They had 2 timeouts and didn’t use either.
That game provided some object lessons in aggressiveness vs. overconfidence.
Chargers coach Brandon Staley was steadfast in his defense to continue to go for fourth-down conversions. At some point, methinks you have to admit that you might have been wrong on at least one of those decisions.
Speaking of which, I believe the Chargers should have gone for two when they went up 20-13 with 9 1/2 minutes to play.
Meh.
That’s judging the result, not the decision. The decisions to go for it on fourth down appear to have been correct each time. The execution and perhaps the play call weren’t there, which is partly on the coaches, but the decision to go for it seems justified.
“Taking the points” is the traditional way to avoid looking bad in case of a loss. If they’re interested in winning, especially against a team like the Chiefs, they needed to be smart and aggressive and it was almost enough. If you take the 60% choice on a 60/40 call and the 40 comes up 4 or 5 times in a row, that’s bad luck, not a bad decision each time.
It’s just another form of the Gambler’s Fallacy to make your decisions based on the outcomes instead of the numbers.
Meh.
If your team is failing to convert 4th downs and leaving easy points on the board over and over again, maybe it’s time to re-evaluate your percentages.
And “taking the points” is also a traditional way to win games.
They’ve been evaluated by people who study this more than me.
People are simultaneously bad with odds and asymmetrically assess advantages vs disadvantages. Punting on fourth and short or kicking a field goal gets you an immediate measurable result - the opposition starts with worse field position or you have 3 more points. But it also costs a potential TD but potential points aren’t visible on the TV.
I know I’m not the only one to criticize coaches for playing to avoid losses rather than playing to win, so I love the increased number of fourth down attempts in recent years. It’s not just aggression for the sake of aggression but taking calculated risks that put the team in the best position to win. Those teams are playing to win, not merely playing to avoid a loss.
And sometimes that means the coach opens himself up to criticism when multiple fourth down attempts fail. So be it. People love to judge results instead of decisions. And that means creating narratives, i.e. making up stories, that somehow the decision was actually bad.
I’m fine with the Chargers going for all the 4th downs. It’s a high variance strategy, so you’ll have some cases where you fail a few times in a cluster. The Chargers went for it a bunch against Cleveland and won because of it; they did the same against Baltimore and got blown out. This game I’m honestly not sure how much of an impact it ended up having - the two times they were successful ended up with TDs. (The second of those was after the teams traded turnovers, so evaluate that however you like.)
Also, please remember that this is the Chargers we’re discussing. Do we really expect the Chargers to successfully kick the easy field goal 5 straight times?
The one fourth-down decision that I disagreed with was the last play of the first half. Chargers had weathered the early storm and had a 14-10 lead. 3 plays on goal-to-go had netted 4 yards, including a drop on second down which would have been an easy TD. Then a QB run on 3rd down (one of the Chargers’ bread-and-butter plays) got one yard. At this point, I think you must get some points and keep the momentum, knowing that KC gets the ball to open the second half. Instead, the Chiefs end the half on a positive note, not the Chargers.
I’m seeing reports, from Albert Breer of TheMMQB, that the NFL is going to delay three of this weekend’s games, due to the COVID outbreaks. If his reporting is accurate:
- Tomorrow’s Browns-Raiders game will be delayed to a 5pm ET start on Monday
- The Rams-Seahawks and Eagles-WFT games, originally scheduled for Sunday, would both be delayed to Tuesday at 7pm ET.
Good catch. This is verified at NFL.com.
In general, I agree. I like seeing those kids of “high stakes” plays throughout the game and not just at the ends of halfs. But that doesn’t mean you should go for it every time it’s 4th and short inside your opponent’s 20. Circumstances matter. For example, Railer13 makes a good case for kicking the field goal at the end of the half. And in this case, when your 4th down offense is getting eaten alive by their 4th down defense, maybe the percentages don’t tell the full story.
Except the Chargers don’t. They do take opponents and situation into account. They don’t just blindly go for it each time.
All the analyses I saw indicate they went for it in appropriate situations. Even the attempt at the end of the half. Taking the 3 points is good for justifying yourself after the game but you really want to get 6 against a team like the Chiefs.
It didn’t work out for them, but, again, that’s judging the results instead of the decision. It’s a high variance decision and Staley accepts that when those decisions don’t produce desired results, he’s going to get questioned about it endlessly.
The real test is: had 1 or 2 more of those attempts succeeded and the Chargers won, would people be saying “Oh, they shouldn’t have gone for it so often - they got really lucky!”? Maybe a few people would be saying that, but I’ll assert the vast majority wouldn’t even think about it. That’s the epitome of judging based on the result instead of the decision making process.
You keep repeating this, and it may be true for some, but it’s not for me and you don’t know what is in everyone’s head. It’s vaguely insulting to continually state it.
I can show you the texts between my son and me when we both agreed that the Chargers should kick the FG at the end of the half. No post-game justification necessary.
Green Bay controls their own destiny. Win this week to lock up the division and a top four seed. Win out and lock up the number one seed and the all-important bye week. That bye is even more important this year, given the injuries sustained by the Packers.
I would like to note that I predicted Green Bay would lose no major players during the bye week. As usual, that was wrong - Randall Cobb had surgery and is on injured reserve. The Packers did fine without him against the Bears, but they still have a difficult schedule coming up. Good news on the injury front, however - David Bakhtiari and Jaire Alexander are practicing. That’s two all-Pros that have been out for all or most of the season while the Packers have done what they needed to do. Both are the cornerstones of their respective units, and having them back will be massive. I don’t expect either to play before the Browns on Christmas, but all signs point to both being back by the end of the regular season.
The Monday game will be on NFL Network. the Tuesday games will both be on Fox - part of the country gets Washington-Eagles, and the rest gets Seahawks-Rams. Note that this leaves Packers-Ravens as the only “late game” on Fox’s doubleheader on Sunday.
What did you base it on? Was it the odds, or just a gut feel?
Here are some numbers: coming into the game, the Chargers success rate overall on 4th down was 61.90%, and 77.78% at home. The 4th Down Decision Bot calculated that going for it was the proper call on every controversial 4th down play in the game.
If you are saying the field goal was better at the end of the half because of some unquantifiable momentum argument, you are welcome to do so, but the numbers aren’t on your side.
See my post #28 in this thread. Mostly a momentum argument, which I know is unquantifiable. But, dammit, in a close game, you cannot leave points on the field. I also disagreed with KC going for it on 4th-and-goal later in the game as well.
BTW, the 4th down decision Bot had a MEDIUM recommendation on the end of the half attempt.
“The numbers” don’t tell the whole story. Otherwise we would have bots coaching every NFL team.
No one is saying otherwise. “The numbers” aren’t telling you which specific “go for it” play to run, which personnel to have on the field, and any other of the umpteen different things that go into it, other than “kicking it here is, historically, a bad decision that leaves more points on the field than are put on the scoreboard”.
You can enjoy the narrative of the game as much as you like - we all do, that’s why we’re on a message board talking about it. But it seems you’re actively rejecting some pretty hard numbers just for the sake of traditionalism.