# Down by 8: PAT or 2 Pt Conversion? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [December 7, 2009, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/down-by-8-pat-or-2-pt-conversion/520368 "2009-12-07T21:30:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![VarlosZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d78d45/32.png) [@VarlosZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VarlosZ)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2009, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/down-by-8-pat-or-2-pt-conversion/520368/81 "2009-12-08T20:41:44Z")
You’re right, I forgot that they could kneel down for two full series if there’s no chance you can make a successful onside kick. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2009, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/down-by-8-pat-or-2-pt-conversion/520368/82 "2009-12-08T20:48:31Z")
So if you don’t think there is any reasonable chance of getting an onside kick, the only difference when going for the 2PC first is that there’s a \>50% chance that you find out you lost sooner? To me, that’s a big negative. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2009, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/down-by-8-pat-or-2-pt-conversion/520368/83 "2009-12-08T20:48:32Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > He’s not saying get rid of coaches. He’s saying get rid of coaches that make bad decisions. But that’s not going to happen, because the prevailing “wisdom” is to only select coaches out of a pool of people that don’t make good coaches. “Most coaches are former players, **but if players were able to make the hard decisions, then we wouldn’t need coaches in the first place.** ” The bolded part seems to be saying we don’t need coaches if players can make the hard decisions. I disagree with that. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2009, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/down-by-8-pat-or-2-pt-conversion/520368/84 "2009-12-08T20:53:23Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > So if you don’t think there is any reasonable chance of getting an onside kick, the only difference when going for the 2PC first is that there’s a \>50% chance that you find out you lost sooner? To me, that’s a big negative. But there is a reasonable chance. We’re not talking eight laterals and the band marching onto the field early. ---
**Author:** ![VarlosZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d78d45/32.png) [@VarlosZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VarlosZ)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2009, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/down-by-8-pat-or-2-pt-conversion/520368/85 "2009-12-08T20:53:40Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > EDIT:It’s really not, though. You put all your eggs in the single 2PC basket. Onside kick is never necessary because you’re letting the game be decided on the 2PC . . . If you kick the PAT first, then the game is being decided \*entirely \*by the 2PC. If you try the 2PC first, then it is only \*mostly \*being decided by the 2PC, since you have some small, \*additional \*chance to win the game by going the onside kick route _if necessary_. (Sorry for all the emphases.) ---
**Author:** ![VarlosZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d78d45/32.png) [@VarlosZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VarlosZ)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2009, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/down-by-8-pat-or-2-pt-conversion/520368/86 "2009-12-08T20:58:22Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > So if you don’t think there is any reasonable chance of getting an onside kick, the only difference when going for the 2PC first is that there’s a \>50% chance that you find out you lost sooner? To me, that’s a big negative. I’d agree, but [according to this site](http://www.advancednflstats.com/2009/09/onside-kicks.html) expected onside kicks are successful about 20% of the time (I think I’ve seen 15% quoted elsewhere). That’s reasonable. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2009, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/down-by-8-pat-or-2-pt-conversion/520368/87 "2009-12-08T21:01:12Z")
**Chronos** and **Jimmy Chitwood** , both of you have made statements about momentum but neither of you have provided data regarding football (I saw your link **Jimmy** and did not read it because another poster said football is not mentioned). I personally am just interested in seeing data (don’t really have a strong opinion as to whether I think it’s a factor or not). So, any data to back up your statements? ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2009, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/down-by-8-pat-or-2-pt-conversion/520368/88 "2009-12-08T21:16:36Z")
What would you like to see data for? ---
**Author:** ![VarlosZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d78d45/32.png) [@VarlosZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VarlosZ)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2009, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/down-by-8-pat-or-2-pt-conversion/520368/89 "2009-12-08T21:22:12Z")
I vaguely recall reading something or other on NFL momentum (e.g., “Team X has scored Y unanswered points; accounting for the fact that that probably means they’re the better team, does that fact make them more likely to score next than we’d generally expect them to?”). No luck with Google so far, so there’s a chance I’m misremembering. ---
