Harbaugh revisited this topic today.
John Harbaugh: We understand the math on fourth downs, going for two
Significantly, I think, is one area where he kind of poo poo'd the result of going for the XP:
I think that shows the inherent issue, here, and we can look at it as a significant difference between the BB and JH approaches. BB's approach is that to win, it's best to start by not losing. Harbaugh's approach, by result, is going to be "to increase the odds of winning in regulation, you choose to increase the odds of losing in regulation".
If find that sort of thinking foolish, as a general approach, in the context of sports. And, to make it seem more strange to me, he followed that up with
So he basically acknowledge that he threw out his game feel and went with the analytics, then justifies losing that way by saying "But I'm sure we'd definitely have lost if we'd done it the other way", when he obviously cannot be sure. Admittedly, he's couching that more with regards to the 4th down attempts, but the general premise still stands.
"It failed, but it would have been worse. I just know it!" is now his defense.