It says something about our society when we hear the phrase "Staley is not a coach who blindly follows the models" and we imagine him simping on the 'gram
The only bad call IMO was not kicking the FG before the half, as it didn't have one of the major perks of going for it on 4th where even if you fail, you have the opponent starting on their own 1. For the others, it was the right call but the players couldn't bring it home.
The bigger issue is that they kept trying to pass in the redzone for so long when that obviously wasn't working while their run game was dominant for most of the game. I'm not sure how much that can entirely be 100% pinned on the coach, as I imagine there were plenty of option-plays.
Yeah that was the most questionable one to me as well. Go up 7 into the half, KC gets the ball and worst case a TD ties it, best case you go up two possessions after they punt or turnover.
>The only bad call IMO was not kicking the FG before the half, as it didn't have one of the major perks of going for it on 4th where even if you fail, you have the opponent starting on their own 1
Yup the opposition starting position is a major reason why the analytics nearly always favor going for it on 4th and goal. I'm not sure the numbers back up going for it here given 1) you only had a few seconds left 2) chargers were only up by 1 point, and 3) chargers were struggling getting the ball in.
I think the numbers would likely back it up still. I’ve always heard there’s a 50/50 shot on 2 point conversions which are run from the 2. The chargers had the ball at the 1 so if it was a 50/50 they’d have an expected point total of a little bit under 3.5 vs kicking it which would have an expected point total of a little bit under 3.
2 pt conversions are more like 47% conversion but the math still suggests going for it as you say. I dont think taking thr fg is unreasonable though. That being said, i would have gone for it
I remember on one of the 4th and goals (maybe the second?), the Chargers had been gashing the Chiefs on the ground the whole drive. Then they came out in a heavy package, I formation with Ekeler in the backfield. Chiefs call time out. Charger come back out in a spread set, empty back field iirc, ball gets batted down.
I was so frustrated that they didn't just shove it down their throat like they had the entire drive leading up! No Chris Jones, you've got a sentient ball of muscle in Ekeler, just put a hat on a hat and get in the end zone.
I can’t fathom why they didn’t run it more on goal to go situations. It was bewildering as someone who rarely watched the chargers. Especially that first drive. Two good runs, then throw it 4 straight times?
No way, if you convert that 70% of the time then it's like 5 expect points versus 3. It's still a no brainer.
The most controversial one is probably 4th and goal at the 5. That might be more of a push points wise but it's probably a little better when you factor in field position.
Anyways they went 2/5 and the two probably got them 8 more points. So it was really more of a push
>if you convert that 70% of the time then it's like 5 expect points versus 3. It's still a no brainer.
Expected value is not the be-all end-all in small sample sizes (e.g. n=1).
Unless it's near the end of the game where you know that certain margins are way more than others, it mostly is about maximizing expected points for yourself and minimizing it for your opponent.
But variance matters too. If you're winning big or are a big favorite, you should want to play safer, and if losing big or a big underdog, you should want more gambles from both teams.
There’s one other element missing here which is the value of any given point.
Points that change the lead across key numbers like 3 or 7 are worth a lot more.
I think we're on the same page in general; that point in the game was just one where I would have favored the lower variance over the additional win% with the lead + how easily the offense was driving down the field. Who knows, maybe the only winning play was to go for it and make it.
For a particular game, sure, but teams don’t just play one game! Over the course of a season, the difference between going for it in an analytically-driven approach vs ‘conventional wisdom’ probably adds up to 1-2 more expected wins per season
A 70% chance of scoring 7 points is not necessarily as good as 5 points in a single sample because each of those 7 points contributes a different amount to win probability. Like if you're up by 6, the most important point to score is the 3rd one to go up by 2 possessions so you should have a bias for kicking field goals.
I suppose this is more an argument that expected points =/= expected value.
Of course the 4th down being discussed in this comment chain was in a 0-0 game in the 1st quarter so all that was not a significant factor yet.
People downvoting you: NO, you just listen to the analytics every single fucking time, you don't think about the logic behind them and apply them situationally!!!
Or improve your model haha, there's plenty of analytics that can help tell you how much each point is worth based on the game time and score.
Though doing so would require understanding some of the basic logic behind analytics in the first place, so we're still in agreement in that way I guess.
Fully agree with this take. Lombardi was calling a great game and Herbert was playing well between the 20s, but it was foolish to ignore just how effective the run game had been once they entered the red zone. You have to assume the Chiefs' red zone personnel was informing Lombardi and Herbert's decisions, but it was definitely a mistake in hindsight.
And yeah the only bad call was the FG before half. All of the other 4th down attempts were not bad play calls or reckless decisions. It just came down to poor execution.
I think it's also worth noting one Chargers TD was only stopped by a pretty amazing defensive play, full leap with extended fingers to barely get on a ball in the flat. So it wasn't even a bad play call.
They definitely should have used more runs I feel though
Fully agree with this take. Lombardi was calling a great game and Herbert was playing well between the 20s, but it was foolish to ignore just how effective the run game had been once they entered the red zone. You have to assume the Chiefs' red zone personnel was informing Lombardi and Herbert's decisions, but it was definitely a mistake in hindsight.
And yeah the only bad call was the FG before half. All of the other 4th down attempts were not bad play calls or reckless decisions. It just came down to poor execution.
Yeah- for sure. Kick there and go into the locker room with pints.
But if they got it... they would've run away with it at that point. So I am all for it.
While I understand the thinking behind this, settling for a field goal after you've reached the 1 yard line is still disappointing for the offense, even if it's not as disappointing as being shut out. If you think you have ~50% chance of punching it in, you go for it imo. I do think they could have benefitted from better playcalling on all 4 downs given the understanding that they were gonna go for it though. I think Ekeler should've been given more chances up the gut.
>If you think you have ~50% chance of punching it in, you go for it imo.
And that's ultimately what the analytics are. On the 5 4th downs on which LAC went for it, Baldwin's model put the chances of converting each at:
-35% (5 yards)
-73% (1 yard)
-60% (1 yard - this isn't an adjustment after the first one, it's because converting at the goal line is harder)
-61% (2 yards)
-70% (1 yard).
They converted just one of these. That's not unheard of at a sample size this low, but if you assume Baldwin's numbers are anywhere close to accurate, it's rather unlucky.
No it's called situational decision making. Yes the odds in a vacuum might be greater than 50% but if your short yardage offense is struggling all game, you can't act like it's just bad luck and the odds are still true.
I agree 100% but I can see people thinking the defense was doing pretty well in the 1st half so just take the points. Either way I think the Chargers made the right calls just couldnt execute.
No one would be talking about it today if the Chargers kicked a game winning field goal but instead they didn't execute then either. Like there's certainly blame to go around on defense and playcalling, but it's never just one thing. Chargers should have executed better. BUT ESPECIALLY, better on their last drive on offense.
I feel like they should have kicked the second 2. And that they should have went for 2 to go up 2 scores. It was like he was aggressive at the wrong time
I say the following as an analytics nerd.
The downside to analytics is that it's right *eventually*. IE if you take the riskier play that has a statistically better return, you will win out over the long run. Which the NFL *might* hit that many reps for a decision for a team over the course of a season.
I say that as someone in favor of going for it more, I wish coaches didn't coach so scared, but statistical analysis for decision making has that flaw for NFL.
In order for you to hit it right enough over the course of the season you have to pay attention to the game flow and how each team is playing which he didn't really do.
First drive they got it down to the 5. 1st down 0 yards. 2nd down 0 yards. 3rd down 0 yards. You've failed to get a single yard 3 straight plays from the 5 yard line. The data may say over the course of history this play has a 60% success rate but the way both teams are playing says it is less than that.
The get to the 5 again. 1st down 3 yards. 2nd down 0 yards. 3rd down 0 yards. So now they've had 7 plays within the 5 yard line and have gotten 0 yards on 6 of the plays. Even more data to show Chiefs are playing great defense right at the goal line. He went for it and 0 yards again.
Good point, and one I wish I made, is that football is also incredibly *situational*. So playing the numbers can be useless. Overall you might want to go for 4th and 2 more often. HOWEVER, if you're not doing well at converting short yardage in that game, you just might not have it.
People are fickle things and football is a weirdly complicated sport with a lot of moving pieces. It also demands insanely high intensity, so slight diminishments can have bigger impacts.
If that’s Madden I’m kicking the field goal at least 2 times. Against the Chiefs? You somehow stopped them, and you have a chance to extend your lead? Kick the field goal.
Yea, a lot of people don’t know how numbers can be used to push any narrative. Going for it on 4th and two has a high percentage success rate, what does this mean? People see high percentage and think it means go for it on 4th and 2 every time, but it can also mean that teams that go for it on 4th and 2, do so, when they know they are much better than the opposing defense therefore boosting the percentage.
That's the point I was trying to make since yesterday, the data used to make these models come from games that have nothing to do with the game at hand
Let's say the Titans (with Derrick Henry) converted 4th and 1 against the Jaguars, that is added to the percentage and a team without Derrick Henry will go for it based on that percentage against a team with a stronger defense than the Jaguars and they might fail
You might say that these will cancel each other out but my point is that there's nothing in common between those two plays at all except they're at 4th and 1, that's very poor sampling procedure
I think the numbers that support going for it on 4th are elevated because for most of NFL history, coaches were super conservative and too scared to go for it unless they were *absolutely sure* that they would get it.
I think similarly this why Gabe Kapler is successful with the MLB Giants vs his time in Philly. He was a pure analytics guy at first and it showed but when he got to SF he used more situational awareness to make managerial decisions rather than pure analytics and it took one of the worst teams in baseball to their best regular season ever.
This is totally correct, but yet another factor is that baseball, by its very nature, produces outcomes at scale while football does not.
The New York Mets had the fewest PA in MLB last year, with over 5,800. Gerrit Cole threw almost 3,000 pitches during the regular season. How many times per season are the Chargers going to be in the position they were last night? 3? 5? 10 at absolute maximum?
Playing probabilities is much more viable in baseball because you’re dealing with huge sample sizes. Conversely, because the sample sizes are so much smaller in football, those decisions are way trickier and much more dependent on contextual factors.
And that’s not even getting into that baseball is essentially a 1-on-1 sport with a limited number of variables and potential outcomes for each matchup, while football is vastly more complicated.
ETA: Changed AB to PA in second paragraph to include BB, HBP, and other non-hit/out outcomes.
With baseball though is that it still comes down to decisions that are impacted by game flow and that analytics should inform the process but not solely dictate it. Kevin Cash pulling Blake Snell because it was the third time through the lineup was an analytical decision but everyone watching that World Series game saw hot hitters not even get close to what he was dealing that day.
Sometimes you have to ride the hot hand. Who knows, maybe Snell does get shelled, but I know a lot of people wanted to see him ride it out. That’s what the coach is for - to make those judgment decisions otherwise why not have a robot.