**Author:** ![Hawkeyeop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/958977/32.png) [@Hawkeyeop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hawkeyeop)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2009, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/down-by-8-pat-or-2-pt-conversion/520368/90 "2009-12-08T21:24:15Z")
> [@RaftPeople](#): > > **Chronos** and **Jimmy Chitwood** , both of you have made statements about momentum but neither of you have provided data regarding football (I saw your link **Jimmy** and did not read it because another poster said football is not mentioned). My link and football is mentioned. It talks about the results of a football study in which they compared how teams do after horrific plays like turnovers, and the results were teams did slightly better than on an average play. Part of the evidence of that other sports found no sign of momentum also, but it did look at football specifically. > **[PAPER\_NFL\_JULY05\_FORWEB\_CORRECTED.pdf](https://eml.berkeley.edu/%7Edromer/papers/PAPER_NFL_JULY05_FORWEB_CORRECTED.pdf)** > > 442.33 KB “More importantly, it is possible to obtain direct evidence about whether outcomes differ systematically from normal after plays whose outcomes are either very bad or very good. To obtain a reasonable sample size, I do not look only at fourth-down attempts. Instead, for very bad plays I consider all cases where from one situation to the next, possession changed and the ball advanced less than ten yards. This captures not only failures on fourth downs, but also many turnovers, failed field goals, blocked punts, and long punt returns. For very good plays, I simply 24 consider all cases where the offense scored a touchdown. These criteria yield 636 very bad plays and 628 very good plays. I then examine what happens from the situation immediately following the extreme play to the next situation, from that situation to the next, and from that situation to the subsequent one. In each case, I ask whether the realized values of these situations one situation later differ systematically from the V’s for those situations. That is, I look at the means of the relevant egt’s (always computed from the perspective of the team that had the ball before the very bad or very good play). The results provide no evidence of momentum effects. All the point estimates are small and highly insignificant; the largest t-statistic (in absolute value) is less than 1.3. Moreover, the largest point estimate (again in absolute value) goes the wrong direction from the point of view of the momentum hypothesis: from the situation immediately following a very bad play to the next, the team that lost possession does somewhat better than average.” ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2009, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/down-by-8-pat-or-2-pt-conversion/520368/91 "2009-12-08T23:21:49Z")
> [@](#): > > If, OTOH, you start with a PAT and pull within 8, you can take your time and greatly improve your chances of getting that next touchdown. And if you take your time and get that leisurely next touchdown, and then fail the two-pointer after that, then you’re well and truly screwed. If there’s nothing at all that you can do with the information of whether your 2-pointer is good or not, then it makes no difference whether you go for the 2 early or late. If there is something you can do with the information, then it’s better to go for the 2 early. And I apologize for not citing my statement about momentum; it was something that I saw somewhere once long ago and filed away as interesting useless (to me) information. **Hawkeyeop** looks like he has good information there, though. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2009, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/down-by-8-pat-or-2-pt-conversion/520368/92 "2009-12-09T01:50:11Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#): > > What would you like to see data for? “Momentum and hot streaks and clutch are all roughly the same argument. If it’s real, it should show up in data, **but it doesn’t** ” I would probably define “momentum” as a combination of things, here is an attempt: 1. A recent subset of a game in which one team is having more success than the other 2. Crowd noise due to #1 (optional) 3. A psychological state of mind due to #1 and #2 that the recent success of the team indicates they will have continued success against the other team Basically, positive generates success (to some degree, theoretically, maybe) and negative does the reverse. I don’t think anyone would doubt the psychological aspects of sports and I put momentum in that category. So I was assuming that when you said it doesn’t show up that someone tried to qualify/quantify it and study it. But maybe when you say “it should show up in the data but it doesn’t” you really mean “in my opinion there is no such thing as momentum.” ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2009, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/down-by-8-pat-or-2-pt-conversion/520368/93 "2009-12-09T01:55:31Z")
