Dan Campbell is a top 5 head coach in the NFL. And by metrics is was the #1 Head Coach in game management with a win above replacement of over 1 which is twice as much as the second plave coach. This antiquated logic which favors punting and taking field goals and never going for 2 is not the optimal game strategy. Oh if you live in fear of the peanut gallery, you kick. If you want to put your team in the best position to win, you emulate Dan Campbell.This is another brick in the wall for DC not being a good game coach. Again, really good motivator and leader but sometimes you have to adjust based on changing circumstances. It's great to say you are going for two and the win but when something changes good coaches change with it. It isn't a hit to their integrity it is a smart coach adjusting to circumstances.Can someone help me understand the thought process Campbell had going for that 2 point conversion from the 7 against the Cowboys. I’ve been following this thread and I hear about analytics and % of success on 4th downs etc.. Are his decisions rooted in analytics, emotions or both? That 2 point conversion seemed more about being pissed about how they got screwed by the refs. That 2 point try from the 7 was reckless imo. I am shocked people weren’t more outraged about that decision. There should have been some internal discussion within the organization about his aggressiveness moving forward.
That decision was more about Dan Campbell's character. He told the team before the drive they were going to score and go for two. On the road and with confidence in your offense to dial up a play from the 2 it makes sense from an analytical standpoint. After the penalty, it was not the percentage play. But Dan Campbell told his offense they were going for two and he was not going back on his word. He is not the kind of guy who backs off from his word because circumstance changes. You can say that is dumb and stubborn, but to Dan Campbell integrity is far more important.
I don't think the Philly Special in the first half was the moment they won the game especially since the Patriots came back to take the lead in that game with 9 minutes left in the game.I keep coming back to the 2017 Philadelphia Eagles. Doug Pedersen was probably one of the innovators in going for it and being aggressive. When he did the Philly Special instead of kicking a FG, it was that moment that won the Superbowl for Philly.
IMO Campbell knew that a win had already been taken away, so he didn't want to just play it safe and try for overtime. He wanted everyone to focus on the blown call by the ref, and he could use that in many ways over the following weeks. Extra motivation for his team, extra motivation for some home cooking by the refs in a home playoff game.Can someone help me understand the thought process Campbell had going for that 2 point conversion from the 7 against the Cowboys. I’ve been following this thread and I hear about analytics and % of success on 4th downs etc.. Are his decisions rooted in analytics, emotions or both? That 2 point conversion seemed more about being pissed about how they got screwed by the refs. That 2 point try from the 7 was reckless imo. I am shocked people weren’t more outraged about that decision. There should have been some internal discussion within the organization about his aggressiveness moving forward.
I completely agree with this statement. I think being aggressive in more situations is the right answer but I think there are situations where kicking is still the right answer. Just blindly being aggressive no matter the game situation is an issue and will cost games.......especially in playoff games where the pressure is increased and the stakes are much higher. I think you can still be true to yourself (aggressive most of the time) and still account for game situation and adjust when necessary.This antiquated logic which favors punting and taking field goals and never going for 2 is not the optimal game strategy.
Oh so, momentum is a thing that affects how a game plays out.I don't think the Philly Special in the first half was the moment they won the game especially since the Patriots came back to take the lead in that game with 9 minutes left in the game.I keep coming back to the 2017 Philadelphia Eagles. Doug Pedersen was probably one of the innovators in going for it and being aggressive. When he did the Philly Special instead of kicking a FG, it was that moment that won the Superbowl for Philly.
It was at that moment that you knew, Pedersen was playing to win and not to lose. It's one of those energizing moments.
Good coaches should also know whether or not their WR3 can handle the pressure of a playoff game and execute the plays just like it was game 3 of the regular season and design plays accordingly.Good coaches put their players and teams in positions to succeed. They can't throw a pass, catch a ball, kick a fg or block but they can call a good play and get their player open for an easy reception.
That WR3 was handling playoff pressure pretty well up to that point. He had 5 catches for 80 yards in their first playoff game, and a touchdown in their second playoff game.Good coaches should also know whether or not their WR3 can handle the pressure of a playoff game and execute the plays just like it was game 3 of the regular season and design plays accordingly.Good coaches put their players and teams in positions to succeed. They can't throw a pass, catch a ball, kick a fg or block but they can call a good play and get their player open for an easy reception.