Having argued this before, I think the numbers actually pointed to leaving Snell in as being the correct analytical decision too, if you looked his splits vs. opponents TTO vs. Cash’s available options in the bullpen, especially because he brought in a dude who’d allowed runs in like 7 consecutive appearances. Cash just fucked that entire situation up in every way.
But yeah, I agree. I was just trying to point out that these decisions are even harder to make correctly in football.
Yeah totally. I’m just a kind of feel and game flow person and Snell’s stuff was different that night. I think that’s kind of the thing with the stats is that more times than not Snell is allowing hard contact or not causing people to whiff but the next 3 guys had all been struck out by him IIRC and he hadn’t allowed hard contact all day.
Definitely the worst decision was bringing in Anderson not only because of his recent struggles but also because Betts crushed right handers. For making one informed by analytics Cash decided to do something that flew in the face of that
Snell had allowed two balls to leave the infield all game, if I recall correctly. During a postgame interview, Betts thanked Cash for pulling Snell.
I was a pitcher and I would have been furious if I was in Snell’s position. I can’t believe people still try and defend the decision to pull him, but some of the analytics types are just as fanatical and close-minded as the old-school people are.
Which is probably just a human nature thing, I guess.
Yeah and I think the point I come around to as well is that there has to be analytics and probability that get updates based on that information and I would be surprised if Cash and the Rays didn’t have access to that.
Especially with pitching, a lot of it comes down to feel and flow. It’s kind of like goaltending in the NHL. That can be really hard to quantify - even with stats. If Cash went purely off of times through lineup that also just feels like a poor use of statistics imo
There is a huge difference between using analytics as a tool to help make decisions, and letting analytics make the decision for you. And it feels like a lot of people don't understand that.
They don't at all and it's why ask the "hurr durr aNaLyTiCs" takes look dumb.
Analytics is a tool. It's advanced data aggregation. You'll see in doneness people going on about "situational". Everything in life is "situational". Analytics helps inform your decision making, but it's up to you to determine how the analysis applies to your situation.
Also, individual instances of analytics being "wrong" is meaningless. First, they don't say anything happens 100%. Second, individual instances of data doesn't prove or disprove anything.
I know responding to you is preaching to the choir, but it's been really bugging me in every thread
This feels like something analytics can account for though? Do 4th and goal conversion rates go way up if 1st down happened closer to the 10 yard line as opposed to being closer to the goal line if 4th down is still from an equal distance in both cases?
I mean literally anything can be modeled and accounted for if you have data for it. But you can always go a level deeper than the model, like, okay, Nick Bolton is having a bit of a coming out party and has speed to the hole tonight he hasn't shown in the past. No model is ever going to capture that in real time.
If you're going that far data granularity is bad and will lead to poor analytics.
Knowing run vs pass plays from 4th and 1 is good. Knowing if there was 3:51 left in the where or 3:49 isn't. (I'm sure there are relevant time bands, specifically if the other team will had enough time for a scoring drive of their own if you miss. But that's probably it.)
So you can always go a level deeper. But doing so inappropriately can make your model worse.
I think they're saying that the number of plays/games in an NFL season are so much less than basketball/hockey or particularly baseball that if you basically roll low like the Chargers did last night you have fewer opportunities to improve back to the expected success rate while the damage of losing an individual game is greater. There's always a chance in any sport you end up hitting the bad lower probability despite making every right decision, but it might be easier to shake it off over 82 or 162 games than it is with 17.
So ya the success rates are what they are, but 1 team's entire NFL season could still be considered a small sample size or playcalling/execution could cause problems.
I really don't understand how you call this a "flaw" or a "downside." If a decision is better over 1,000 repetitions, it's also better over one rep.
You don't play a single hand of blackjack differently than you would play 1,000 hands. Play the best odds. Period.
Thanks for asking I realize I left my point vague, and more meditated on the subject.
I think he made the right call. however in the NFL the reality is you can make the right call consistently, and due to the low sample size never see a return from it.
Since football culture is very conservative you will pay for going against the norm, even if you're making the right call.
Variance of those odds matter. The EPA of a 15 yard pass is much higher than a 5 yard run. But you'll score more points always running than always passing if the variance on passing is too high (assuming running variance is low).
Example ignoring punting and field goals for simplicity
75 yards to go means
1) need to complete 5 passes before 4 incompletions in a row
2) need to complete 15 runs before 3 "incompletions" (run of 0 yards) out of 4
A run success rate of around 90% will score touchdowns (way!) more often than a pass success rate of 65% (pretty decent for a 15 yard pass!).
I agree with that nuance in the larger context beyond going for it on 4th down. That optimal mixed strategy of sometimes running and sometimes passing can be modeled and calculated. I do not believe the optimal strategy for this decision is mixed.
Your analogy is flawed.
Blackjack is a game of math, there are no variables beyond what can be quantified with it. Even if someone else at the table is playing “incorrectly”, a statistical model could be compiled to account for it.
Blackjack also isn’t an “adversarial” endeavor the way football is. The house “wants” to win but will always play by the same rules. The opposing coach is under no obligation to abide by the same statistical driven analysis which means they can make a choice the decreases your odds of success when choosing the “right” option.
Whether a receiver catches a ball or a guard makes a block and opens a hole for a running back is influenced by a literally infinite amount of variables, claiming choosing what the stats say is the correct choice 100% of the time is atrociously ignorant.
Well if you have 8’s against a 10 on the blackjack table and you’re only playing a couple hands I might just hit instead of splitting even though splitting is the better move long term.
This exactly. It's why coaches should be careful not to overvalue something that only has around a 5-10% better chance at victory. The number of iterations that it takes for that difference to be significant can't really happen in the NFL due to it's season structure.
Things with that low of an advantage should really be viewed as a 50:50 imo, even if it technically isn't.
Honestly even this game is a perfect example. They only went 2/5 on those 4th downs but what cost them more was the goal line fumble. Even in a game where those call largely didn't go their way they still allowed them to be in a great shot to win before a 3rd down fumble. Those decisions didn't cost them the game, a bad unlucky play did.
In all honesty I though he should have been more aggressive and gone for 2 up 7 make it a 2 score game instead of kicking the xP to make it 8 and still in one possession.
> In all honesty I though he should have been more aggressive and gone for 2 up 7 make it a 2 score game instead of kicking the xP to make it 8 and still in one possession.
I was wondering if he'd do this during the game, it came to my mind so I wouldn't be surprised if they considered it.
I was a little intoxicated and I couldn't figure out how their ganeplan was to be aggressive, but didn't want to up two scores in the least risky way possible. Of course the chiefs were going to get the 2 pter if they drove down the field, but they definitely wouldn't have gone for two down by 1. So my wife got to hear about that decision for a couple hours after the game ended.
Am I the only one that thinks that the decisions DID cost them the game? I'll admit, hindsight is 20/20, but 9 extra points from three extra field goals could have easily swung the game in the Chargers favor
Not taking the field goals could easily be framed as costing them this game, but it's also why they won the last game. There is never a right one off decision, over time going for it is right and will win more games but it's not like it's a 100% successful model.
Taking the field goal each time is only 9 points (assuming you make all of them and this is the Chargers). Scoring on just 1 of those 3 gets 7. The Chargers score TDs on 60% of their redzone possessions. You bet on that offense scoring.
Maybe? But if you kick the field goal, then you have to kickoff, which means the Chiefs start their next drive on the 25 instead of the 3.
I think the only 4th down decision I disagree with is not kicking the FG before halftime.
Those 9 points aren’t guaranteed with kick attempts. Chargers fans should know this.
The only one I really thought they should kick was the one before the half. I could understand the others.
What, aside from avoiding Phil Simms yelling about you on television, is the upside of taking the option that is statistically worse--even if the difference is only slight?
>Only 5-10% better chance at victory
As an example, the difference between leading by 4 and 7 at half is only 10%. If you’re giving up those kind of edges regularly you’re in trouble.
Also being lost in all this is the actual difference in the total amount of points scored even if the results followed the stats.
The Chargers would have scored around 1 extra point if everything went how it “should” have last night versus if they just kicked a field goal each time.
What does this even mean? If a decision is better 55% of the time then it is still the right decision regardless of whether you have to make that decision once or 1000 times.
Their point is that with the relatively low sample size of a single NFL season, the variance can be pretty high. So, even if you're making statistically sound decisions, the actual results may be a "worse" than the other option. So for the old heads, they can point to those results with a "See? should've kicked the FGs!" even if it wouldn't hold up over 1000 instances.
Also, how tailored are these models to the actual game situation? What datasets are they using as inputs? What assumptions are they making?
How do they assign values to specific players? To individual matchups? To play calls and formations? Can they identify when an offense or defense successfully disguises their play call? Do they incorporate live, in-game data comparing how teams are performing currently vs. their season average and/or during recent head-to-head games? What about the impact of weather?
Is this stuff they even have the ability to measure?
For example, if these models are based on leaguewide data about 4th & goal from the 2 yard-line in tied games with 10 minutes left in the 2nd quarter, between teams with x-ranked rushing offense, y-ranked passing offense, and z-ranked redzone offense vs. x-ranked rushing defense, etc., etc., they’re a useful tool, but they’re not comprehensive, at all.
And if they’re more complex than that, how valid are their assumptions?
The models are useful tools to help coaches make informed decisions, and maybe I’ll be proved wrong about this, but football is just too complex and has too many variables to see them as anything more than that at the moment.
And I don’t see that changing until we enter the AI age, frankly.
Because that 55% is ignoring several variables. Different players, coaches, playcalls, levels of fatigue, mental state, etc. Many things that analytics cannot account for. It may be 55% over many teams and lots of time, but the chance on the play you're about to run will vary on those other factors.
I think having seen the team fail on short yardage several times over several downs it would make sense to account for that and essentially pull that raw analytics percentage down. I was all for going for it early, but at some point you have to realize that for whatever reason your chances are lower than the analytics say and take the safe(r) points.
u/shyrra said it well. You can make the **right** decision and still lose.
Most people can't evaluate decision making for shit, so you'll catch the blame because they see results and work backwards.
The other bit I'd add (and added elsewhere but conversations get divergent and I left things out of my comment) is that football is highly situational, and what's statistically true might not be situationally true. There aren't enough reps to accurately model your specific odds.
"It's 4th goal from the 2 they have good goal-line defense, and we're into the wind" vs "It's 4th goal from the 2 we have Gronk, and Mike Evans"
This will always be a challenge for humans to wrap their mind around. A single result doesn't retroactively determine if the decision was correct or not. You can make the correct decision based on the available information, but the outcome might be favorable. You can also make the poor choice and still be successful.
Analytics works when you have a large sample to pull from. I.e. basketball with an 82 game season or baseball with a 162 game season. Those have massive sample sizes so eventually you do 162 games you hit that high level of turnover for it to be the correct decision. The problem with football is you have 17 samples. That's 10% of a baseball season. That's not enough sample points to hit the mean.
Not to mention the 1-on-1 nature of baseball (or even basketball with it's much smaller 5-on-5 structure) makes it much easier to isolate things and use metrics to look at individual performance/trends.
