They don’t need to gain a first down if you have no timeouts. Are you sure you’ve thought this through? You don’t think timeouts should factor into the decision to go for it on 4th down late in the game? Really?
Doesn’t matter what scale he uses. I’m pointing out that he gives them double the chance to do effectively the same thing in the “go for it” calculation compared to the “punt” calculation. He skewed the numbers to favor going for it by a 100% margin.
Yeah, the chart says you need a 37% chance of converting for going for it to be correct, but the actual chance is obviously greater than that. As **borschevsky **pointed out, you can plug in 37% and it still works, but why should you when 50% is definitely closer to reality?
First, they don’t say it would be a good call, they say it would be a break-even call, i.e. no better or worse than punting. Second, statistics are often counterintuitive (example). Criticizing math we don’t understand just because it feels wrong is generally a recipe for poor performance.
Probably for simplicity’s sake, I guess. I admit that that’s a bit of a problem for the last column (3:00 remaining), though on the other side consider that we’ve been using the 37% figure from that column even though there was closer to two minutes remaining; in a “2:21” column the needed conversion percentage would be lower.
The change from 20% to 10% was mostly about the lack of timeouts, but I was also factoring in all the instances in which the Jets get the ball back with, for example, 1:30 left and no timeouts (if the other team goes 4 and out, say), as well as all the times they get the ball back *inside *their own 20, which will usually be the case (as the other team will be punting from about midfield). It’s just easier to fold that all into one variable then to create three new ones.
If you give the Jets a 15% chance to score a TD following a 3 and out, going for it still comes out (barely) ahead in my formula, 10.5% to 10.3%. Seems like much too small of a drop in probability to me (20% to 15%), but I could be wrong.
Anyway, we could haggle over specific probabilities, but that seems pretty fruitless, and I imagine we’d ultimately wind up pretty close to the numbers I spit out before. On the other hand, as I failed to note earlier, it’s wrong to focus solely on numbers that reflect a generic situation between two perfectly average teams. The quality of each team’s offense vis-à-vis the other’s defense matters a great deal, as does each sides special teams, as does the weather (in some cases). I shouldn’t have made such blanket statements before about the necessity of going for it, but I think I’ve shown that it’s very hard for a call such as Mangini’s to be considered obviously bad – at worst it’s questionable.
Timeouts don’t matter to the offense, who (without timeouts) can spike the ball and will have to go for it on 4th – despite RNATB’s bizarre assertion that timeouts don’t matter – meaning they’ll still get (on average) 3 downs per series. So no functional difference.
I disagree with your numbers. I don’t think the drive after punting and getting the ball back would have any less chance of success than the one going for it. Except for the obvious, which is that the “going for it” drive’s chances hinge on being successful on the 4th down play that “starts” it.
In a very real sense, the drive after punting and getting the ball back should have a significantly higher chance of success because it doesn’t start with an “all or nothing” play. Instead of 4th and 2, it starts with 1st and 10. No imminent chance of immediate failure.
No, it was beyond obviously bad. It was historically laughable.
We’re talking about the 3-11 Seahawks led by Seneca Wallace. Not sure why you kept referencing the Patriots upthread. The inept Seahawks had managed a grand total of 10 points all game.
And you’re the Jets. Assuming Seneca and the Seahawks sputtered out like they had been doing all game, they have to punt to Leon friggin’ Washington!
And it’s not like the Seahawks had a reasonable chance to convert a 1st down if the Jets had punted. In that situation a first down is much rarer than in a normal situations because of the immense, irresistable pressure to keep the clock moving. That almost always translates into at least two runs against 9 or even 10 men in the box.
Come on. You guys are killing me here. Don’t you watch football?
They matter less on offense than defense, but of course they matter on offense. Complete a 20-yard crossing pattern and you save yourself at least 10 seconds by calling a timeout as opposed to spiking it, **AND **you don’t waste a down! Furthermore, as as the drive goes on and the clock becomes more and more of a factor, your offense’s ability to use the whole field is severely limited without any timeouts. If you get down to the 5 with one timeout and 20 seconds the defense has to defend against the run as well as the pass, but with no timeouts they only have to play the pass. It’s a huge difference.
**Both **drives start with an all-or-nothing play. By punting, you merely postpone it until the other team’s 3rd down. Essentially, you’re hoping that your defense’s chance of succeeding on that play is greater than your offense’s chance to a great enough extent to justify the sacrifice of your timeouts and a not-meaningless amount of time remaining.
