go for 2?
This has happen twice in the last two weeks and both times coaches have gone for 2.
So 10 if you score, 11 if you kick, 12 if you miss.
One time had about 4 minutes left, another 9 minutes.
Some guy (who probably had the team at +11.5) on this gambling forum said that it is definitely incorrect to take the 2 point conversion straight away, you need to save the 2 points for your last touchdown.
I’d say it’s a coaches call but you are better off going for two early rather than later.
I agree. I think you go for 2 in that situation so that you know what you need later.
Should be an easy call – go for 2 – but I’m guessing most coaches would just kick.
There’s also the pretty well known example that teams down 14 late in the game (say 3:00 left) should clearly go for 2 if they score a TD, even though I think 32 out of 32 NFL coaches would just kick. (Well, maybe Belichick.)
ETA: Link. So, maybe not Belichick.
The expected values in the linked article are close enough that the analysis should be overwhelmed by team-to-team variability. It’s easy to work out the math with a basic grasp of probability theory, but the assumptions behind that theory seldom match what’s happening on the field. It’s a lot smarter for the Seahawks to go for 2 in that situation with Marshawn Lynch than it is for the Ravens and their sub-2 ypc rushing offense to try the same play; it’s a lot better idea to try to push through the Jags’ front 7 than the Panthers.
Those probability calculations generally don’t include any kind of uncertainty analysis. That’s easy enough to work out with a basic grasp of theory as well, but nobody does it… probably (and admittedly, this is an assumption on my part) because it makes the end result of all these calculations inconclusive.
I am in the minority here, but I would go for 1. That leaves me down two scores, or 11 pts. With time to play. If I go for 2 and miss, I’m down 12 with however many minutes are left in the 4th, which requires 2 Td’s.
Two TD’s instead of a td and a fg is a lot different and may mentally deflate a team. So, i’ll take my chances on the second td to make the 2 pt conversion. That way, the players won’t feel like the mountain is unclimbable until the end.
Just my 2 cents.
Yeah, go for 2 now. Know what you need later.
From a purely mathematical standpoint, if you need a two-point conversion it makes no difference if you score it after your first touchdown or your last touchdown.
But I think there’s an intangible psychological factor. Attempting it on your first touchdown and failing can demoralize your players. And making it on your first touchdown can inspire your opponents to play harder against you. So arguably, you might be better off to play conservatively and build up your score and then go for the conversion at the critical moment when it’ll change the balance of the game. Go for 7-3-8 rather than 8-3-7.
Go for it.
If you miss it, you need two touchdowns.
If you try the extra point, you still need two touchdowns.
So you’re no worse off if you don’t get the two. And if you’re only ten points down, you can tie it with a TD, extra point, and a field goal.
This isn’t correct.
18 pt lead.
Score touchdown, lead is 12. If you make it, you need 10 pts, a touchdown, extra pt, and field goal to tie.
If you score TD, go for 2 and miss, you still need 12 points. That’s two touchdowns.
Which is why I would kick the extra point right away. That means you are down by 11, which is a TD, 2 pt. Conversion and a field goal to tie.
The key to me, anyway, is even if you score a TD and made the 2 pt conversion, you still have to score a TD, extra pt, and FG. If you kick the PAT, you still need to score another TD and kick a FG.
But if you miss that first 2 pt conversion, you are forced to score two TD’s. This is a lot harder to do, and the game can be over much more quickly.
Think about it for a moment. If you kick the PAT first, you still need a TD and a FG. so, on your next drive, if it stalls, you can kick a FG, and try to get the ball again to score a TD and go for two.
If you go for 2 and miss, you change the rest of he game. Of on your next drive you stall but are in FG range, you still have to go for the first down or TD, because a FG makes it a 9 pt game, which still requires a TD and a FG.
attempting the 2 pt conversion earlier offers real disadvantages if you miss it, and if you make it, it really doesn’t change a thing. You still need to score a TD and a FG. You can do that in any order. But if you go for it and miss on your first TD, you are forced to go for the end zone for the rest of the 4th quarter.
If you need to make a two-point conversion regardless, I think it’s better to go for it earlier. If you fail, you can adjust your strategy. On the other hand if you put the conversion off until the last minute, you may not have another chance to get the ball if you fail.
I think this makes some sense, but only if you are confident you can pick up a 2-pt conversion one out of two tries. That may be what the average is, but a coach would be lambasted and possibly fired if he didn’t go for the high percentage PAT after each TD.
But if i knew i had an 80% chance of picking up the two point conversion, then I’d go for it. Unfortunately, i doubt ANY coach would have the stones to risk it, even in a meaningless game. But if you make it, you can win the game if you score the second TD and kick the PAT.
