Kicking the 56 yard FG vs going for it on 4th and 3

[Froob]

Exactly. That's why i'm not getting caught up in the merit of the decision's.

The FG was low percentage

The 4th and 3 was low percentage

Bill made a decision. Another 2 ft to the right we take a lead and Brady gets the ball back with ~50 seconds left and 2 timeouts.

This is why I hated the decision. I think a low percent kick with still plenty of time for Tom, is a bad move. I don't love our chances to convert, but it was a no brainer to me.

If you look at it from a Bucs fan perspective, what do you think they were hoping we do? I'd be surprised if they weren't happy to see Folk come out.

 

[WE ARE NOT DONE]

Does it matter?

The same people would second guess either decision if it didn't work because that's their narrative.

There are some people like that, but such a post that generalizes is of no value here. If you instead point out that there are some like that, then I am not sure it adds a lot of value, but it at least isn't completely wrong.

I assure you that I was about as mad as I have ever been during a football game when I saw Folk on the field. This was before he even lined up, let alone missed the kick.

The results in no way change the accuracy of the decision. If he missed the kick the decision was atrocious. If he made the kick and Brady then beat us the decision was equally as atrocious, finally if he made the kick and we somehow kept Brady from beating us the decision was still every bit as atrocious. I have quoted many, many different facts that show it was a horrible, indefensible decision. The results are irrelevant, a coach can make a decision that has a 98% chance to fail and get lucky or make the other decision with a 98% chance of success and get unlucky, but regardless of the results any coach that picks the 2% over the 98% made a horrible decision.

Now this wasn't quite that extreme, but I estimate that we have at least a 40% chance of victory if we go for it on 4th and 3. Worst case 75% chance at conversion and a bit over 50% chance of victory if we did. Picking the FG I say our chances were less than 10%. Less than 25% chance he makes the kick and less than 30% chance to win even if he did.

 

[Angelpats]

Why do people keep repeating this? It simply is not accurate. If he makes the kick I say that statistically it is at least 50% Brady leads Tampa to a game winning FG. My gut in the flow of the game says it was 80% Brady would have won it, and only that low because the FG could have been missed, I am 95% sure a final Bucs drive would have ended in a game winning FG attempt, just a matter of if it went through, and I am guessing Brady would have gotten it to very makeable range. He may have even gotten his first TD of the

At that point you want the lead and we were 3 inches from making it. So close. A lot of things could happen when Tampa gets the ball, not all ends in them winning.

 

[moosekill]

If they had gone for it and Mac hadn't gotten the first every single new report, every single Hawt take would have been, Jones comes close but chokes in the end. People on here would have put more, IS JONES THE ONE, threads on here. Bill liked the possible outcomes better with him making the call than with Jones trying to pick it up, so it is all on him, and not on Jones.

Jones and the D played a hell of a game.

 

[WE ARE NOT DONE]

But the Pats didn’t even move the ball five yards on that drive. I was using this failed drive as one example of many in Brady’s career. And just because Brady has had many successful late fourth quarter drives in his career, doesn’t mean that one will be successful. You seem to think it’s a fair accompli. It’s not.

You are completely inaccurate, as I stated above, even given a way, way worse situation, we gained 40 yards on that desperation drive. More accurately, in 50 seconds with no timeouts Brady got us 40 yards downfield before 2 desperation tosses from our own 49. Also news flash, Evans, Brown, and Godwin are exponentially better that the weapons that Brady had available then. Once again these 2 situations are worlds apart, and your memory of it is way off. Not bragging here, I looked up the play by play.

 

[203Pat]

Does it matter?

The same people would second guess either decision if it didn't work because that's their narrative.

I love the notion that no one on a New England Patriots forum is supposed to discuss the most important decision from the game last night. Of course it matters.

 

[WE ARE NOT DONE]

At that point you want the lead and we were 3 inches from making it. So close. A lot of things could happen when Tampa gets the ball, not all ends in them winning.

That is all true, but Folk from 56 in his health and that weather gives you at best a 25% at the lead. Even if you get that lead it is almost inarguable that TB still has a better than 50% chance of taking it back. I have shown how in that game no matter the down we got a first down on 75% of the snaps where we needed 3 to 7 yards for a first down. So we have a much better chance of getting the lead bumy going for it, and an exponentially better chance of keeping it by going for it.