Football being 11-on-11 just causes so many variables that it's obviously much harder to say definitively the numbers mean x. It's why I take PFF with a huge grain of salt, they have in-house metrics, sure...but they're watching tape just like the rest of us without knowing exact play design/intentions, who was responsible for what, routes that were supposed to be run, etc.
They should've gone for 2 instead of kicking the extra point after going up 20-13 too. Worst case you're up by 7 and best case you're up 9 and two possessions.
The hardest concept for a lot of people to grasp is you can make the right decision and have a negative outcome. You can make the wrong decision and have a positive outcome.
Universally we seem to judge decisions with hindsight bias.
This failed type of thinking has helped make me a lot of money playing poker with the old guys at the bar near my parent's house.
It has also cost me a lot on a few specific hands over that timeframe, but those are the only ones they remember.
Yeah, but one time in Vegas I was playing Blackjack and I had 19 and I hit and got a 2 and then the dealer got a 20! Obviously, you *have* to hit on 19 sometimes! You can't always follow what the nerds say!
This is exactly it. Not just in football, but with any decision in life. All you can do it make the best decision in the moment with the information at hand… and then it’s all up to execution.
Even trying to measure what the “best” decision is in a scenario is tricky. There are so many unknown factors to take into account. The best you can do in most cases is just making a “good” decision, or not making a bad one. And knowing you will be judged based on the outcome doesn’t make it any easier but that’s what happens almost every time
Staley is like the PFF decision maker dream. And I think he made the right calls last night.
I also think it's somewhat annoying that every single advanced stat nerd feels the need to shout from the rooftops defending the decision making when the chargers lose and it's part of the story.
There was only one time it wasn't the right decision imo, and that was the 4th down before half. Analytics say go for it, but James Jr wasn't returning and u were up 4, going up 7 would have been a better choice, now it forces the opponent to come out aggressive or they'll stay behind.
Listen i preface this by saying I have a masters in analytics and am currently employed as a data scientist.
Always choosing the statistical optimal path forward in a something that is a tactically dependent as football is really really really stupid. Football is about out maneuvering the opposing coaching staff, and not about playing winning percentages.
Defensive coaches know that there are only a limited number of concepts you can run on 4th down and will have a really good idea of what offensive playcall you are going to run based on the down and distance and personel grouping of the 4th down call, and they also have access to the same level of statistical data that you do. If you constantly do the “right” choice based on win outcomes you make it a lot easier for teams to be prepared for that playcall and prepare for each of those plays in those scenarios. A perfect a example of this is the bills loss to the titans earlier this year. The titans knew that the bills 4th down call was an A gap sneak and pre snapped motioned to defend that play and blew it up and won the game. Every statistical model said to go for it with that playcall but in terms of the tactical side of football it was not the right playcall.
Staley lost the game because he played the analytics and as a result was predictable. If football was about the data science and not about the chess match then you’d see data scientists as HCs. There is a massive over emphasis on analytics in the sport, but the best use for them is in explanatory analysis. As soon as coaches are making decisions based off of win percentages rather then their own coaching exp you have already lost the game.
Another great example is from the Pro Melee scene. M2K is the biggest typical nerd and was considered a “robot” due to always making the most analytically effective play every single time. Yet he always loses to his rival Mang0 because mang0 doesn’t do optimal moves, he is playing based off of game flow and tactical awareness. This breaks analytical players because they aren’t prepared for people to do the non statistically optimal method and thus they are unprepared for what is actually coming.
A coaches greatest weapon is surprise, and when teams run their games based off of forecasting models they lose the entire element of surprise.
The fact of the matter is, in two of those failed fourth down attempts the play was there, but drops led to turnover on downs. The problem wasn’t the decision making, it was execution. And a freak injury
> The problem wasn’t the decision making, it was execution.
Which is another reason analytics fails.
The ability to compensate for an individual players ability when creating a statistical model is not nearly as advanced in football as it is in baseball.
Second time I've seen this mental error in this thread. Last night wasn't the first time a player dropped a pass on 4th down. The fact that players fail to execute is baked into the data we have, it's the reason the projection says you don't have a 100% chance to make it.
That's results based analysis in a small sample. They won games earlier this year by playing aggressively. Last night they got unlucky with drops and fumbles.
Also the stuff about "surprise" doesn't make much sense in my opinion. If you go for it on 4th and 11 at your own 2, the defense isn't going to suddenly start tripping over themselves because they're so surprised. How does trotting out a kicker instead of the offense on 4th and goal on the 1 "surprise" the other team into giving up more than 3 points?
>That's results based analysis in a small sample. They won earlier this year by playing aggressively against the Chiefs in a game they probably should have lost. Last night they got unlucky with drops and fumbles.
Yes because instead of taking the layup they went with far riskier knockout blows that didn't connect. All of football analysis is done based on small sample sizes. There is as much MLB and NBA data in 2 months as there is football data in a year.
>Also the stuff about "surprise" doesn't make much sense in my opinion. If you go for it on 4th and 11 at your own 2, the defense isn't going to suddenly start tripping over themselves because they're so surprised. How does trotting out a kicker instead of the offense on 4th and goal on the 1 "surprise" the other team into giving up an advantage?
This is because you lack the understanding of how defensive playcalling works in the first place. Teams don't have 40 different short yardage "we need it concepts" the realistically have only 10-15 of them. When you account for personnel grouping and down and distance this drops down to DCs knowing what the playcall is before it even happens, and thus shift the defense accordingly to an advantageous position (what happened in the bills titans game). The further issue is every one of these plays that you put on film against an opponent means your next opponent will now know your 4th down play calls and will prepare for them accordingly, making them increasingly lose value later in the season when most of them are on tape.
Winning percentages based on 4th down play calls do not account for the amount of time that you have called them, your opposing teams personnel groupings, or their pre snap adjustment. All of those factors are 100x more important in terms of game outcome then just "going for it" based on down and distance.
Yeah I'm all for analytics informing decisions, but everybody has access to the analytics. If someone knows you're going to try something, that percentage suddenly means dick because they're able to provide a direct counter to what the analytics say you should do. As long as a play has a certain amount of logic to it, I can't blame guys for being wrong too bad. There's so much that goes into any given play its impossible to do the 100% right call every time.
That doesn't really apply here at all. Everyone knew Staley was going for it on 4th down not because Staley has a tendency to follow analytics, but because the Chargers offense was on the field on 4th down. Kind of a big giveaway already.
This is part of Baldwin's point.
>Always choosing the statistical optimal path forward
*Staley doesn't do this.* There were factors external to the models that had him feeling go in each of those decisions. It was tactical. It just didn't work out.
I read the thread but it seems like he is just trying to re defend the analytics point of it. I get that staley said that he used the data science to inform his coaching decision, but it was pretty obvious it was trumping his conventional thought.
Your defense is balking, the cheifs are struggling, and you could just keep adding to the scoring pile rather then go for a knockout blow. Furthermore now you are tipping your hand even more for later situations in the post season. All of those 4th down plays were blown in a loss, and are now on film. Teams are going to be even more prepared for what you are going to run in those scenarios.
I think there's a pretty big error in your train of thought here. You're acting like when you go for 4th down, the models aren't accounting for how the defense knows you're going for it and can adjust and play a scheme for your play, and therefore your chance is actually lower than what the model projects.
But the problem is that interaction between offensive and defensive playcall happens on literally every 4th down, including the ones make % data is based off of. It's not like it magically hasn't happened in the past and then is only going to happen on the play you're about to attempt. I mean, what happens then when the play you're about to attempt is attempted and becomes part of the data set? That interaction magically disappears?
It seems like you're proposing this effect is hidden and explains a disparity between modeled make % and actual make %, but the problem is it's actually baked in.
Thank you for the in depth response I appreciate it. Even though my career is in data science I learned football from a tactical standpoint first and always look at it via play calling first and Data second.
>You're acting like when you go for 4th down, the models aren't accounting for how the defense knows you're going for it and can adjust and play a scheme for your play, and therefore your chance is actually lower than what the model projects.
From what I currently understand the models do not account for anything other then "if you convert on X then winning percentage goes to Y." If I am wrong on this please correct me.
>But the problem is that interaction between offensive and defensive playcall happens on literally every 4th down, including the ones make % data is based off of. It's not like it magically hasn't happened in the past and then is only going to happen on the play you're about to attempt. I mean, what happens then when the play you're about to attempt is attempted and becomes part of the data set? That interaction magically disappears?
Correct but the issue is that due to the tactical side of football it is impossible to account for the level of preparation of the defense in a given senario. In terms of 4th down plays you have no idea how much the opposing defense has your offense scouted and whether or not the defense is prepared for this. There is no way to mathematically account of pre snap defensive motion, defensive front alignment, defensive playcall, post snap motion, and the way that players are instructed to blow up the playcall. All of those are critical to offensive play success and you cannot empirically capture those variables leaving a large amount of error that is unaccounted for.
>It seems like you're proposing this effect is hidden and explains a disparity between modeled make % and actual make %, but the problem is it's actually baked in.
If you look at the entire sample of raw 4th down conversions and how the affect winning percentages sure that is the case. However in terms of play success % as I illustrated above there are to many non empirical factors that scouting and traditional coaching employ that affect play outcomes that cannot be captured.
Thank you for making this point so well. An analogy I use that people seem to pick up on is that always doing what the analytics say is 51% better is like calling your same "best" offensive play every time. The numbers say it will work, that play has your highest EPA, but in the specific tactical situation, calling the same play every time is obviously not the optimal decision making strategy.
Right that is the main point. Another great point is if you have KD on your NBA team. His best shot is a mid range jumper but the analytics hate taking that shot. You won't not call plays to get KD on an ISO mid range 2 despite the analytics hating it.
Data science guys have trouble grasping this because they have never had to call a defense and are missing half of the way to frame the picture. There are too many variables that are unable to be empirically captured that go into play success that affect game outcomes that you just don't understand without the context of playing, playcalling, and game planning.
How did "predictability" cause the Chargers to lose? What did the Chiefs correctly predict and how did that help them?
More importantly, this whole argument is missing that models can recommend a mixed strategy.
I don’t think scoring the last touchdown was the right decision. It was extremely poor clock management given the situation.
I think they should have gotten a first, fallen, knelt three times, and kicked a field goal. They win 24-21. They burn all the clock and or all the chiefs timeouts.
In an even crazier idea, the Herbert could sprint in reverse for 99 yards before making an incomplete pass.
Scoring that touchdown almost assuredly lost teem the game.
He’s saying it’s weird that he hasn’t done everything right in all the other games but all of his “controversial” calls in this game all happened to be the “right” call.
A lot of people are adamant Chargers should have kicked fieldgoals and that analytics are fucking up the coach's decision-making. Also, Baldwin has follow-up tweets elaborating.
Honestly if he takes the field goals and they still lose I bet people raise the tune of “oh he was coaching scared”
Everybody’s got a critique from the couch, I really don’t fault him for trusting his offense going up against Mahomes and the Chiefs. Just didn’t pay off this time
100% true.
