or "short" or "happy" or "sad." Calculations like his are either made with good information or not, either well-considered or not, and turn out either well or poorly. It's just another effort of the sports media to explain away what it doesn't understand by applying tags that are impossible to disprove.
So how is this a baseball post? The running of the football bull is perfectly analogous to the baseball kingdom, where most of the sports media still, 30 years after the proofs were written, doesn't understand that some conventional wisdom is wrong. Bunting is often a bad strategy. RBI are a team event. Pitcher wins are so close to meaningless that no one believes they're just friends. Great players go through cold streaks and hangers-on can get hot.
Adding character overtones doesn't shed any light on the subject. If, for example, Barry Bonds hits under .200 in a couple of playoff series, concluding that he "chokes" or "isn't a big game guy" or "hasn't stepped up" doesn't make you an analyst, it makes you a phony. Barry Bonds hit under .200 over a dozen games hundreds of times in his career, but no one noticed because they hadn't viewed those dozen games distinctly from others. (It's worth noting that Bonds hit like Manny Pacquiao in the Giants' 2005 World Series run.)
So the reaction to Belichick was a microcosm of how sports media covers baseball and explains it to fans. It is, in short, a fraud, a daily series of malpractice cases for which no one has ever been held accountable, and people who commit this malpractice are lauded for their perspicacity and insight regularly. But as maybe the greatest coach in NFL history can tell you, they don't know what they're talking about.
This is a baseball post: I promise.
You can imagine the blowback from a coaching decision that defies conventional wisdom and then backfires. What particularly bemuses me is how the sports media has infused this decision with a moral characteristic. Repeatedly the decision is being called "arrogant."
This is a baseball post: I promise.
The advanced analysis of sabermetrics have been around for 30 years. But in the football universe, this kind of research is new. It'll be 20 years, at least, before the sports media figures it out. But here's what is already known about situations like this: If his goal was to win the game, Belichick's decision was easily defensible.
I won't crunch all the numbers for you, but on average, teams make fourth and two about 60% of the time. They prevent teams from entering the end zone from 30 yards out about 30% of the time. From 70 yards out, that number increases to about 70%. So on average, going for it could be expected to yield success 72% of the time (60% + [30%x40%]), about the same as punting.
It's important here to note that these are facts, not matters of opinion. People will argue against the above with "logic," but they are dueling with spirits. Conventional wisdom has been proven wrong by the experience of thousands of NFL games.
Of course, these are not "average"teams. The Boy Horses had scored touchdowns on their last two possessions and have this special Peyton tool they use to carve up defenses in the final minutes. The Patriots spin fourth and two into gold like Rumpelstiltskin. There was more reward and less risk than usual to going for it. It was a much better decision than "on average."
Aside: In fact, teams punt way too much in general. There should be virtually no punting at all between the 40s, because the real estate gain does little to decrease the odds of the opponent scoring. But giving up the ball reduces the chances of your team scoring nearly to zero. New research has found this to be fact. It's not debatable.
This is a baseball post: I promise.
Not content to be ignorant about football, the sports media feels the need to demonstrate ignorance about psychology. They've decided that because Bill Belichick appears arrogant, his decision must have been borne of arrogance. How else could he knuckle up his head so badly? I don't know how a decision designed to advance your team's interests can be "arrogant" or "humble." I don't know how it could be "generous" or "miserly." Or "weak" or "strong" or "tall" or "short" or "happy" or "sad." Calculations like his are either made with good information or not, either well-considered or not, and turn out either well or poorly. It's just another effort of the sports media to explain away what it doesn't understand by applying tags that are impossible to disprove.
So how is this a baseball post? The running of the football bull is perfectly analogous to the baseball kingdom, where most of the sports media still, 30 years after the proofs were written, doesn't understand that some conventional wisdom is wrong. Bunting is often a bad strategy. RBI are a team event. Pitcher wins are so close to meaningless that no one believes they're just friends. Great players go through cold streaks and hangers-on can get hot.
Adding character overtones doesn't shed any light on the subject. If, for example, Barry Bonds hits under .200 in a couple of playoff series, concluding that he "chokes" or "isn't a big game guy" or "hasn't stepped up" doesn't make you an analyst, it makes you a phony. Barry Bonds hit under .200 over a dozen games hundreds of times in his career, but no one noticed because they hadn't viewed those dozen games distinctly from others. (It's worth noting that Bonds hit like Manny Pacquiao in the Giants' 2005 World Series run.)
So the reaction to Belichick was a microcosm of how sports media covers baseball and explains it to fans. It is, in short, a fraud, a daily series of malpractice cases for which no one has ever been held accountable, and people who commit this malpractice are lauded for their perspicacity and insight regularly. But as maybe the greatest coach in NFL history can tell you, they don't know what they're talking about.
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