 

[BobDigital]

These facts are good, but each game is it's own thing. Folk is a good kicker, but the one thing he has lacked much of his career was distance, compared to other kickers at least. Also considering the guy on the other side, who would only need a FG to win, and that offense was starting to heat up a little that quarter. I just don't think it was the right call to go for the kick.

Yes, it puts a lot on your young QB, but if he makes it then the kick goes from a 56 to a 53 or shorter. It may not seem like much, but the odds for making a kick go up drastically with ever yard gained at that distance. From 60 yards your chances are about 30% from 50 yards your chances are a hair over 70%. You practically You gain about 4% more probability of making the kick for each yard gained between the two. It isn't exactly that neat, but it's an easy way to think about it. So even if you just get the first down you go from a 48-52% chance to even make it to somewhere in the 60's. And you get to run the clock down to end the game on your kick. And that is assuming you don't gain a few extra yards. I just don't think it was the right call. But it wasn't like it was Blatantly a bad call. It wasn't stupid of BB to go for the kick. Just not optimal.

 

[cmasspatsfan]

I like and defended 4th and 2 even if it didn't work out but totally disagree with 4th and 3 and kicking the FG from 56 yards.

 

[RobertWeathers]

This is why I hated the decision. I think a low percent kick with still plenty of time for Tom, is a bad move. I don't love our chances to convert, but it was a no brainer to me.

If you look at it from a Bucs fan perspective, what do you think they were hoping we do? I'd be surprised if they weren't happy to see Folk come out.

Yea Tom getting the ball w/ 50seconds left w/ 2 TOs is certainly not a desirable situation.

 

[SHOWTIME15]

Yea Tom getting the ball w/ 50seconds left w/ 2 TOs is certainly not a desirable situation.

In most cases I would say that's a death knell, but I feel like our D had a chance to stop him the way we played last night. oh well.

 

[PScottman]

I love the notion that no one on a New England Patriots forum is supposed to discuss the most important decision from the game last night. Of course it matters.

I conversely love the notion that any chance to bash the team in its entirety (all its subsequent parts from management to groundskeeper) is seized upon by a vocal (what I hope is a minority) contingent to sound off on how much better they are at everything from drafting to play calling to actually playing.

There are a lot of posts here at that level of hyperbole, not just examining the nuances of the decision.

 

[Twentytothree]

Now this wasn't quite that extreme, but I estimate that we have at least a 40% chance of victory if we go for it on 4th and 3. Worst case 75% chance at conversion and a bit over 50% chance of victory if we did.

Historical average for 4th and 3 conversions is much lower than 75%. 50% is more like it. Statistically, FG vs going for it was a wash or close to it.

 

[Twentytothree]

Yea Tom getting the ball w/ 50seconds left w/ 2 TOs is certainly not a desirable situation.

Once they were at 4th and 3, trailing in heavy rain with 55s left, there were no desirable options left. One can argue whether one or the other choice had a slightly higher probability, but given that the analytically models can't agree on the resulting percentages within +/- 10%, without hindsight any decision was as good as the other.

 

[Hyped]

Comments:

1.) I was OK with the decision to go for it....even from 56 out because Folk said his range was 58...and that looked about right on the final kick (it was 2-3 feet above the bar).

2.) What I didn't like was making that call when Folk had a bum plant leg.

3.) I'd love to see that batted down pass by Lavonte David on 3rd down again. Will have to look at the DVR later.

4.) Giving Tommy about 57 seconds and 2 TO's to move the ball about 40 yards isn't ideal, but last night's defense was playing well enough to at least force Tommy to make a 3rd down/4th down conversion to win the ball game...I'd have liked our chances with the Bucs on their 25, 2 TO's, and our secondary playing extremely well....

 

[Kontradiction]

I love the notion that no one on a New England Patriots forum is supposed to discuss the most important decision from the game last night. Of course it matters.

Let’s just talk about nice things and pepper one another, and especially Bill Belichick, with compliments. No need to be meanies.

 

[TomPatriot]

That is all true, but Folk from 56 in his health and that weather gives you at best a 25% at the lead. Even if you get that lead it is almost inarguable that TB still has a better than 50% chance of taking it back. I have shown how in that game no matter the down we got a first down on 75% of the snaps where we needed 3 to 7 yards for a first down. So we have a much better chance of getting the lead bumy going for it, and an exponentially better chance of keeping it by going for it.

Folk made one from 58 pregame. He had kicked 39 in a row successfully. He had kicked 3 out of 4 successfully beyond 50 with the Pats. Not sure how you get “at best a 25%“ chance of a successful kick. He was healthy. He struck the ball well. The snap and hold were good. He missed. As you would say, “newsflash” - it happens.