Yep, and then he dropped a huge 4th down play followed by a bigger 3rd down play after that. Pressure? Just a routine drop? Loss of confidence? I have no idea.That WR3 was handling playoff pressure pretty well up to that point. He had 5 catches for 80 yards in their first playoff game, and a touchdown in their second playoff game.Good coaches should also know whether or not their WR3 can handle the pressure of a playoff game and execute the plays just like it was game 3 of the regular season and design plays accordingly.Good coaches put their players and teams in positions to succeed. They can't throw a pass, catch a ball, kick a fg or block but they can call a good play and get their player open for an easy reception.
In a vacuum, going for it on the 7 is a bad decision. In the playoffs, or a game that they needed to win to make the playoffs, I think he would absolutely kick the extra point.Can someone help me understand the thought process Campbell had going for that 2 point conversion from the 7 against the Cowboys. I’ve been following this thread and I hear about analytics and % of success on 4th downs etc.. Are his decisions rooted in analytics, emotions or both? That 2 point conversion seemed more about being pissed about how they got screwed by the refs. That 2 point try from the 7 was reckless imo. I am shocked people weren’t more outraged about that decision. There should have been some internal discussion within the organization about his aggressiveness moving forward.
That WR3 was handling playoff pressure pretty well up to that point. He had 5 catches for 80 yards in their first playoff game, and a touchdown in their second playoff game.Good coaches should also know whether or not their WR3 can handle the pressure of a playoff game and execute the plays just like it was game 3 of the regular season and design plays accordingly.Good coaches put their players and teams in positions to succeed. They can't throw a pass, catch a ball, kick a fg or block but they can call a good play and get their player open for an easy reception.
Also, the week before he iced the game on a 4th and goal run by his RB3. If it had failed we would all have said, “Why didn’t he hand it off to Monty?”That WR3 was handling playoff pressure pretty well up to that point. He had 5 catches for 80 yards in their first playoff game, and a touchdown in their second playoff game.Good coaches should also know whether or not their WR3 can handle the pressure of a playoff game and execute the plays just like it was game 3 of the regular season and design plays accordingly.Good coaches put their players and teams in positions to succeed. They can't throw a pass, catch a ball, kick a fg or block but they can call a good play and get their player open for an easy reception.
I haven't found a Lions fan yet that disagrees with you... You guys are proud of your team and you're enjoying the aggressiveness and the wins it brought this season... I'll check back with Lions fans when the expectations are there to win and the aggressiveness costs you otherwise winnable games...Prime example is the L.A. Chargers...As a Lions fan there was no point where I wanted Badgley to take those kicks
I completely understand this concept and would agree that trying to mathematically put a predictive value on momentum plays is impossible. But I also don't think it is meaningless to consider. I think the reason why it is impossible to assign a value is because every single play moves the needle so predictively how can you account for that. I can guarantee that the Spurs take timeouts to stop the other team's momentum build even though your analytics guys decided that "momentum is a nonsense, meaningless thing with no correlation whatsoever to outcomes"I won't belabor it too much (and it's not like we could publish it, technically the results belong to the Spurs), but the main takeaway was: momentum is a nonsense, meaningless thing with no correlation whatsoever to outcomes. It is purely a backwards-looking way to explain what happened that people want to emotionally understand, and for which the real answer is almost always "yeah sometimes **** happens and that was crazy lucky or unlucky." There's no predictive value at all.