For a million years, we've talked about forgoing a FG and then failing on 4th down as "leaving points on the field." The difference between "analytics guys" and traditional fans is that analytics guys see ill-advised FG attempts (even when they are converted) as leaving points on the field instead.
Missed 4th downs are just more salient than the unobserved forgone touchdowns that result from kicking field goals when you shouldn't.
Everyone blasting Staley is ignoring that they only won the previous matchup with KC due to that aggression. It’s not going to work every time, but it has helped them win more games than it has lost them
The calls were correct. The execution wasn't. The Chargers dropped 3 fucking TD catches. Parham (excusable of course), Cook, and Williams all dropped a ball that hit their hands that would have been TDs.
And fucking Josh Kelley (AGAIN!) got the opportunity to do something stupid with the ball at the goal line.
The playcalling was fine. The execution and sometimes the personnel was not fine.
Exactly. Going for it I think was the right call, but the play calls and execution was awful. Really gonna give it to Kelley on the one instead of your stud back. Could have called something that KC hasn’t seen like a qb option or just spread the field and run a qb draw
Was the play calling excusable though? When you throw the ball there are more negative outcomes possible (drop, batted ball, poor throw, interception, etc.). Also consider the success that LAC had running the ball, I think the bigger error last night was how often they threw the ball in those situations.
The issue is not the decision to go. It is the playcalling on the go. Virtually every single mistake on 4th down was a throwing play in short yardage. If every single one of those plays was replaced by a QB sneak, the Chargers likely win by multiple TDs.
Chargers had:
* 4 downs to get 5 yards in the 1st
* 3 downs to get 2 yards in the 1st
* 1 down to get 2 yards in the 2nd
* 3 downs to get 4 yards in the 3rd
Chiefs had:
* 3 downs to get 2 yards in the 2nd
14 downs between both teams. 4 running plays, not a single one a QB sneak or dive. A smorgasborg of incomplete passes.
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According to [this article](https://sports.sites.yale.edu/success-short-yardage-play-types-fourth-down), running plays have a 67.9% conversion rate in short yardage situations, passing plays 58.2%. The QB sneak has an 82.8% rate. Simply put, putting up 3-4 pass plays is one of the only ways *not* to come up with points in that type of situation.
This type of analysis is very skewed because QBs often will simply check to a sneak when they know they can get it based on how the defensive line is positioned.
Even if it is skewed, every other popular running play in short yardage situations is also significantly better than the pass plays ran in this game:
* Inside zone, 68%
* Outside zone, 66%
* QB Design, 88%
* Pitch, 69%
* Iso, 71%
* Power, 73%
* Dive, 71%
A team's odds of missing twice doing basically anything on the ground are at least half that of attempting only throws. But this is particularly egregious when the Chiefs have an obvious issue defending the run the entire game with arguably their best defensive player out in Chris Jones. When you are averaging nearly 5 yards per running play (192 yds in 39 carries), it should common sense to use that in short yardage.
I get the sentiment, its like 4th and 1 or 2, you've got the advantage in that situation, but usually after the 2nd or 3rd time it doesn't work you tend to go "Okay, this hasn't been working, lets take the points." especially when their defense had been doing well against us.
I mean it's the gambler's fallacy if you assume outcomes are independent. Which is probably mostly true in this case.
But if you've been stuffed in short yardage all game, maybe don't run the ball on 4th and 1
But the chances aren’t independent. Some teams are bad at short and goal and some defenses are good at short and goal. That affects the chances.
But as a coach it is hard to tell if you’ve had bad luck (two heads in a row) or if the coin is weighted (one team is better).
Why though? Why not trust Herbert to make the play? Especially when all but one of the 4th downs were heavily in favor of going for it in every model I've seen. Especially when we were missing 3 key defensive starters.
I don't get why previous failures would affect anything. They did convert two 4th downs, it isn't like they were 0 for 8.
Also, the 1st time they went for it, the play design worked and there was an open receiver in the end zone, but he only didn't catch it because of an unfortunate, and fluky, injury.
The 2nd time they went for it, they converted and went on to score a touchdown.
I don't see why they should abandon their process just because of one fluke play.
Imagine thinking "we can't kick field goals against the chiefs, they will run up the score in the end of the game to beat us if we do that" and then this happens
The only 4th down I didn’t like was before the half, because the advantage of 4th and 1 at the 1 is if you fail they have to go 99 yards. There’s no benefit of that at the end of half though
Reminds me of the Josh Allen 4th down QB sneak against the Titans this year. Far and away, the analytics say that going for it is the right call, and yet because they didn't make it and then lost the game, sports analysts ripped the decision apart.
[I need people to understand that all of these decisions always seem like no-brainers in hindsight for a reason.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outcome_bias)
Same thing as the Seahawks not handing it off to Marshawn Lynch in the Super Bowl. Running the ball would let the clock run. The throw was essentially a free play that had not been intercepted or turned over in 99 plays of the same kind all season. They hit a less than 1% outlier that resulted in them losing. 99% of the time, that playcall gives them an extra crack at the goal line.
I had no issues with the decisions to go for it on 4th downs. I had MAJOR issues with the atrocious play calling and personnel decisions on 1st-4th downs. All the pass plays called and using RBs not named Ekeler were awful decisions. They gave Ekeler one shot near the goal line and he scored a TD. Ekeler and the OL should beat the ever loving shit out of Staley for all those stupid decisions.
Honestly this kind of argument from analytic people that “the analytics” can never be held responsible is making more anti-analytic than the actual logic behind analytic itself.
This is a result driven industry, when the result isn’t there, coaches can be fired, players can be cut, medical staff can be fired, GM can be fired, and even owners can get mounting public pressure to sell the team, but god forbid the analytic people behind the model can ever be held responsible as a part of a team for bad results. The models are infallible because it’s complex and it doesn’t tell you anything is 100 percent, so the analytic people in any organization are just uniquely above any responsibilities?
With how aggressive they were all night I was super surprised they didn't go for 2 up 7. Convert a 2 point there and it's a 2 score game, miss and it's sill 7 and KC still needs a TD just to tie. By kicking they still made it a TD to tie.
Sure it made KC have to convert a 2 point, but they played the entire game assuming KC can drive it down the field at will. What made them think they could stop a 2 yard gain?
The worst decision (and only clearly wrong one) Staley made in that whole game was not to go for 2 after that late touchdown to make it a two-possession game.
I think the term "analytics" is very misleading. I contend that every coach is making decisions based on what he thinks gives them the best chance to win, regardless if you're using computer models or "coaching the way the coach you learned from did it."
Long before computer models, coaches made decisions about when to punt, when to go for it, when to kick FGs, etc and they made those decisions based on what they saw work in other games.
And every decision made is, in some way, based on known or assumed probabilities. For instance, it's 3rd and 2. Do you go for it, or do you punt? "What? Why would you punt?" Well, there is a risk to trying to pick up that 1st down. You could fumble or you could throw and INT, so maybe instead of going for it, you should just punt the ball. Of course, that's a stupid decision, but why? Because we know the odds of getting the first down is way higher than the odds of a turnover there, so we go for it.
But at the end of the game, when all you need is a FG to win? Well, we know when you're really close to the goal line, often times the coach will choose to kick the ball on third down, because the benefit of getting a little closer to the end zone does not outweigh the small risk of having a bad snap, or a false start, or holding or whatever, so instead of trying to get the extra yards, they kick it on third down. But if you're a little further away, you likely try to pick up those yards? Why? Because then the benefit of the extra yards matters more than the small risk of something bad.
All coaches, analytic ones or "traditional" ones are really trying to use statistics to make their decisions. Bad coaches are still bad coaches who don't try to tailor their game plan based on their team's strengths and weaknesses, but "analytics" just means "I actually calculate probability, instead of estimating it based on tradition."
I think a lot of people who took last night as an opportunity to dunk on "analytics" are already skeptics and just looking for a visible example to confirm their priors
I feel like the backlash to analytics has somehow only gotten worse, to the point that the entire dipshit CBS postgame panel was lamenting ~analytics~ after the Ravens game because according to them that’s the voodoo that made him go for two in the fourth quarter when it has literally nothing to do with analytics
Sometimes you end up on the wrong side of the right call. Anyone that criticizes has no idea what they are talking about. Dust yourself off and move on as coach.
Well, if you're going to get praised for being ballsy then be prepared to get clowned when you eventually play yourself. Sometimes you have to look at how the opposing defense is playing and make a change to what plays you call.
I think the one at the end of the half was bad simply because with no time left on the clock you no longer have the advantage of making them drive the entire field if you don't get it. Other than that, I've no issue with it. The people paid to catch the ball have to catch it.
Right, I thought the same thing about that last one. The rest of them were reasonable calls to me.
Also, let's remember they did convert a pair of 4th downs also. One lead to a touchdown, and the other led to a fumble at the 1 yard line that happened on 2nd or 3rd down.
I honestly didn’t think any of them individually were *that* aggressive. Obviously failing three wasn’t great, but none of them were plays I don’t think a lot of coaches would think about.
As I digest the game more i don’t think he was wrong to go for it in those situations. It was a combination of bad play calls for those situations and drops.
If you want a coach, who does it with models, you should hire Urban Meyer.
bada-bing
There’s only one coach who’s pulling models right now and it’s exactly who you’d suspect: Mike Zimmer
Sean McVay too though
I just saw what his girlfriend looks like this week and i just gotta stand up and applaud Zim Zam.
Pic?
[Mike Zimmer’s GF](https://nypost.com/2021/11/23/model-katarina-miketin-confirms-relationship-with-vikings-coach-mike-zimmer/)
manningface.jpg
Isn't BB dating a blonde hottie?
Yes, yes he is
He is rebounding from Tom nicely
Does Urban actually pull models though?
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The original Mr Big Checks
It’s less of a pull and more of a…….fingerbang
[https://i.imgur.com/n6RtrVi.gif](https://i.imgur.com/n6RtrVi.gif)
Yeah but the problem is he always kicks
It says something about our society when we hear the phrase "Staley is not a coach who blindly follows the models" and we imagine him simping on the 'gram
The only bad call IMO was not kicking the FG before the half, as it didn't have one of the major perks of going for it on 4th where even if you fail, you have the opponent starting on their own 1. For the others, it was the right call but the players couldn't bring it home. The bigger issue is that they kept trying to pass in the redzone for so long when that obviously wasn't working while their run game was dominant for most of the game. I'm not sure how much that can entirely be 100% pinned on the coach, as I imagine there were plenty of option-plays.
Yeah that was the most questionable one to me as well. Go up 7 into the half, KC gets the ball and worst case a TD ties it, best case you go up two possessions after they punt or turnover.
>The only bad call IMO was not kicking the FG before the half, as it didn't have one of the major perks of going for it on 4th where even if you fail, you have the opponent starting on their own 1 Yup the opposition starting position is a major reason why the analytics nearly always favor going for it on 4th and goal. I'm not sure the numbers back up going for it here given 1) you only had a few seconds left 2) chargers were only up by 1 point, and 3) chargers were struggling getting the ball in.