This is the crux of the question for me - figure out how many points you need. If you’re trying to score 2 TDs, you’ll make different decisions than if you’re trying to score one TD and a FG. I want as much information as I can have when I’m making those decisions.
If you kick the extra point to go down 11, then kick a FG to go down 8, you still need to make a 2 point conversion - but if you miss it now, the game’s over and you lose. Make that 2 point try first, and whether or not you make it you put yourself in a better position to call (not to say win) the game.
This comes up in even starker form when a team down by 15 scores in the mid-to-late fourth quarter. Most commonly, in that situation, pro and college, teams go for one.
But I agree with Enginerd–I want to know what I need, as soon as possible. If I’m going to miss the two, I’d rather miss it after the first TD, when I still have a little more time to roll the dice with onside kicks, Hail Marys, and laterals.
This was my thinking. I can know as soon as possible if I need to play for 2 TDs or if I can settle for FG on my next drive.
If I kick the PAT, yes, I can still settle for FG on my next drive, but then I NEED that 2 point conversion later or I’m screwed.
By the way that “delaying the decision” tactic is an important tool in coaching because it maintains the illusion that a game is competitive. Needing a touchdown, a coach might decide not to go for it on fourth and 2 with five minutes remaining and assume he’ll get the ball back… only to get the ball back with two minutes left and find his team facing a fourth and 7. It’s a bad tradeoff, but failing and losing later looks better in some undefined way.
Timing in the game is critical when it comes to deciding whether a 2-point conversion is worth it. There’s the infamous chart I hear commentators refer to at times, but it doesn’t take into account varriability. So, for instance, if you’re down by 18 in the first half, I can’t imagine going for 2, but in the examples given by the OP, with roughly 9 and 4 minutes left, I’d think it’s pretty much a given.
Yes, there’s the psychological factor involved, but if you’re going to get that whether you miss it earlier and now know you need two more touchdowns, or if you get to the end and need it to tie and then miss it. And if you make it, maybe it helps swing more momentum your way. But really, the big reason is that, if you miss it earlier, you get the chance to adjust for it.
As an example, let’s say you just kick the extra point, then you get the ball back and are driving but stall on your opponent’s 30, it’s 4th and 5. If go for it and made it, you can fairly comfortably kick the field goal. If you go for it and miss it, you know you have to go for it. But if you kick the extra point, you’ve just lost your ability to account for that variable in this situation, so essentially doubling down that decision.
So, basically, I guess, my point is, if you’ll have to go for 2, you want to do it as soon as reasonably possible without doing it so soon that you aren’t reasonably accounting for mulitple scoring opportunities by you and the other team. I’d say a rule of thumb is probably number of possessions remaining is roughly number of scores needed plus one. So, at roughly 9 minutes, you can expect to have 2-3 more possessions, and so being down by 12 and with the choice of the conversion, it makes sense.
And, of course, let us not forget that the extra point isn’t guaranteed either. Yeah, it’s usually a given, and teams usually don’t even really try to block it, but in a tight game you’ll see them go after it more aggressively.
That all said, I still think coaches in the NFL are, in general, way too conservative when it comes to this sort of stuff. Teams punting on their opponents 45 on 4th and 1, or whatever. Yeah, coaches get crap when they go for it and fail, but if it were more common, they’d get less flack for the mathematically sound decision. Don’t teams have someone either on staff or as a consultant that can analyze their stats and help them make these sorts of decisions like when to punt or go for field goals based on their pass performance in similar game conditions? Can’t they help them figure out odds on making the various conversions and how it would work out given the current game conditions?
If you’re going to get two or more touchdowns after that, then it doesn’t matter whether you go for 1 or 2: You’ll win.
If you’re going to get one other touchdown and a field goal after that, then one of your two touchdowns (the current one or the later one) needs to have a 2 connected to it, and it doesn’t matter which.
The only decision I can see having any relevance is that you want to make it unpredictable which one you go for, to hamper your opponent’s defense. So if I were the coach, I’d choose randomly which one to go for 2 on. Which would, of course, mean sometimes going for it on the first one.
My apologies if this has been mentioned already (I did not see it had on my cursory skim), but the other team may well score again (let’s say a field goal), so then it is a question of being down 15, 14, or 13 at that point, which obviously could make a great difference.
(I’d have deleted instead but i couldn’t figure out how and the 5-minute window was running down)
If the 2 point conversion is not needed on the first try to win then you kick. The kick is a gimme, if you miss the 2 point conversion you get 0 extra points. Take the bird in the hand.