Until they got inside 40 yards there was no way they weren't going for it. It's not like he's Justin Tucker.As a Lions fan there was no point where I wanted Badgley to take those kicks
Until they got inside 40 yards there was no way they weren't going for it. It's not like he's Justin Tucker.As a Lions fan there was no point where I wanted Badgley to take those kicks
I haven't found a Lions fan yet that disagrees with you... You guys are proud of your team and you're enjoying the aggressiveness and the wins it brought this season... I'll check back with Lions fans when the expectations are there to win and the aggressiveness costs you otherwise winnable games...Prime example is the L.A. Chargers...As a Lions fan there was no point where I wanted Badgley to take those kicks
How can this possibly be related? Most everything else you said at least has some logic, and I've seen you think through NBA stuff. But this just sounds absolutely insane.I won't belabor it too much (and it's not like we could publish it, technically the results belong to the Spurs), but the main takeaway was: momentum is a nonsense, meaningless thing with no correlation whatsoever to outcomes. It is purely a backwards-looking way to explain what happened that people want to emotionally understand, and for which the real answer is almost always "yeah sometimes **** happens and that was crazy lucky or unlucky." There's no predictive value at all.
In this particular instance, the fluky catch likely doesn't happen if there wasn't a 4th down stop. The stop didn't lead to the fluky play directly in a way that you could say if SF stops Det on 4th down they will be more likely to complete a 50 yd pass that deflected off the head of the DB when he should have intercepted it. But I am fairly confident that if they attempted the FG that fluky catch doesn't happen. It's not predictive but it is contributary. The fluky catch also added momentum to SF. You can't quantify it but I believe everyone can agree that it did give SF more life and lowered the life of Det.
It isn't causal in nature at all and definitely not predictive either. It's more in the realm of SF needed a bunch of stuff to go right to get back into the game. They needed a stop, they needed a big play, they needed a turnover, etc. Dominos had to fall to win. This was one of the dominos. That is all I am saying. I wasn't really attempting for that statement to be anything of significance or meaning. It was just a dumb matter of fact statement that many things change if they don't go for it on 4th down. It wasn't meant to be anything other than that...hahaaHow can this possibly be related? Most everything else you said at least has some logic, and I've seen you think through NBA stuff. But this just sounds absolutely insane.I won't belabor it too much (and it's not like we could publish it, technically the results belong to the Spurs), but the main takeaway was: momentum is a nonsense, meaningless thing with no correlation whatsoever to outcomes. It is purely a backwards-looking way to explain what happened that people want to emotionally understand, and for which the real answer is almost always "yeah sometimes **** happens and that was crazy lucky or unlucky." There's no predictive value at all.
In this particular instance, the fluky catch likely doesn't happen if there wasn't a 4th down stop. The stop didn't lead to the fluky play directly in a way that you could say if SF stops Det on 4th down they will be more likely to complete a 50 yd pass that deflected off the head of the DB when he should have intercepted it. But I am fairly confident that if they attempted the FG that fluky catch doesn't happen. It's not predictive but it is contributary. The fluky catch also added momentum to SF. You can't quantify it but I believe everyone can agree that it did give SF more life and lowered the life of Det.
I guess in that same note ... if you had a receiver that could catch a ball it would have been a good decision... The receiver and kicker are both professional players getting paid to do a job that they are hired to do... Hindsight is 20/20.I haven't found a Lions fan yet that disagrees with you... You guys are proud of your team and you're enjoying the aggressiveness and the wins it brought this season... I'll check back with Lions fans when the expectations are there to win and the aggressiveness costs you otherwise winnable games...Prime example is the L.A. Chargers...As a Lions fan there was no point where I wanted Badgley to take those kicks
Look if i had Tucker or Butker or a league average kicker I’d probably take the field goal. But you give me a choice between an offense that I believe was 18 for 21 on fourth and three or less or a guy that’s gonna be sitting on his couch next year. I’m taking my offense.
I guess in that same note ... if you had a receiver that could catch a ball it would have been a good decision... The receiver and kicker are both professional players getting paid to do a job that they are hired to do... Hindsight is 20/20.I haven't found a Lions fan yet that disagrees with you... You guys are proud of your team and you're enjoying the aggressiveness and the wins it brought this season... I'll check back with Lions fans when the expectations are there to win and the aggressiveness costs you otherwise winnable games...Prime example is the L.A. Chargers...As a Lions fan there was no point where I wanted Badgley to take those kicks
Look if i had Tucker or Butker or a league average kicker I’d probably take the field goal. But you give me a choice between an offense that I believe was 18 for 21 on fourth and three or less or a guy that’s gonna be sitting on his couch next year. I’m taking my offense.