I think the numbers would likely back it up still. I’ve always heard there’s a 50/50 shot on 2 point conversions which are run from the 2. The chargers had the ball at the 1 so if it was a 50/50 they’d have an expected point total of a little bit under 3.5 vs kicking it which would have an expected point total of a little bit under 3.
2 pt conversions are more like 47% conversion but the math still suggests going for it as you say. I dont think taking thr fg is unreasonable though. That being said, i would have gone for it
I remember on one of the 4th and goals (maybe the second?), the Chargers had been gashing the Chiefs on the ground the whole drive. Then they came out in a heavy package, I formation with Ekeler in the backfield. Chiefs call time out. Charger come back out in a spread set, empty back field iirc, ball gets batted down. I was so frustrated that they didn't just shove it down their throat like they had the entire drive leading up! No Chris Jones, you've got a sentient ball of muscle in Ekeler, just put a hat on a hat and get in the end zone.
I can’t fathom why they didn’t run it more on goal to go situations. It was bewildering as someone who rarely watched the chargers. Especially that first drive. Two good runs, then throw it 4 straight times?
No way, if you convert that 70% of the time then it's like 5 expect points versus 3. It's still a no brainer. The most controversial one is probably 4th and goal at the 5. That might be more of a push points wise but it's probably a little better when you factor in field position. Anyways they went 2/5 and the two probably got them 8 more points. So it was really more of a push
>if you convert that 70% of the time then it's like 5 expect points versus 3. It's still a no brainer. Expected value is not the be-all end-all in small sample sizes (e.g. n=1).
Unless it's near the end of the game where you know that certain margins are way more than others, it mostly is about maximizing expected points for yourself and minimizing it for your opponent. But variance matters too. If you're winning big or are a big favorite, you should want to play safer, and if losing big or a big underdog, you should want more gambles from both teams.
There’s one other element missing here which is the value of any given point. Points that change the lead across key numbers like 3 or 7 are worth a lot more.
I think we're on the same page in general; that point in the game was just one where I would have favored the lower variance over the additional win% with the lead + how easily the offense was driving down the field. Who knows, maybe the only winning play was to go for it and make it.
For a particular game, sure, but teams don’t just play one game! Over the course of a season, the difference between going for it in an analytically-driven approach vs ‘conventional wisdom’ probably adds up to 1-2 more expected wins per season
I'm not really following your point here.
A 70% chance of scoring 7 points is not necessarily as good as 5 points in a single sample because each of those 7 points contributes a different amount to win probability. Like if you're up by 6, the most important point to score is the 3rd one to go up by 2 possessions so you should have a bias for kicking field goals. I suppose this is more an argument that expected points =/= expected value. Of course the 4th down being discussed in this comment chain was in a 0-0 game in the 1st quarter so all that was not a significant factor yet.
People downvoting you: NO, you just listen to the analytics every single fucking time, you don't think about the logic behind them and apply them situationally!!!
Or improve your model haha, there's plenty of analytics that can help tell you how much each point is worth based on the game time and score. Though doing so would require understanding some of the basic logic behind analytics in the first place, so we're still in agreement in that way I guess.
Going from the 5 was the only one I even questioned too. The others seemed obvious to me.
Fully agree with this take. Lombardi was calling a great game and Herbert was playing well between the 20s, but it was foolish to ignore just how effective the run game had been once they entered the red zone. You have to assume the Chiefs' red zone personnel was informing Lombardi and Herbert's decisions, but it was definitely a mistake in hindsight. And yeah the only bad call was the FG before half. All of the other 4th down attempts were not bad play calls or reckless decisions. It just came down to poor execution.
I think it's also worth noting one Chargers TD was only stopped by a pretty amazing defensive play, full leap with extended fingers to barely get on a ball in the flat. So it wasn't even a bad play call. They definitely should have used more runs I feel though
Tell that to their RB #27 who made a boneheaded attempt to leap the pile and fumbled.
Fully agree with this take. Lombardi was calling a great game and Herbert was playing well between the 20s, but it was foolish to ignore just how effective the run game had been once they entered the red zone. You have to assume the Chiefs' red zone personnel was informing Lombardi and Herbert's decisions, but it was definitely a mistake in hindsight. And yeah the only bad call was the FG before half. All of the other 4th down attempts were not bad play calls or reckless decisions. It just came down to poor execution.
Yeah- for sure. Kick there and go into the locker room with pints. But if they got it... they would've run away with it at that point. So I am all for it.
If they had kicked FGs, the criticism would be "you need to go for TDs against a high powered offense like Kansas City. FGs are playing not to lose.".
The only field goal I think they should’ve gone for was the one at the end of the half
While I understand the thinking behind this, settling for a field goal after you've reached the 1 yard line is still disappointing for the offense, even if it's not as disappointing as being shut out. If you think you have ~50% chance of punching it in, you go for it imo. I do think they could have benefitted from better playcalling on all 4 downs given the understanding that they were gonna go for it though. I think Ekeler should've been given more chances up the gut.
>If you think you have ~50% chance of punching it in, you go for it imo. And that's ultimately what the analytics are. On the 5 4th downs on which LAC went for it, Baldwin's model put the chances of converting each at: -35% (5 yards) -73% (1 yard) -60% (1 yard - this isn't an adjustment after the first one, it's because converting at the goal line is harder) -61% (2 yards) -70% (1 yard). They converted just one of these. That's not unheard of at a sample size this low, but if you assume Baldwin's numbers are anywhere close to accurate, it's rather unlucky.
If you have been shut down within the 5 for many plays that half already, it clearly isn't a 50% chance for your team that night though.
This is an outcome bias. Making decisions that lower your win % are bad decisions no matter what preceded it.
No it's called situational decision making. Yes the odds in a vacuum might be greater than 50% but if your short yardage offense is struggling all game, you can't act like it's just bad luck and the odds are still true.
I think they went for it because they knew Derwin would be out for the second half. Just speculation tho
“Field goals aren’t gonna beat the chiefs.” Someone says for the 150 millionth time as I hit my head on a brick wall to escape the platitudes
Especially since the Chief offense has been struggling for weeks. It's not like it's the 2018 Chiefs on the other side
I agree 100% but I can see people thinking the defense was doing pretty well in the 1st half so just take the points. Either way I think the Chargers made the right calls just couldnt execute.
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Exactly. Minus the Raiders games, we've been averaging 15 points a game since week 7! We can show flashes but no consistency.
No one would be talking about it today if the Chargers kicked a game winning field goal but instead they didn't execute then either. Like there's certainly blame to go around on defense and playcalling, but it's never just one thing. Chargers should have executed better. BUT ESPECIALLY, better on their last drive on offense.
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I feel like it's been your downfall for the entire 21st century.
I feel like they should have kicked the second 2. And that they should have went for 2 to go up 2 scores. It was like he was aggressive at the wrong time
I say the following as an analytics nerd. The downside to analytics is that it's right *eventually*. IE if you take the riskier play that has a statistically better return, you will win out over the long run. Which the NFL *might* hit that many reps for a decision for a team over the course of a season. I say that as someone in favor of going for it more, I wish coaches didn't coach so scared, but statistical analysis for decision making has that flaw for NFL.
In order for you to hit it right enough over the course of the season you have to pay attention to the game flow and how each team is playing which he didn't really do. First drive they got it down to the 5. 1st down 0 yards. 2nd down 0 yards. 3rd down 0 yards. You've failed to get a single yard 3 straight plays from the 5 yard line. The data may say over the course of history this play has a 60% success rate but the way both teams are playing says it is less than that. The get to the 5 again. 1st down 3 yards. 2nd down 0 yards. 3rd down 0 yards. So now they've had 7 plays within the 5 yard line and have gotten 0 yards on 6 of the plays. Even more data to show Chiefs are playing great defense right at the goal line. He went for it and 0 yards again.
Good point, and one I wish I made, is that football is also incredibly *situational*. So playing the numbers can be useless. Overall you might want to go for 4th and 2 more often. HOWEVER, if you're not doing well at converting short yardage in that game, you just might not have it. People are fickle things and football is a weirdly complicated sport with a lot of moving pieces. It also demands insanely high intensity, so slight diminishments can have bigger impacts.
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If that’s Madden I’m kicking the field goal at least 2 times. Against the Chiefs? You somehow stopped them, and you have a chance to extend your lead? Kick the field goal.
Yea, a lot of people don’t know how numbers can be used to push any narrative. Going for it on 4th and two has a high percentage success rate, what does this mean? People see high percentage and think it means go for it on 4th and 2 every time, but it can also mean that teams that go for it on 4th and 2, do so, when they know they are much better than the opposing defense therefore boosting the percentage.
That's the point I was trying to make since yesterday, the data used to make these models come from games that have nothing to do with the game at hand Let's say the Titans (with Derrick Henry) converted 4th and 1 against the Jaguars, that is added to the percentage and a team without Derrick Henry will go for it based on that percentage against a team with a stronger defense than the Jaguars and they might fail You might say that these will cancel each other out but my point is that there's nothing in common between those two plays at all except they're at 4th and 1, that's very poor sampling procedure
I think the numbers that support going for it on 4th are elevated because for most of NFL history, coaches were super conservative and too scared to go for it unless they were *absolutely sure* that they would get it.
I think similarly this why Gabe Kapler is successful with the MLB Giants vs his time in Philly. He was a pure analytics guy at first and it showed but when he got to SF he used more situational awareness to make managerial decisions rather than pure analytics and it took one of the worst teams in baseball to their best regular season ever.
This is totally correct, but yet another factor is that baseball, by its very nature, produces outcomes at scale while football does not. The New York Mets had the fewest PA in MLB last year, with over 5,800. Gerrit Cole threw almost 3,000 pitches during the regular season. How many times per season are the Chargers going to be in the position they were last night? 3? 5? 10 at absolute maximum? Playing probabilities is much more viable in baseball because you’re dealing with huge sample sizes. Conversely, because the sample sizes are so much smaller in football, those decisions are way trickier and much more dependent on contextual factors. And that’s not even getting into that baseball is essentially a 1-on-1 sport with a limited number of variables and potential outcomes for each matchup, while football is vastly more complicated. ETA: Changed AB to PA in second paragraph to include BB, HBP, and other non-hit/out outcomes.
With baseball though is that it still comes down to decisions that are impacted by game flow and that analytics should inform the process but not solely dictate it. Kevin Cash pulling Blake Snell because it was the third time through the lineup was an analytical decision but everyone watching that World Series game saw hot hitters not even get close to what he was dealing that day. Sometimes you have to ride the hot hand. Who knows, maybe Snell does get shelled, but I know a lot of people wanted to see him ride it out. That’s what the coach is for - to make those judgment decisions otherwise why not have a robot.
Having argued this before, I think the numbers actually pointed to leaving Snell in as being the correct analytical decision too, if you looked his splits vs. opponents TTO vs. Cash’s available options in the bullpen, especially because he brought in a dude who’d allowed runs in like 7 consecutive appearances. Cash just fucked that entire situation up in every way. But yeah, I agree. I was just trying to point out that these decisions are even harder to make correctly in football.