I got mixed up before. The fact that it’s the Seahawks and a low-scoring game matters, but it’s still not like 4th & 2 is a less-than-even-money proposition, nor is it true that you’ll force a 3 and out 95% of the time. It’s a close decision one way or another.
I’m not entirely sure it’s worthwhile for us to have these specific kinds of football discussions, since you’re not amenable to “let’s find a weighted average of the range of possibilities” arguments, and I’m not amenable to “if you watch football you know this to be true” arguments.
Of course timeouts matter to the offense. If you’re down by 7, with 1st and 10 at your 25, 2:20 left with 3 timeouts is a much better situation than 2:00 with no timeouts.
As above, I disagree. The going for it drive’s chances of success are better, since you have more time and timeouts. The bit about the chances hinging on the 4th down play are accounted for in the math in the 37% or 50% added to the formula. The two drives being compared at 20% vs 10% are after successfully completing 4th & 2, or after punting and stopping the Seahawks defensively.
This I do not understand. I think the Varloz formula numbers overstate the Jets chances in both cases, and even then the best case they give is a 10% chance of making overtime, so a 5% chance of winning. The true numbers are going to be something like a 4% chance by going for it, and 3% by punting (or vice versa). In a game the Jets lost 13-3 to that Seattle team, it seems unlikely that this is the largest coaching mistake of the game, let alone some historical blunder. It’s true that the conventional wisdom in the NFL is to punt in such situations; I think the conventional wisdom is wrong.
I agree with these points, and they all argue for punting. I expect Holmgren would have punted out of bounds, preventing a big return, but giving up a bit of field position.
Holy crap, Denver fired Mike Shanahan! After they went down in flames this year I wondered if it was possible - they’re 24-24 over the last three years, and haven’t made the playoffs, which was their longest such stretch in his 14 years - but I figured he was an institution and they’d never kick him out.
If that was some sort of bargain the Bucs had signed with satan, sure. And Gruden was on the right track a few years ago when they were rebuilding with Chris Simms. But over the last three years, Gruden has taken exactly the approach I dislike: faced with an aging team, he has opted for the band-aid approach. He swapped the potential of Simms for better-right now-but-no-upside Jeff Garcia and Brian Griese. He brought in a slew of guys like Ike Hilliard, Joey Galloway, Jerramy Stevens, Kevin Carter, Philip Buchanon, etc. That approach keeps your team respectable, but does not lead to championships.
I am similarly shocked. Mike Martz was fired today too, a bit less shocking though.
I hope the Bengals fire Bob Bratkowski.
Holy crap, indeed. I’m really bummed by this announcement. But on the other hand, the defense and special teams have been really bleak the past couple of years, and he’s done nothing, apparently, to fix it and plug those holes. I appreciate that he’s been building up Cutler, but there’s one thing that Cutler and Elway do have in common. Neither one could carry the entire offense and defense into victory. They need some help.
Now I’m just really scared about who they’re going to get to replace him. I’m irrationally afraid that Marty Schottenheimer will decide that he doesn’t want to play golf anymore and wants to take a turn at coaching his old arch rival, especially since he didn’t want to stop coaching in the first place, and San Diego fucked him over. Which is a problem for me because I hate that bastard so much, I wouldn’t be able to cheer for my boys anymore.
And to add in wake of Shanahan’s firing: this is a guy who shouldn’t have been axed. If you were going to whack him after the Jake Plummer years, that’d have been one thing. But when you let him retool his offense around Cutler, you have to give that time to happen. The Broncos have arguably the best young core of skill players in the league. Yes, the end of the season sucked, but I think this is a team that was on the way back up.
“Wow” on Shanahan. I’m not sure it’s justified, but nor am I sure it’s a bad idea. According to DVOA this year’s Broncos had the second worst defense of any team since 1995 (behind only this year’s Lions). Shanahan has final say on personnel matters, does he not? If so, he has to answer for that.
The Shanahan Firing is a surprise, but I’d like to offer some baseless speculation on the reason for it: It’s an indictment of the GM/Head Coach philosophy. I bet that Pat Bowlen and Shanny had a closed door meeting in which Bowlen asked Skeletor to surrender his control of the GM title and responsibilities. Shanahan refused and left the owner with no choice but to fire him. I think that Bowlen made the correct decision, and I think that means that they will not be hiring Cowher as a replacement since he supposedly want GM control. Replacing a GM/Coach with another GM/Coach would be stupid, especially since Cowher is a unknown quantity as that.