Now, making 18 of 21 fourth downs just tells me a regression was bound to happen and it did. You and every Lions fan I know say the same thing, "give me the aggressiveness". I believe it isn't a one size fits all model and I don't know if the kicker would have made the kick or not, but I do believe "IF" the FG was good and made it a 17 point game that it probably would have shortened the game enough for the Lions to hang on. I have the hindsight to say that going for it didn't work. I don't know if the FG would have and it's easy to 2nd guess it now.
What I don't understand is why every Lions fan I have encountered all believe the right decision was made and if given the same choice today, would make the same decision. Being that aggressive and blindly following analytics literally cost the LA Chargers coach his job.
Leave it to the Lions fans to be happy about a loss...I know the GB fans had a waaayyyyy different outlook after losing to the same team by the same margin with the same possible upward trajectory with a young team...I guess in that same note ... if you had a receiver that could catch a ball it would have been a good decision... The receiver and kicker are both professional players getting paid to do a job that they are hired to do... Hindsight is 20/20.I haven't found a Lions fan yet that disagrees with you... You guys are proud of your team and you're enjoying the aggressiveness and the wins it brought this season... I'll check back with Lions fans when the expectations are there to win and the aggressiveness costs you otherwise winnable games...Prime example is the L.A. Chargers...As a Lions fan there was no point where I wanted Badgley to take those kicks
Look if i had Tucker or Butker or a league average kicker I’d probably take the field goal. But you give me a choice between an offense that I believe was 18 for 21 on fourth and three or less or a guy that’s gonna be sitting on his couch next year. I’m taking my offense.
Now, making 18 of 21 fourth downs just tells me a regression was bound to happen and it did. You and every Lions fan I know say the same thing, "give me the aggressiveness". I believe it isn't a one size fits all model and I don't know if the kicker would have made the kick or not, but I do believe "IF" the FG was good and made it a 17 point game that it probably would have shortened the game enough for the Lions to hang on. I have the hindsight to say that going for it didn't work. I don't know if the FG would have and it's easy to 2nd guess it now.
What I don't understand is why every Lions fan I have encountered all believe the right decision was made and if given the same choice today, would make the same decision. Being that aggressive and blindly following analytics literally cost the LA Chargers coach his job.
And if badgely missed, every armchair QB would be saying they should have gone for it
The decision he should be getting more heat for was the 3rd down run at the end that made them burn a timeout
Im 44 years old and thought my team was going to a Super Bowl for the first time in my lifetime and then had it ripped away from me, so no, im not happy, but im not going to sit and second guess the decision. there’s plenty of other stuff that went wrong, 1 or 2 of those go the other way and I doubt we’re having this conversationLeave it to the Lions fans to be happy about a loss...I know the GB fans had a waaayyyyy different outlook after losing to the same team by the same margin with the same possible upward trajectory with a young team...I guess in that same note ... if you had a receiver that could catch a ball it would have been a good decision... The receiver and kicker are both professional players getting paid to do a job that they are hired to do... Hindsight is 20/20.I haven't found a Lions fan yet that disagrees with you... You guys are proud of your team and you're enjoying the aggressiveness and the wins it brought this season... I'll check back with Lions fans when the expectations are there to win and the aggressiveness costs you otherwise winnable games...Prime example is the L.A. Chargers...As a Lions fan there was no point where I wanted Badgley to take those kicks
Look if i had Tucker or Butker or a league average kicker I’d probably take the field goal. But you give me a choice between an offense that I believe was 18 for 21 on fourth and three or less or a guy that’s gonna be sitting on his couch next year. I’m taking my offense.
Now, making 18 of 21 fourth downs just tells me a regression was bound to happen and it did. You and every Lions fan I know say the same thing, "give me the aggressiveness". I believe it isn't a one size fits all model and I don't know if the kicker would have made the kick or not, but I do believe "IF" the FG was good and made it a 17 point game that it probably would have shortened the game enough for the Lions to hang on. I have the hindsight to say that going for it didn't work. I don't know if the FG would have and it's easy to 2nd guess it now.