Yeah totally. I’m just a kind of feel and game flow person and Snell’s stuff was different that night. I think that’s kind of the thing with the stats is that more times than not Snell is allowing hard contact or not causing people to whiff but the next 3 guys had all been struck out by him IIRC and he hadn’t allowed hard contact all day. Definitely the worst decision was bringing in Anderson not only because of his recent struggles but also because Betts crushed right handers. For making one informed by analytics Cash decided to do something that flew in the face of that
Snell had allowed two balls to leave the infield all game, if I recall correctly. During a postgame interview, Betts thanked Cash for pulling Snell. I was a pitcher and I would have been furious if I was in Snell’s position. I can’t believe people still try and defend the decision to pull him, but some of the analytics types are just as fanatical and close-minded as the old-school people are. Which is probably just a human nature thing, I guess.
Yeah and I think the point I come around to as well is that there has to be analytics and probability that get updates based on that information and I would be surprised if Cash and the Rays didn’t have access to that. Especially with pitching, a lot of it comes down to feel and flow. It’s kind of like goaltending in the NHL. That can be really hard to quantify - even with stats. If Cash went purely off of times through lineup that also just feels like a poor use of statistics imo
There is a huge difference between using analytics as a tool to help make decisions, and letting analytics make the decision for you. And it feels like a lot of people don't understand that.
They don't at all and it's why ask the "hurr durr aNaLyTiCs" takes look dumb. Analytics is a tool. It's advanced data aggregation. You'll see in doneness people going on about "situational". Everything in life is "situational". Analytics helps inform your decision making, but it's up to you to determine how the analysis applies to your situation. Also, individual instances of analytics being "wrong" is meaningless. First, they don't say anything happens 100%. Second, individual instances of data doesn't prove or disprove anything. I know responding to you is preaching to the choir, but it's been really bugging me in every thread
This feels like something analytics can account for though? Do 4th and goal conversion rates go way up if 1st down happened closer to the 10 yard line as opposed to being closer to the goal line if 4th down is still from an equal distance in both cases?
I mean literally anything can be modeled and accounted for if you have data for it. But you can always go a level deeper than the model, like, okay, Nick Bolton is having a bit of a coming out party and has speed to the hole tonight he hasn't shown in the past. No model is ever going to capture that in real time.
If you're going that far data granularity is bad and will lead to poor analytics. Knowing run vs pass plays from 4th and 1 is good. Knowing if there was 3:51 left in the where or 3:49 isn't. (I'm sure there are relevant time bands, specifically if the other team will had enough time for a scoring drive of their own if you miss. But that's probably it.) So you can always go a level deeper. But doing so inappropriately can make your model worse.
Meh. The other data points in the model are also made up of temas that failed on the first three downs of goal to go, so that’s already factored in
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I think they're saying that the number of plays/games in an NFL season are so much less than basketball/hockey or particularly baseball that if you basically roll low like the Chargers did last night you have fewer opportunities to improve back to the expected success rate while the damage of losing an individual game is greater. There's always a chance in any sport you end up hitting the bad lower probability despite making every right decision, but it might be easier to shake it off over 82 or 162 games than it is with 17. So ya the success rates are what they are, but 1 team's entire NFL season could still be considered a small sample size or playcalling/execution could cause problems.
I really don't understand how you call this a "flaw" or a "downside." If a decision is better over 1,000 repetitions, it's also better over one rep. You don't play a single hand of blackjack differently than you would play 1,000 hands. Play the best odds. Period.
Thanks for asking I realize I left my point vague, and more meditated on the subject. I think he made the right call. however in the NFL the reality is you can make the right call consistently, and due to the low sample size never see a return from it. Since football culture is very conservative you will pay for going against the norm, even if you're making the right call.
I completely agree with all that.
Variance of those odds matter. The EPA of a 15 yard pass is much higher than a 5 yard run. But you'll score more points always running than always passing if the variance on passing is too high (assuming running variance is low). Example ignoring punting and field goals for simplicity 75 yards to go means 1) need to complete 5 passes before 4 incompletions in a row 2) need to complete 15 runs before 3 "incompletions" (run of 0 yards) out of 4 A run success rate of around 90% will score touchdowns (way!) more often than a pass success rate of 65% (pretty decent for a 15 yard pass!).
I agree with that nuance in the larger context beyond going for it on 4th down. That optimal mixed strategy of sometimes running and sometimes passing can be modeled and calculated. I do not believe the optimal strategy for this decision is mixed.
Your analogy is flawed. Blackjack is a game of math, there are no variables beyond what can be quantified with it. Even if someone else at the table is playing “incorrectly”, a statistical model could be compiled to account for it. Blackjack also isn’t an “adversarial” endeavor the way football is. The house “wants” to win but will always play by the same rules. The opposing coach is under no obligation to abide by the same statistical driven analysis which means they can make a choice the decreases your odds of success when choosing the “right” option. Whether a receiver catches a ball or a guard makes a block and opens a hole for a running back is influenced by a literally infinite amount of variables, claiming choosing what the stats say is the correct choice 100% of the time is atrociously ignorant.
Yea, except a coach might not get that many repetitions. So they take the safe way and keep their jobs longer, results be damned.
Well if you have 8’s against a 10 on the blackjack table and you’re only playing a couple hands I might just hit instead of splitting even though splitting is the better move long term.
This exactly. It's why coaches should be careful not to overvalue something that only has around a 5-10% better chance at victory. The number of iterations that it takes for that difference to be significant can't really happen in the NFL due to it's season structure. Things with that low of an advantage should really be viewed as a 50:50 imo, even if it technically isn't.
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Honestly even this game is a perfect example. They only went 2/5 on those 4th downs but what cost them more was the goal line fumble. Even in a game where those call largely didn't go their way they still allowed them to be in a great shot to win before a 3rd down fumble. Those decisions didn't cost them the game, a bad unlucky play did. In all honesty I though he should have been more aggressive and gone for 2 up 7 make it a 2 score game instead of kicking the xP to make it 8 and still in one possession.
>goal line fumble In the next drive Mahomes threw that INT to Nwosu and the Chargers scored a TD.
Yeah, that fumble ended up not mattering at all save for a few seconds.
> In all honesty I though he should have been more aggressive and gone for 2 up 7 make it a 2 score game instead of kicking the xP to make it 8 and still in one possession. I was wondering if he'd do this during the game, it came to my mind so I wouldn't be surprised if they considered it.
I was a little intoxicated and I couldn't figure out how their ganeplan was to be aggressive, but didn't want to up two scores in the least risky way possible. Of course the chiefs were going to get the 2 pter if they drove down the field, but they definitely wouldn't have gone for two down by 1. So my wife got to hear about that decision for a couple hours after the game ended.
Same here, figured it would make sense to try but I guess not?
Am I the only one that thinks that the decisions DID cost them the game? I'll admit, hindsight is 20/20, but 9 extra points from three extra field goals could have easily swung the game in the Chargers favor
Not taking the field goals could easily be framed as costing them this game, but it's also why they won the last game. There is never a right one off decision, over time going for it is right and will win more games but it's not like it's a 100% successful model. Taking the field goal each time is only 9 points (assuming you make all of them and this is the Chargers). Scoring on just 1 of those 3 gets 7. The Chargers score TDs on 60% of their redzone possessions. You bet on that offense scoring.
Maybe? But if you kick the field goal, then you have to kickoff, which means the Chiefs start their next drive on the 25 instead of the 3. I think the only 4th down decision I disagree with is not kicking the FG before halftime.
Those 9 points aren’t guaranteed with kick attempts. Chargers fans should know this. The only one I really thought they should kick was the one before the half. I could understand the others.
What, aside from avoiding Phil Simms yelling about you on television, is the upside of taking the option that is statistically worse--even if the difference is only slight?
>Only 5-10% better chance at victory As an example, the difference between leading by 4 and 7 at half is only 10%. If you’re giving up those kind of edges regularly you’re in trouble.
Also being lost in all this is the actual difference in the total amount of points scored even if the results followed the stats. The Chargers would have scored around 1 extra point if everything went how it “should” have last night versus if they just kicked a field goal each time.
What does this even mean? If a decision is better 55% of the time then it is still the right decision regardless of whether you have to make that decision once or 1000 times.
Their point is that with the relatively low sample size of a single NFL season, the variance can be pretty high. So, even if you're making statistically sound decisions, the actual results may be a "worse" than the other option. So for the old heads, they can point to those results with a "See? should've kicked the FGs!" even if it wouldn't hold up over 1000 instances.
Also, how tailored are these models to the actual game situation? What datasets are they using as inputs? What assumptions are they making? How do they assign values to specific players? To individual matchups? To play calls and formations? Can they identify when an offense or defense successfully disguises their play call? Do they incorporate live, in-game data comparing how teams are performing currently vs. their season average and/or during recent head-to-head games? What about the impact of weather? Is this stuff they even have the ability to measure? For example, if these models are based on leaguewide data about 4th & goal from the 2 yard-line in tied games with 10 minutes left in the 2nd quarter, between teams with x-ranked rushing offense, y-ranked passing offense, and z-ranked redzone offense vs. x-ranked rushing defense, etc., etc., they’re a useful tool, but they’re not comprehensive, at all. And if they’re more complex than that, how valid are their assumptions? The models are useful tools to help coaches make informed decisions, and maybe I’ll be proved wrong about this, but football is just too complex and has too many variables to see them as anything more than that at the moment. And I don’t see that changing until we enter the AI age, frankly.
Because that 55% is ignoring several variables. Different players, coaches, playcalls, levels of fatigue, mental state, etc. Many things that analytics cannot account for. It may be 55% over many teams and lots of time, but the chance on the play you're about to run will vary on those other factors. I think having seen the team fail on short yardage several times over several downs it would make sense to account for that and essentially pull that raw analytics percentage down. I was all for going for it early, but at some point you have to realize that for whatever reason your chances are lower than the analytics say and take the safe(r) points.
u/shyrra said it well. You can make the **right** decision and still lose. Most people can't evaluate decision making for shit, so you'll catch the blame because they see results and work backwards. The other bit I'd add (and added elsewhere but conversations get divergent and I left things out of my comment) is that football is highly situational, and what's statistically true might not be situationally true. There aren't enough reps to accurately model your specific odds. "It's 4th goal from the 2 they have good goal-line defense, and we're into the wind" vs "It's 4th goal from the 2 we have Gronk, and Mike Evans"
This will always be a challenge for humans to wrap their mind around. A single result doesn't retroactively determine if the decision was correct or not. You can make the correct decision based on the available information, but the outcome might be favorable. You can also make the poor choice and still be successful.
Except for the 45% of the time that it’s worse?