I still think that Shanahan is a very good coach, and there’s almost no doubt that he’ll get one of the better NFL coaching jobs out there, but much of that will depend on his insistence on being a GM. As a GM he’s been simply awful, and he’s completely inept at scouting defensive talent. Offensively he’s as good as anyone at scouting and coaching, and he’s probably the best in-game manager in the league.
I’d take him over Lovie Smith any day, so long as he allowed someone else to run the personnel decisions and you paired him with a top flight defensive coordinator.
Shanahan for the Lions???
To the Jets, who will have to rebuild their facilities to allow Favre and Shanahan’s egos to fit in the same room.
I don’t care if you love or hate Marty, but San Diego absolutely did NOT fuck him over. Marty didn’t get fired for failing in the playoffs, he got fired for forcing Dean Spanos into deciding a power play between Marty and A.J. Smith. Marty knew exactly what he was doing, and got fired when Dean sided with A.J.
As a lifelong Charger fan, I was thrilled when we hired Marty, I’m totally thankful to him for turning our once moribund franchise around, and I was completely in favor of both his firing and Norv’s hiring when it happened. He’s the best coach in the league at taking a horrible team to the playoffs, and he’s the worst coach in the league at winning in the playoffs once he gets a team there.
Denver Broncos
Executive Vice President of Football Operations (GM) Fired - Mike Shanahan / Hired - ???
Head Coach Fired -** Mike Shanahan** / Hired - ???
New York Jets
Head Coach Fired - Eric Mangini / Hired - ???
Cleveland Browns
General Manager Fired - Phil Savage / Hired - ???
Head Coach Fired - Romeo Crennel / Hired - ???
San Fransisco 49ers
Head Coach Fired - Mike Nolan / Interim - Mike Singletary / Hired - Mike Singletary
Offensive Coordinator Fired - Mike Martz / Hired - ???
Oakland Raiders
Head Coach Fired - Lane Kiffin / Interim - Tom Cable / Hired - ???
Detroit Lions
President Fired - Matt Millen / Interim - Tom Lewand / Hired - Tom Lewand
General Manager Fired - Matt Millen / Interim - Martin Mayhew / Hired - Martin Mayhew
Head Coach Fired - **Rod Marinelli **/ Hired - ???
Offensive Coordinator Fired - Jim Colletto / Hired - ???
Defensive Coordinator Fired - Joe Barry / Hired - ???
St. Louis Rams
Head Coach Fired - Scott Linehan / Interim - Jim Haslett / Hired - ???
Seattle Seahawks
Head Coach Resigned - Mike Holmgren / Hired - Jim Mora
Houston Texans
Defensive Coordinator Fired - Richard Smith / Hired - ???
I’m sure there are some that I forgot, especially among GMs and Coordinators, so feel free to add in anyone that I left out and update this chart. Interesting so far. Expect other changes as the hot Coordinators get plucked from successful teams creating new vacancies.
That’s the only thing I like about Marty! Hell, if he does come back, I’d love to see him go to the Raiders. He’'ll make the team competitive without being a real threat.
Well, I wasn’t familiar with the intricacies of the Bolts’ situation. From where I was sitting, it looked like they dumped a guy who could get them to the playoffs in favor of a guy who could barely got a .500 record (and who got them to the playoffs because the Chiefs are in shambles, Al Davis is bound and determined to run Oakland into the ground, and Mike Shanahan couldn’t put together a defense to save his life–or job–apparently).
I fully expect Marty to be back in the league sooner or later, but it would shock me to the core if it was with The Crypt Keeper. Hell, when he came to San Diego he couldn’t promise us we’d be any good any time soon, but he freely pledged to despise the Raiders at least as much as we did (if not, in fact, significantly more.)
Loathing Al Davis was the great common-bond between Marty and The Shanarat.
So six head coach vacancies. As I see it, there’s two really great opportunities in Denver and Cleveland. Denver because of a lot of talent and a very patient owner; Cleveland a bit less so on both scores, but still a pretty decent situation to step into.
The St. Louis and especially Detroit hires will benefit from low expectations.
The Jets job … with the Favre mess, no way.
And of course, the Oakland coach will be someone who would otherwise not get offered another job.