What I don't understand is why every Lions fan I have encountered all believe the right decision was made and if given the same choice today, would make the same decision. Being that aggressive and blindly following analytics literally cost the LA Chargers coach his job.
And if badgely missed, every armchair QB would be saying they should have gone for it
The decision he should be getting more heat for was the 3rd down run at the end that made them burn a timeout
Yes, but what about the incontrovertible scientific evidence that, after a 4th down stop, defenders have increased levels of momentumchlorians in their bloodstream?The momentum thing blows my mind. It actually reminds me of a thread I pulled on with Kirk Goldsberry while I worked for the Spurs down in San Antonio. We came up with a definition of things that change momentum that everyone could agree on, and what impacts we expected to see and stuff, and then we tracked when those things happened and what happened in the games.
I won't belabor it too much (and it's not like we could publish it, technically the results belong to the Spurs), but the main takeaway was: momentum is a nonsense, meaningless thing with no correlation whatsoever to outcomes. It is purely a backwards-looking way to explain what happened that people want to emotionally understand, and for which the real answer is almost always "yeah sometimes **** happens and that was crazy lucky or unlucky." There's no predictive value at all.
It's not because the 49ers got a 4th down stop that a 50 yard pass took the unluckiest bounce ever off a guy who had a great chance to catch it and 999 times out of 1,000 ends up deflecting it into the ground. It's because a corner didn't quite make a play and it took a crazy (un)lucky bounce.
Jahmyr Gibbs didn't fumble it because they were up 7 instead of 10 points. He fumbled it because he's a rookie and he cut the wrong direction. It happens. Of the dozens times rookies made a slight wrong direction cut, I bet 5-10 of the plays actually had real impact and most of them nobody but the coaching staff ever noticed.
Leave it to the Lions fans to be happy about a loss...I know the GB fans had a waaayyyyy different outlook after losing to the same team by the same margin with the same possible upward trajectory with a young team...I guess in that same note ... if you had a receiver that could catch a ball it would have been a good decision... The receiver and kicker are both professional players getting paid to do a job that they are hired to do... Hindsight is 20/20.I haven't found a Lions fan yet that disagrees with you... You guys are proud of your team and you're enjoying the aggressiveness and the wins it brought this season... I'll check back with Lions fans when the expectations are there to win and the aggressiveness costs you otherwise winnable games...Prime example is the L.A. Chargers...As a Lions fan there was no point where I wanted Badgley to take those kicks
Look if i had Tucker or Butker or a league average kicker I’d probably take the field goal. But you give me a choice between an offense that I believe was 18 for 21 on fourth and three or less or a guy that’s gonna be sitting on his couch next year. I’m taking my offense.
Now, making 18 of 21 fourth downs just tells me a regression was bound to happen and it did. You and every Lions fan I know say the same thing, "give me the aggressiveness". I believe it isn't a one size fits all model and I don't know if the kicker would have made the kick or not, but I do believe "IF" the FG was good and made it a 17 point game that it probably would have shortened the game enough for the Lions to hang on. I have the hindsight to say that going for it didn't work. I don't know if the FG would have and it's easy to 2nd guess it now.
What I don't understand is why every Lions fan I have encountered all believe the right decision was made and if given the same choice today, would make the same decision. Being that aggressive and blindly following analytics literally cost the LA Chargers coach his job.
And if badgely missed, every armchair QB would be saying they should have gone for it
The decision he should be getting more heat for was the 3rd down run at the end that made them burn a timeout
and looking at Badgely's numbers with the Lions in 2022 and 2023 ... 27 -31 overall 87% (including playoffs) ... 9 - 11 from 40-49 yds 81.8% .... not too shabby...
huge momentum swingYou guys remember how Tyler Bass hit that chip shot 44 yarder to tie the chiefs and send it to OT
You're conflating two totally separate issues. As a Lions fan, my feeling is that I still think Campbell is an excellent coach. I think the two decisions were essentially coin flips where you could make an argument either way. I think he definitely screwed up the sequence on Detroit's final drive. But I'm not willing to say that makes him a bad coach. If you think that means I'm in the tank for him, fine.Sometimes losses are hard to come to grips with, but you're in the tank deep when you start coming up with the crazy notion that everything in sports is played straight and there's no such thing as momentum or the like. That said, momentum isn't why Detroit lost. They lost because they went for it on 4th down. The dropped pass by Reynolds doesn't forgive the decision to pass up the FG attempt.