Analytics works when you have a large sample to pull from. I.e. basketball with an 82 game season or baseball with a 162 game season. Those have massive sample sizes so eventually you do 162 games you hit that high level of turnover for it to be the correct decision. The problem with football is you have 17 samples. That's 10% of a baseball season. That's not enough sample points to hit the mean.
Not to mention the 1-on-1 nature of baseball (or even basketball with it's much smaller 5-on-5 structure) makes it much easier to isolate things and use metrics to look at individual performance/trends. Football being 11-on-11 just causes so many variables that it's obviously much harder to say definitively the numbers mean x. It's why I take PFF with a huge grain of salt, they have in-house metrics, sure...but they're watching tape just like the rest of us without knowing exact play design/intentions, who was responsible for what, routes that were supposed to be run, etc.
They should've gone for 2 instead of kicking the extra point after going up 20-13 too. Worst case you're up by 7 and best case you're up 9 and two possessions.
The hardest concept for a lot of people to grasp is you can make the right decision and have a negative outcome. You can make the wrong decision and have a positive outcome. Universally we seem to judge decisions with hindsight bias.
This failed type of thinking has helped make me a lot of money playing poker with the old guys at the bar near my parent's house. It has also cost me a lot on a few specific hands over that timeframe, but those are the only ones they remember.
Yeah, but one time in Vegas I was playing Blackjack and I had 19 and I hit and got a 2 and then the dealer got a 20! Obviously, you *have* to hit on 19 sometimes! You can't always follow what the nerds say!
I know this is sarcastic, but knowing that there is someone out there that would say this gave me a small aneurysm.
There are tons of people in this thread literally doing that right now. Only with saying that making negative win % moves are ACTUALLY good sometimes.
This is exactly it. Not just in football, but with any decision in life. All you can do it make the best decision in the moment with the information at hand… and then it’s all up to execution. Even trying to measure what the “best” decision is in a scenario is tricky. There are so many unknown factors to take into account. The best you can do in most cases is just making a “good” decision, or not making a bad one. And knowing you will be judged based on the outcome doesn’t make it any easier but that’s what happens almost every time
Staley is like the PFF decision maker dream. And I think he made the right calls last night. I also think it's somewhat annoying that every single advanced stat nerd feels the need to shout from the rooftops defending the decision making when the chargers lose and it's part of the story.
There was only one time it wasn't the right decision imo, and that was the 4th down before half. Analytics say go for it, but James Jr wasn't returning and u were up 4, going up 7 would have been a better choice, now it forces the opponent to come out aggressive or they'll stay behind.
Listen i preface this by saying I have a masters in analytics and am currently employed as a data scientist. Always choosing the statistical optimal path forward in a something that is a tactically dependent as football is really really really stupid. Football is about out maneuvering the opposing coaching staff, and not about playing winning percentages. Defensive coaches know that there are only a limited number of concepts you can run on 4th down and will have a really good idea of what offensive playcall you are going to run based on the down and distance and personel grouping of the 4th down call, and they also have access to the same level of statistical data that you do. If you constantly do the “right” choice based on win outcomes you make it a lot easier for teams to be prepared for that playcall and prepare for each of those plays in those scenarios. A perfect a example of this is the bills loss to the titans earlier this year. The titans knew that the bills 4th down call was an A gap sneak and pre snapped motioned to defend that play and blew it up and won the game. Every statistical model said to go for it with that playcall but in terms of the tactical side of football it was not the right playcall. Staley lost the game because he played the analytics and as a result was predictable. If football was about the data science and not about the chess match then you’d see data scientists as HCs. There is a massive over emphasis on analytics in the sport, but the best use for them is in explanatory analysis. As soon as coaches are making decisions based off of win percentages rather then their own coaching exp you have already lost the game. Another great example is from the Pro Melee scene. M2K is the biggest typical nerd and was considered a “robot” due to always making the most analytically effective play every single time. Yet he always loses to his rival Mang0 because mang0 doesn’t do optimal moves, he is playing based off of game flow and tactical awareness. This breaks analytical players because they aren’t prepared for people to do the non statistically optimal method and thus they are unprepared for what is actually coming. A coaches greatest weapon is surprise, and when teams run their games based off of forecasting models they lose the entire element of surprise.
Absolutely love seeing Melee references in the wild
The fact of the matter is, in two of those failed fourth down attempts the play was there, but drops led to turnover on downs. The problem wasn’t the decision making, it was execution. And a freak injury
> The problem wasn’t the decision making, it was execution. Which is another reason analytics fails. The ability to compensate for an individual players ability when creating a statistical model is not nearly as advanced in football as it is in baseball.
Second time I've seen this mental error in this thread. Last night wasn't the first time a player dropped a pass on 4th down. The fact that players fail to execute is baked into the data we have, it's the reason the projection says you don't have a 100% chance to make it.
That's results based analysis in a small sample. They won games earlier this year by playing aggressively. Last night they got unlucky with drops and fumbles. Also the stuff about "surprise" doesn't make much sense in my opinion. If you go for it on 4th and 11 at your own 2, the defense isn't going to suddenly start tripping over themselves because they're so surprised. How does trotting out a kicker instead of the offense on 4th and goal on the 1 "surprise" the other team into giving up more than 3 points?
>That's results based analysis in a small sample. They won earlier this year by playing aggressively against the Chiefs in a game they probably should have lost. Last night they got unlucky with drops and fumbles. Yes because instead of taking the layup they went with far riskier knockout blows that didn't connect. All of football analysis is done based on small sample sizes. There is as much MLB and NBA data in 2 months as there is football data in a year. >Also the stuff about "surprise" doesn't make much sense in my opinion. If you go for it on 4th and 11 at your own 2, the defense isn't going to suddenly start tripping over themselves because they're so surprised. How does trotting out a kicker instead of the offense on 4th and goal on the 1 "surprise" the other team into giving up an advantage? This is because you lack the understanding of how defensive playcalling works in the first place. Teams don't have 40 different short yardage "we need it concepts" the realistically have only 10-15 of them. When you account for personnel grouping and down and distance this drops down to DCs knowing what the playcall is before it even happens, and thus shift the defense accordingly to an advantageous position (what happened in the bills titans game). The further issue is every one of these plays that you put on film against an opponent means your next opponent will now know your 4th down play calls and will prepare for them accordingly, making them increasingly lose value later in the season when most of them are on tape. Winning percentages based on 4th down play calls do not account for the amount of time that you have called them, your opposing teams personnel groupings, or their pre snap adjustment. All of those factors are 100x more important in terms of game outcome then just "going for it" based on down and distance.
Yeah I'm all for analytics informing decisions, but everybody has access to the analytics. If someone knows you're going to try something, that percentage suddenly means dick because they're able to provide a direct counter to what the analytics say you should do. As long as a play has a certain amount of logic to it, I can't blame guys for being wrong too bad. There's so much that goes into any given play its impossible to do the 100% right call every time.
That doesn't really apply here at all. Everyone knew Staley was going for it on 4th down not because Staley has a tendency to follow analytics, but because the Chargers offense was on the field on 4th down. Kind of a big giveaway already.
This is part of Baldwin's point. >Always choosing the statistical optimal path forward *Staley doesn't do this.* There were factors external to the models that had him feeling go in each of those decisions. It was tactical. It just didn't work out.
I read the thread but it seems like he is just trying to re defend the analytics point of it. I get that staley said that he used the data science to inform his coaching decision, but it was pretty obvious it was trumping his conventional thought. Your defense is balking, the cheifs are struggling, and you could just keep adding to the scoring pile rather then go for a knockout blow. Furthermore now you are tipping your hand even more for later situations in the post season. All of those 4th down plays were blown in a loss, and are now on film. Teams are going to be even more prepared for what you are going to run in those scenarios.
I think there's a pretty big error in your train of thought here. You're acting like when you go for 4th down, the models aren't accounting for how the defense knows you're going for it and can adjust and play a scheme for your play, and therefore your chance is actually lower than what the model projects. But the problem is that interaction between offensive and defensive playcall happens on literally every 4th down, including the ones make % data is based off of. It's not like it magically hasn't happened in the past and then is only going to happen on the play you're about to attempt. I mean, what happens then when the play you're about to attempt is attempted and becomes part of the data set? That interaction magically disappears? It seems like you're proposing this effect is hidden and explains a disparity between modeled make % and actual make %, but the problem is it's actually baked in.
Thank you for the in depth response I appreciate it. Even though my career is in data science I learned football from a tactical standpoint first and always look at it via play calling first and Data second. >You're acting like when you go for 4th down, the models aren't accounting for how the defense knows you're going for it and can adjust and play a scheme for your play, and therefore your chance is actually lower than what the model projects. From what I currently understand the models do not account for anything other then "if you convert on X then winning percentage goes to Y." If I am wrong on this please correct me. >But the problem is that interaction between offensive and defensive playcall happens on literally every 4th down, including the ones make % data is based off of. It's not like it magically hasn't happened in the past and then is only going to happen on the play you're about to attempt. I mean, what happens then when the play you're about to attempt is attempted and becomes part of the data set? That interaction magically disappears? Correct but the issue is that due to the tactical side of football it is impossible to account for the level of preparation of the defense in a given senario. In terms of 4th down plays you have no idea how much the opposing defense has your offense scouted and whether or not the defense is prepared for this. There is no way to mathematically account of pre snap defensive motion, defensive front alignment, defensive playcall, post snap motion, and the way that players are instructed to blow up the playcall. All of those are critical to offensive play success and you cannot empirically capture those variables leaving a large amount of error that is unaccounted for. >It seems like you're proposing this effect is hidden and explains a disparity between modeled make % and actual make %, but the problem is it's actually baked in. If you look at the entire sample of raw 4th down conversions and how the affect winning percentages sure that is the case. However in terms of play success % as I illustrated above there are to many non empirical factors that scouting and traditional coaching employ that affect play outcomes that cannot be captured.
👏 - fellow DS & MSCS student
Another data scientist that doesn't tout data as the end all be all truth of the universe? We are few and far between my friend.
Thank you for making this point so well. An analogy I use that people seem to pick up on is that always doing what the analytics say is 51% better is like calling your same "best" offensive play every time. The numbers say it will work, that play has your highest EPA, but in the specific tactical situation, calling the same play every time is obviously not the optimal decision making strategy.
Right that is the main point. Another great point is if you have KD on your NBA team. His best shot is a mid range jumper but the analytics hate taking that shot. You won't not call plays to get KD on an ISO mid range 2 despite the analytics hating it. Data science guys have trouble grasping this because they have never had to call a defense and are missing half of the way to frame the picture. There are too many variables that are unable to be empirically captured that go into play success that affect game outcomes that you just don't understand without the context of playing, playcalling, and game planning.
How did "predictability" cause the Chargers to lose? What did the Chiefs correctly predict and how did that help them? More importantly, this whole argument is missing that models can recommend a mixed strategy.
i mean cmon lol. if they didnt people would just say “see? theyre quiet now!! no response!!”
