Re: 4th and 2 on the their own 30 - Discuss it here (Merged 4X)
Just as a foreshadow, I really have to study for a test so this will be the last post I make on this subject until I post to my blog either later on tonight or tomorrow.
I'll grant, for the sake of argument, that the likelihood of the Colts scoring a TD was 100% if we failed to convert that 4th and 2. I'll also grant that the Pats win the game in they convert there. So if you go for it, your chance of winning is equal to your chance of converting. Sure, let's say 60%. If you go for it, you have a 60% chance of winning the football game.
I can honestly see why Belichick would have wanted to go for it. My basis that it was a bad decision is that the statistical analysis could be wrong, in this case, because of the way the Colts defense was playing (particularly the Kaczur/Mathis match-up) against our offense the past couple of series before that. When you couple that with the fact that you'll be giving Peyton Manning the ball on 28 yard line if you're wrong, I did not think that the juice was not worth the squeeze.
You say that that 40% chance is inherently too high. It's self-evidently too high. I say that you can't make that call unless you evaluate the Colts' chance of scoring the touchdown even after the punt. Considering that Manning had led a 70+ yard TD drive in under 2 minutes mere minutes before, and the subsequent 3-and-out would have put our defense back on the field sucking wind, demoralized, and facing a QB who had clearly figured it out... I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the chances of Manning shredding that defense for 60 yards over the subsequent 2 minutes were greater than 40%. Some will disagree, and if you disagree on those grounds, then that's the basis for a fruitful discussion.
To say that the 40% is self-evidently too much, though, without any thought at all for the chance of scoring even if we punt, is just tremendously flawed. You're choosing between A and B without having any idea what B even is.
Sure, we can evaluate it. Normally, I would shudder at the thought of quoting maverick4, but he did make a pretty good point. Here are the Colts drives prior to the 4th down call...
· Three plays, no yards, punt.
· Five plays, 16 yards, punt.
· Four plays, 24 yards, interception.
· Six plays, 16 yards, punt.
· Five plays, 79 yards, touchdown.
· One play, zero yards, interception.
· Six plays, 79 yards, touchdown.
This is considering the fact that the last drive, which resulted in a touchdown, was greatly helped by yet another iffy pass interference call. Now, could Manning have scored a touchdown after receiving the punt? Sure. Was it as likely to happen from 80 yards out than it was from 28 yards out? Probably not. But we've seen this before. Case and point is in the Baltimore game earlier this year. We punted the ball to a team who was, at the time, one of the top two passing offenses in the league. Did they drive? yes. But the drive stalled when they got near the redzone and this was because we turned the pressure up on the defense. It all ended when Clayton stared down McGowan who was coming in hot and forgot to hold onto the ball. Game over. We also saw this in the Colts game in 2003. We went three and out, punted the ball, and ultimately stopped the Colts (despite our defense being gassed, just like last night) on the goal line. My point here is that if we punt the ball to the Colts, the chances increase that we get out of the prevent defense which allowed the Colts to get back into the game and start sending pressure up the middle at Manning again. Whether or not it would have worked is up for debate, however there have been quite a few cases with this 2000's Patriots team that make that debate interesting. As it turns out, we went with Variable A and went for it against a Colts defense that was red hot at the time and got burned for it.
Fair enough- and maybe you had trumped makewayhomer's argument. Doesn't prove anything, though, since he was one of a whole lot of people arguing that point, and he may or may not have been arguing it very well.
He wasn't. Well, unless you count, "tell me what I said" *I tell him what he said* "well you're dumb, bye!" as a good argument...
You can only evaluate decisions based on information that was available at the time. I'm sure that if Belichick had the ability to magically look into the future and know that the Pats wouldn't convert, he would have punted it.
So you don't think that BB was watching the way the Colts defense was playing at the time? It's not about looking into the future. It's about knowing when the unit that you're going up against is hot and when they are not. That unit was red hot and the crowd was fired up. Watching the way they were playing our short passing game and the way they had been stuffing our draw, there was plenty of evidence available to him to make the decision NOT to go for it.
Same mistake- do you really thing that it's playing it safe to give Manning the ball with 2 minutes left when, not 2 minutes prior, he led an 80 yard touchdown drive in under 2 minutes? I guess I just have a little more faith in our offense than you do, because I absolutely believe that we should be able to get 2 yards when we need to. I guess I'm also more worried about Manning than you are, since, as I'm seeing it, the Colts getting the ball back = losing the game.
I have plenty of faith in our offense, but not in those circumstances. If we had called a running play that had broken off a yard to a yard and a half on third down, then yes I would have had a lot more confidence in going for it. Because then we'd only be looking at 4th and Inches. In this case, we called three straight passing plays, the last of which almost resulted in a pick six on the same side of the field. So, what is our answer to that? Why throw to the same side of the field! By golly that makes a ton of sense! No, not really. In this case, you punt it and move out of the prevent, seal off the deep routes, and make Manning have to work for it on an 80 yard drive. If he gets the touchdown, then so be it. But he'd have to work for it. Perhaps I have more faith in the defense than you do.
Gift-wrapping would be not even trying to keep the ball out of Peyton's hands.
As has been pointed out, it was going to be in his hands either way if we failed (which there was a very good chance of). Gift wrapping, in this instance, is giving him the ball at the 28. That kind of positioning after a turnover on downs is called a "go ahead touchdown". That's especially true when you have Manning in the game. Three throws and they were at the one yard line. In this case, it's better to make him have to go 80 yards and use up his timeouts in the process. The Patriots have been through that before. Many times it has worked and the defense has come up big. Sometimes it has not. Who is to say that we wouldn't have picked/sacked him again? That would be just as easy to say as, "well, he would have went right down the field anyway".
I already granted that, if the conversion fails, we have a 0% chance of winning the game. I will grant that it was guaranteed that the Colts would get a TD from the 29 (which it isn't, but I'll cede you that point for the sake of simplicity).
Brady, you can't say that it was all but a foregone conclusion that Manning would have driven 80 yards for the touchdown and then turn around and say that it isn't guaranteed that he would score from the 29. It doesn't work like that.
Not ducks, exactly. They weren't poorly thrown balls- Reggie Wayne missed his read on that last int, and you're right that that *could* have happened again. They had figured our coverage out by that point, though, and our CBs were absolutely gassed. I agree that the chances of the Pats winning the game are still pretty decent if they punt- maybe even as high as 40%. I just trust our offense to gain 2 yards more than I trust our defense to prevent Manning from going 60.
So, in 2003 you were all for going for it on 4th down at the end of the game, in the shadow of our own goal posts?
One thing that I really can't stand, though, is people resorting to the "nobody has ever done this before, so it must be the wrong decision" defense. I expected that to come from a lot of people, but the fact that some of our quality posters (Deus and Kontra) are using it is a little confusing. Next time Belichick makes an unorthodox decision that pays off, I hope you'll be consistent enough to say "he's lucky it paid off, but it was still the wrong call because nobody else does it that way".
1. I never said that. I simply asked a question, and that was for someone to bring up an instance of that happening when the team that was doing it was up by three of more. I have yet to see an instance of it.
2. I said pretty much those exact words in the Falcons thread. Something to the effect of, "I'm glad we got it, but that was an extremely risky decision that could have lost us the game if it had gone the other way".