And Campbell didn't pass up the 24-10 FG because he didn't have Justin Tucker. Make no mistake, he was going for it, regardless. His actual explanation mentioned something akin to momentum, but his main goal was trying to kneecap the 9ers right then and there. Problem is, he got so sidetracked with trying to put the nail in the coffin, he forgot to realize a makeable FG would give his team a huge advantage midway through the 3rd quarter.
It's one thing to be down 14...it's another to be up 14. Campbell plays like he's always down. It's the right strategy for comebacks, not so much for holding a lead, especially against good teams.
That is ... not how regression works.Now, making 18 of 21 fourth downs just tells me a regression was bound to happen and it did.
Maybe I should have phrased that differently. I think we understand a lot less about momentum than we think we do, and therefore we should be very wary about factoring it into prospective decision making. If you want to argue that, on a coin-flip decision, Campbell should have erred on the side of caution to maintain the lead, that's a totally reasonable argument. It's when you start saying he should have factored in how one potential outcome of the play would have affected the SF defense's psyche that we part ways. "If we do this, there is a 45% chance that something could happen which would get SF so pumped up that they would play better, at least until something bad happens to them and then they stop playing better."Interesting that you recognize momentum as real but since you can't define it you won't account for it.
What is it about this so called momentum are you denying? Are you saying the 9ers players weren’t pumped they got a HUGE break there? What happens physiologically when people get pumped?You're conflating two totally separate issues. As a Lions fan, my feeling is that I still think Campbell is an excellent coach. I think the two decisions were essentially coin flips where you could make an argument either way. I think he definitely screwed up the sequence on Detroit's final drive. But I'm not willing to say that makes him a bad coach. If you think that means I'm in the tank for him, fine.Sometimes losses are hard to come to grips with, but you're in the tank deep when you start coming up with the crazy notion that everything in sports is played straight and there's no such thing as momentum or the like. That said, momentum isn't why Detroit lost. They lost because they went for it on 4th down. The dropped pass by Reynolds doesn't forgive the decision to pass up the FG attempt.
And Campbell didn't pass up the 24-10 FG because he didn't have Justin Tucker. Make no mistake, he was going for it, regardless. His actual explanation mentioned something akin to momentum, but his main goal was trying to kneecap the 9ers right then and there. Problem is, he got so sidetracked with trying to put the nail in the coffin, he forgot to realize a makeable FG would give his team a huge advantage midway through the 3rd quarter.
It's one thing to be down 14...it's another to be up 14. Campbell plays like he's always down. It's the right strategy for comebacks, not so much for holding a lead, especially against good teams.
The reason I'm skeptical of all the claims being made in this thread regarding momentum has zero to do with the Lions. It's because momentum -- as a prospective factor that can be applied in decision making -- is one of those things that seems obvious at first glance, but when you think about it, completely falls apart.
For example, we were discussing earlier the fact that the Aiyuk catch came right after the first failed attempt. Obviously, no one thinks that the swing in momentum was a direct cause of Vigdor letting the ball bounce off his facemask. So imagine for a second that he had brought in the INT. Now Detroit has the ball back and they're still up by 14. If that had happened, what would have become of all the momentum the Niners gained on the 4th-down stop? Would it have completely dissipated? Would it have transferred back to Detroit? And if momentum can change on a single play, how can you claim it has any predictive power?
Think BABIP in baseball. Pitchers who have allowed a high percentage of hits on balls in play will typically regress to the mean, and vice versa. In other words, over time, they'll see fewer (or more) balls in play fall for hits, and therefore experience better (or worse) results in terms of run prevention.That is ... not how regression works.Now, making 18 of 21 fourth downs just tells me a regression was bound to happen and it did.
If the Lions had recovered 18 of their previous 21 fumbles, they would be very likely to regress. Because fumble recoveries are random.