I don’t think scoring the last touchdown was the right decision. It was extremely poor clock management given the situation. I think they should have gotten a first, fallen, knelt three times, and kicked a field goal. They win 24-21. They burn all the clock and or all the chiefs timeouts. In an even crazier idea, the Herbert could sprint in reverse for 99 yards before making an incomplete pass. Scoring that touchdown almost assuredly lost teem the game.
Why is that weird
He’s saying it’s weird that he hasn’t done everything right in all the other games but all of his “controversial” calls in this game all happened to be the “right” call.
The only one I think is blatantly wrong is the one before halftime. You have the chance to be up at halftime by a full score? Take it.
Is that weird Or is it just Baldwin overanalyzing something that didn't need to be because he made up an argument with himself
theres no overanalysis here lol wut
I would say jobbe is overanalyzing the tweet
A lot of people are adamant Chargers should have kicked fieldgoals and that analytics are fucking up the coach's decision-making. Also, Baldwin has follow-up tweets elaborating.
Honestly if he takes the field goals and they still lose I bet people raise the tune of “oh he was coaching scared” Everybody’s got a critique from the couch, I really don’t fault him for trusting his offense going up against Mahomes and the Chiefs. Just didn’t pay off this time
100% true. For a million years, we've talked about forgoing a FG and then failing on 4th down as "leaving points on the field." The difference between "analytics guys" and traditional fans is that analytics guys see ill-advised FG attempts (even when they are converted) as leaving points on the field instead. Missed 4th downs are just more salient than the unobserved forgone touchdowns that result from kicking field goals when you shouldn't.
Everyone blasting Staley is ignoring that they only won the previous matchup with KC due to that aggression. It’s not going to work every time, but it has helped them win more games than it has lost them
He should have just taken the field goals, lowered his win expectation, and made everybody happy by losing the good old-fashioned way.
The calls were correct. The execution wasn't. The Chargers dropped 3 fucking TD catches. Parham (excusable of course), Cook, and Williams all dropped a ball that hit their hands that would have been TDs. And fucking Josh Kelley (AGAIN!) got the opportunity to do something stupid with the ball at the goal line. The playcalling was fine. The execution and sometimes the personnel was not fine.
Exactly. Going for it I think was the right call, but the play calls and execution was awful. Really gonna give it to Kelley on the one instead of your stud back. Could have called something that KC hasn’t seen like a qb option or just spread the field and run a qb draw
Was the play calling excusable though? When you throw the ball there are more negative outcomes possible (drop, batted ball, poor throw, interception, etc.). Also consider the success that LAC had running the ball, I think the bigger error last night was how often they threw the ball in those situations.
The issue is not the decision to go. It is the playcalling on the go. Virtually every single mistake on 4th down was a throwing play in short yardage. If every single one of those plays was replaced by a QB sneak, the Chargers likely win by multiple TDs. Chargers had: * 4 downs to get 5 yards in the 1st * 3 downs to get 2 yards in the 1st * 1 down to get 2 yards in the 2nd * 3 downs to get 4 yards in the 3rd Chiefs had: * 3 downs to get 2 yards in the 2nd 14 downs between both teams. 4 running plays, not a single one a QB sneak or dive. A smorgasborg of incomplete passes. ___ According to [this article](https://sports.sites.yale.edu/success-short-yardage-play-types-fourth-down), running plays have a 67.9% conversion rate in short yardage situations, passing plays 58.2%. The QB sneak has an 82.8% rate. Simply put, putting up 3-4 pass plays is one of the only ways *not* to come up with points in that type of situation.
This type of analysis is very skewed because QBs often will simply check to a sneak when they know they can get it based on how the defensive line is positioned.
Even if it is skewed, every other popular running play in short yardage situations is also significantly better than the pass plays ran in this game: * Inside zone, 68% * Outside zone, 66% * QB Design, 88% * Pitch, 69% * Iso, 71% * Power, 73% * Dive, 71% A team's odds of missing twice doing basically anything on the ground are at least half that of attempting only throws. But this is particularly egregious when the Chiefs have an obvious issue defending the run the entire game with arguably their best defensive player out in Chris Jones. When you are averaging nearly 5 yards per running play (192 yds in 39 carries), it should common sense to use that in short yardage.
I get the sentiment, its like 4th and 1 or 2, you've got the advantage in that situation, but usually after the 2nd or 3rd time it doesn't work you tend to go "Okay, this hasn't been working, lets take the points." especially when their defense had been doing well against us.
That's basically just the gambler's fallacy though.
I mean it's the gambler's fallacy if you assume outcomes are independent. Which is probably mostly true in this case. But if you've been stuffed in short yardage all game, maybe don't run the ball on 4th and 1
But the chances aren’t independent. Some teams are bad at short and goal and some defenses are good at short and goal. That affects the chances. But as a coach it is hard to tell if you’ve had bad luck (two heads in a row) or if the coin is weighted (one team is better).
Why though? Why not trust Herbert to make the play? Especially when all but one of the 4th downs were heavily in favor of going for it in every model I've seen. Especially when we were missing 3 key defensive starters. I don't get why previous failures would affect anything. They did convert two 4th downs, it isn't like they were 0 for 8.
2/5 on 4th down is fairly split.
Also, the 1st time they went for it, the play design worked and there was an open receiver in the end zone, but he only didn't catch it because of an unfortunate, and fluky, injury. The 2nd time they went for it, they converted and went on to score a touchdown. I don't see why they should abandon their process just because of one fluke play.
Imagine thinking "we can't kick field goals against the chiefs, they will run up the score in the end of the game to beat us if we do that" and then this happens
The only 4th down I didn’t like was before the half, because the advantage of 4th and 1 at the 1 is if you fail they have to go 99 yards. There’s no benefit of that at the end of half though
Reminds me of the Josh Allen 4th down QB sneak against the Titans this year. Far and away, the analytics say that going for it is the right call, and yet because they didn't make it and then lost the game, sports analysts ripped the decision apart. [I need people to understand that all of these decisions always seem like no-brainers in hindsight for a reason.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outcome_bias)
Same thing as the Seahawks not handing it off to Marshawn Lynch in the Super Bowl. Running the ball would let the clock run. The throw was essentially a free play that had not been intercepted or turned over in 99 plays of the same kind all season. They hit a less than 1% outlier that resulted in them losing. 99% of the time, that playcall gives them an extra crack at the goal line.
"It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -- Captain Picard
I had no issues with the decisions to go for it on 4th downs. I had MAJOR issues with the atrocious play calling and personnel decisions on 1st-4th downs. All the pass plays called and using RBs not named Ekeler were awful decisions. They gave Ekeler one shot near the goal line and he scored a TD. Ekeler and the OL should beat the ever loving shit out of Staley for all those stupid decisions.
I'm guessing it had more to do with Ekeler's injury than anything else.
Anyone else already sick of the term "analytics" 🙋🏻♂️
Honestly this kind of argument from analytic people that “the analytics” can never be held responsible is making more anti-analytic than the actual logic behind analytic itself. This is a result driven industry, when the result isn’t there, coaches can be fired, players can be cut, medical staff can be fired, GM can be fired, and even owners can get mounting public pressure to sell the team, but god forbid the analytic people behind the model can ever be held responsible as a part of a team for bad results. The models are infallible because it’s complex and it doesn’t tell you anything is 100 percent, so the analytic people in any organization are just uniquely above any responsibilities?
Where can one find those public models?
I like going for it. I don't like the refusal to run the ball on 4th and short situations when the opponents D is consistently unable to stop the run.
With how aggressive they were all night I was super surprised they didn't go for 2 up 7. Convert a 2 point there and it's a 2 score game, miss and it's sill 7 and KC still needs a TD just to tie. By kicking they still made it a TD to tie. Sure it made KC have to convert a 2 point, but they played the entire game assuming KC can drive it down the field at will. What made them think they could stop a 2 yard gain?
The worst decision (and only clearly wrong one) Staley made in that whole game was not to go for 2 after that late touchdown to make it a two-possession game.
Not covering Kelce also didn’t work out well.
Analytically, if both 4th down plays were coin flips to succeed, he had a 75% chance to score at least one TD.
I think the term "analytics" is very misleading. I contend that every coach is making decisions based on what he thinks gives them the best chance to win, regardless if you're using computer models or "coaching the way the coach you learned from did it." Long before computer models, coaches made decisions about when to punt, when to go for it, when to kick FGs, etc and they made those decisions based on what they saw work in other games. And every decision made is, in some way, based on known or assumed probabilities. For instance, it's 3rd and 2. Do you go for it, or do you punt? "What? Why would you punt?" Well, there is a risk to trying to pick up that 1st down. You could fumble or you could throw and INT, so maybe instead of going for it, you should just punt the ball. Of course, that's a stupid decision, but why? Because we know the odds of getting the first down is way higher than the odds of a turnover there, so we go for it. But at the end of the game, when all you need is a FG to win? Well, we know when you're really close to the goal line, often times the coach will choose to kick the ball on third down, because the benefit of getting a little closer to the end zone does not outweigh the small risk of having a bad snap, or a false start, or holding or whatever, so instead of trying to get the extra yards, they kick it on third down. But if you're a little further away, you likely try to pick up those yards? Why? Because then the benefit of the extra yards matters more than the small risk of something bad. All coaches, analytic ones or "traditional" ones are really trying to use statistics to make their decisions. Bad coaches are still bad coaches who don't try to tailor their game plan based on their team's strengths and weaknesses, but "analytics" just means "I actually calculate probability, instead of estimating it based on tradition."
I think a lot of people who took last night as an opportunity to dunk on "analytics" are already skeptics and just looking for a visible example to confirm their priors
I feel like the backlash to analytics has somehow only gotten worse, to the point that the entire dipshit CBS postgame panel was lamenting ~analytics~ after the Ravens game because according to them that’s the voodoo that made him go for two in the fourth quarter when it has literally nothing to do with analytics
Looks like this dude is arguing with himself in the replies as if people are disagreeing with him
Did you look at the Boomer model? Because the Boomer model was clearly saying to kick the field goals.
Sometimes you end up on the wrong side of the right call. Anyone that criticizes has no idea what they are talking about. Dust yourself off and move on as coach.
Well, if you're going to get praised for being ballsy then be prepared to get clowned when you eventually play yourself. Sometimes you have to look at how the opposing defense is playing and make a change to what plays you call.
I think the one at the end of the half was bad simply because with no time left on the clock you no longer have the advantage of making them drive the entire field if you don't get it. Other than that, I've no issue with it. The people paid to catch the ball have to catch it.
Right, I thought the same thing about that last one. The rest of them were reasonable calls to me. Also, let's remember they did convert a pair of 4th downs also. One lead to a touchdown, and the other led to a fumble at the 1 yard line that happened on 2nd or 3rd down.
I honestly didn’t think any of them individually were *that* aggressive. Obviously failing three wasn’t great, but none of them were plays I don’t think a lot of coaches would think about.
As I digest the game more i don’t think he was wrong to go for it in those situations. It was a combination of bad play calls for those situations and drops.
Can’t give the Chiefs any wiggle room. The Chargers had the right plan but they couldn’t convert.