**Hawkeyeop** , thanks, that’s interesting. I wish he extended it to an entire series or two instead of just one play, which seems like it would capture more of the “gut feel” of the duration of this theoretical momentum. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2009, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/down-by-8-pat-or-2-pt-conversion/520368/94 "2009-12-09T01:59:11Z")
One thing I will say about this thread: it all depends on the teams. Some teams suck at getting a few yards when they have to, some are great it. If it’s college, some teams have a definite advantage or disadvantage in overtime, in the pro’s it’s a little more of a crap shoot because of the coin toss. The stats can only help if you’ve accounted for these other things also. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2016, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/down-by-8-pat-or-2-pt-conversion/520368/95 "2016-01-21T14:32:40Z")
According to [538.com](http://538.com), this is “middle-school math”: [NFL Coaches Are Getting Away With Crimes Against Middle-School Math](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/nfl-coaches-are-getting-away-with-crimes-against-middle-school-math/). He compared the TPC against the PAT straight up, without reflecting that there is still a chance to tie even if you fail on the TPC - this would tilt the scales even further in favor of the TPC, as above. ---
**Author:** ![borschevsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/97f17d/32.png) [@borschevsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/borschevsky)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2016, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/down-by-8-pat-or-2-pt-conversion/520368/96 "2016-01-21T15:46:03Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > He compared the TPC against the PAT straight up, without reflecting that there is still a chance to tie even if you fail on the TPC - this would tilt the scales even further in favor of the TPC, as above. He did include the chance of missing the 2 point conversion but still reaching OT: > [@](#): > > If you go for two and don’t make it (which will happen 52.8 percent of the time), you can still win by going for two again (47.2 percent) and making it and then winning in overtime. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2016, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/down-by-8-pat-or-2-pt-conversion/520368/97 "2016-01-21T15:48:10Z")
My apologies :o and thanks for the correction :). ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/down-by-8-pat-or-2-pt-conversion/520368/98 "2016-03-14T14:11:59Z")
I just caught up on a bit of technical trade reading, and I see this question was posed in the November-December 2015 edition of _Contingencies_, the magazine of the _American Academy of Actuaries_ (they have a math puzzle section). They also asked for the lowest 2PT conversion % that would make it worthwhile to go for it assuming a 99% PAT success rate. In the January-February 2016 edition they have the answer as 36.7%. But I didn’t check their math. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/down-by-8-pat-or-2-pt-conversion/520368/99 "2016-03-14T15:30:01Z")
This page is an interesting walk down memory lane. I still firmly hold the same position, and while I tried to emphasize the key point, it was never really responded to: Down by 15, 2:30 left in the game, you just scored a touchdown to pull within 9. Go for 1 or 2? I say go for 1, because no matter what, you need another touchdown. If you go for 2 and miss it, your chance of scoring that next touchdown goes down significantly. The key here is that I think your chance at that next touchdown goes down significantly, more than your chance of recovering an onside kick. Meaning the net chance of victory is higher if you started off going for 1: My strategy: Go for 1, make it 95% of the time Defense holds, get the ball back, score a touchdown, x% chance Score a 2pt conversion: 47% chance VarlosZ / Jimmy Chitwood strategy: Go for 2, make it 47% of the time Defense holds, get the ball back, score a touchdown… Here’s the thing. This first touchdown is much less likely to happen than the same touchdown is in my scenario, due to clock issues. And this reduced chance hits you 53% of the time. My position is that this reduced chance is larger than any additional possibility of recovering an onside kick and scoring an extra field goal. Thus, going for a PAT first will yield a higher % chance to get to overtime. ---
**Author:** ![borschevsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/97f17d/32.png) [@borschevsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/borschevsky)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/down-by-8-pat-or-2-pt-conversion/520368/100 "2016-03-14T18:40:19Z")
I’m not sure I understand what probabilities you’re comparing here - when is the touchdown much less likely under the 2-point-first strategy? Are you saying that when you miss the two point try on the first TD, you’re less likely to score the second TD because you have to run a super-hurry-up offense? That may be true (though I’m not sure), but the corresponding 1-point-first scenario is that you miss the 2-point conversion and just straight lose the game, because you used up all the remaining game time getting that more likely second TD. So the 1-point-first strategy makes you more likely to only lose by 2 than the 2-point-first strategy does, but the 2-point-first strategy makes you more likely to win the game. The 1-point-first strategy would give you on average more points, and the 2-point-first strategy would give you on average more wins. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/down-by-8-pat-or-2-pt-conversion/520368.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/down-by-8-pat-or-2-pt-conversion/520368.md?page=6)