But if Tom Brady had kept playing football for another 20 years, his winning percentage would not regress to .500. Because Tom Brady's win percentage was not random. It was a result of his superior skill. (OK, I suppose if Brady kept playing for 20 years, his win percentage would go down because the dude would be 65 years old. But that's still not regression.)
A team's fourth-down conversion rate is due to a bunch of non-random factors. For one thing, a team with a good offense is more likely to go for it on fourth down, so they're going to have more attempts and a higher rate. Or maybe, in addition to the offense's overall skill level, they have a creative play caller who can scheme up good fourth-and-short plays to get the necessary yardage.
Furthermore, even if conversion success was random, two attempts are way too small of a sample size to label anything regression. They were just two attempts that didn't go Detroit's way. There's no reason to think Detroit couldn't hit 18 of their next 21 attempts (indeed, on their final drive, they converted a 4th and short for a TD.)
Do you think teams should fire the coaches and put computers on the sidelines?Advanced analytics which looks at huge amount of data and models them say Campbell did the right thing. Simpleton hindsight analysis using antiquated strategies says otherwise.
They will be like Bishop in Aliens.Do you think teams should fire the coaches and put computers on the sidelines?Advanced analytics which looks at huge amount of data and models them say Campbell did the right thing. Simpleton hindsight analysis using antiquated strategies says otherwise.
Do you think teams should fire the coaches and put computers on the sidelines?Advanced analytics which looks at huge amount of data and models them say Campbell did the right thing. Simpleton hindsight analysis using antiquated strategies says otherwise.
That is ... not how regression works.Now, making 18 of 21 fourth downs just tells me a regression was bound to happen and it did.
If the Lions had recovered 18 of their previous 21 fumbles, they would be very likely to regress. Because fumble recoveries are random.
But if Tom Brady had kept playing football for another 20 years, his winning percentage would not regress to .500. Because Tom Brady's win percentage was not random. It was a result of his superior skill. (OK, I suppose if Brady kept playing for 20 years, his win percentage would go down because the dude would be 65 years old. But that's still not regression.)
A team's fourth-down conversion rate is due to a bunch of non-random factors. For one thing, a team with a good offense is more likely to go for it on fourth down, so they're going to have more attempts and a higher rate. Or maybe, in addition to the offense's overall skill level, they have a creative play caller who can scheme up good fourth-and-short plays to get the necessary yardage.
Furthermore, even if conversion success was random, two attempts are way too small of a sample size to label anything regression. They were just two attempts that didn't go Detroit's way. There's no reason to think Detroit couldn't hit 18 of their next 21 attempts (indeed, on their final drive, they converted a 4th and short for a TD.)
That is ... not how regression works.Now, making 18 of 21 fourth downs just tells me a regression was bound to happen and it did.
If the Lions had recovered 18 of their previous 21 fumbles, they would be very likely to regress. Because fumble recoveries are random.
But if Tom Brady had kept playing football for another 20 years, his winning percentage would not regress to .500. Because Tom Brady's win percentage was not random. It was a result of his superior skill. (OK, I suppose if Brady kept playing for 20 years, his win percentage would go down because the dude would be 65 years old. But that's still not regression.)
A team's fourth-down conversion rate is due to a bunch of non-random factors. For one thing, a team with a good offense is more likely to go for it on fourth down, so they're going to have more attempts and a higher rate. Or maybe, in addition to the offense's overall skill level, they have a creative play caller who can scheme up good fourth-and-short plays to get the necessary yardage.
Furthermore, even if conversion success was random, two attempts are way too small of a sample size to label anything regression. They were just two attempts that didn't go Detroit's way. There's no reason to think Detroit couldn't hit 18 of their next 21 attempts (indeed, on their final drive, they converted a 4th and short for a TD.)
The first one was a dropped pass at the most inopportune time. Should have been an easy conversion and most likely have changed the result of the game. As I stated earlier Reynolds had 2 drops all season, and then had 2 in one half. Like he said after the game "Chit happens"
It's ironic that Wilbon is calling other people lazy when he's been making the same lazy strawman argument for years. Maybe if he weren't so lazy he would find an argument that people are actually making and respond to that