Intragame sample sizes are too small to be accurate predictors of future events in the same game. This is one of many problems with the analysis presented.

Not really sure why it is “inarguable” that Tampa might not score if Folk made the FG. Brady has failed in two minute drills before, most notably when he threw an incomplete pass and forgot it was 4th down in Chicago last year. The guy is a great player by any measure but he isn’t invincible by any stretch of the imagination and neither are his teammates.

 

[WE ARE NOT DONE]

Folk made one from 58 pregame. He had kicked 39 in a row successfully. He had kicked 3 out of 4 successfully beyond 50 with the Pats. Not sure how you get “at best a 25%“ chance of a successful kick. He was healthy. He struck the ball well. The snap and hold were good. He missed. As you would say, “newsflash” - it happens.

Intragame sample sizes are too small to be accurate predictors of future events in the same game. This is one of many problems with the analysis presented.

Not really sure why it is “inarguable” that Tampa might not score if Folk made the FG. Brady has failed in two minute drills before, most notably when he threw an incomplete pass and forgot it was 4th down in Chicago last year. The guy is a great player by any measure but he isn’t invincible by any stretch of the imagination and neither are his teammates.

I said inarguably Tampa would have had better than a 50% chance, so not close to a guarantee of their victory I said better than 50%.

Yes Folk was 3 of 4 (talk about a small sample size) from 50 or more with the Patriots with a long of 51. As a matter of fact Folk's long since the beginning of 2016 is 51. The last time he hit a kick of over 51 in a regular season game was over 5 years ago, closer to 6 years. How many of his over 50 kicks were in weather like that when he was less than 100% healthy? To show how big of a difference there is between 51 and 56 yards, from 51 yards that kick is good with a good bit to spare in all directions. That is assuming the same kick, however, actually when a kicker knows he is on the edge of his range he goes for that little extra bit he often loses some accuracy, and as a right footed kicker that often causes the kick to pull a little, you guessed it, left. By the way, I was a HS kicker who had D3 level colleges offering me their kicking position and Ohio State co sidering me as a possible preferred walk on (they decided against me and offered a student coach position where I could always have a chance to try to become a player while there). I could hit 55 yard field goals, but my accuracy definitely suffered at the edge of my range. If 58 was his max based on pregame warm ups, a 25% projected success rate at 56 yards in that weather is definitively not a low estimate.

Also, not a huge deal, but it was actually 36 in a row on FGs for Folk, not 39. He missed his 1st 2 last year and then hit the next 26 straight and then the first 10 this season.

Also let me be clear, I am not putting myself on a level anywhere near Nick Folk, but the same concepts apply. I kicked off a 2" block, at my best I probably would have maxed out somewhere around 50 directly off the ground. However, our performance at our limits are not all that different, our limits were just pretty far apart.i am guessing fully healthy on a healthy day in practice Folk is at least 15 yards better than I ever was. On top of that Folk isn't the biggest leg in the league by any stretch others like Tucker are 20 yards better than I ever was.

 

[Biffins]

This is going to be its own discussion, might as well break it out now with a respectful title rather than one by another anguished fan who lets the suds choose his words for him.

Frankly, neither going for it on 4th and 3 nor the field goal were in any way guaranteed to work. Bill took his shot knowing the chances and it failed.

An argument could be made that going for it was better odds, but nothing guaranteed.

Frankly given the performance of the offensive line, I think Bill/Josh probably made the right call to try the field goal, the OL wasn't holding up well and I'd rather trust my kicker to make a tough FG than trust that OL to hold on a clutch do-or-die play against that DL.

Bottom line the team played way better than the naysayers thought and Mac looked like the real thing throughout. Just didn't quite ome together for us which is normal for a team with new leadership. I think we can bounce back from 1-3 especially since most of the drama is now behind us and the coach can just focus on one game at the time.

Also -- impressed by the defense. That's always been Bill's calling card and it was obvious he did a grreat job of keeping Brady off balance and frustrated. They did a successful bend-don't-break defense against Brady and only the suspect run D got cashed for a TD so that's something to think about.

How about we compare this to going for 4th and frickin 13, in Superbowl 42, instead of kicking a 50 yarder, in a game that we lost by 3 points, which prevented us from having a 19-0. Arguably one of the biggest overlooked coaching blunders

 

[Biffins]

I'd like this analysis done for the 4th and 13th from Giants 32 yard line in Superbowl 42.