In general, “conventional” football is way to conservative. It’s designed to protect the coach’s ass by making it seem like he made the safe decision even when he made the wrong one. Coaches regularly give up a fraction of a chance to win the game in order to deflect fan anger later if they lose. One of the great things about Bellichick is that he doesn’t give a shit about all that, and he can objectively evaluate the merits of going for it even if the fans can’t. So the move he made deviates from the norm - and deviating from the norm and then not having success definitely gets you quite a fan reaction - but it was the smart play given the circumstances.