[Eponymous]

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Denny Green has been villified by many "pundits" for going for two in a game last week.

Situation: Cards down 31-13 with 10 minutes to go. Cards score a TD and have to decide what to do. Denny decided to go for 2 and failed, leaving the game at 31-19. So when the Cards scored later, the score was only 31-26 (they went for 1 because a 2-point conversion is meaningless when there is a 6 point differential).

The critics say that, if he had gone for 1 the first time, it would have been 31-20. Then, when the Cardinals scored the second time (with 1:49 remaining), they could have gone for two THEN and gotten the score to be 31-28.

Basically, the critics say that going for 2 with 2 minutes left is better than going for 2 with 10 minutes left, even though you end up with the exact same score if the 2 point conversion failed.

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This example is exactly why football coaches will not exploit edges like the one proposed here that may win one extra game every several years (because of the infrequency in which the situation presents itself). The media are about as clueless when it comes to math, probability, and logic as the football coaches are. Even if the owner had a wise and insightful owner, he probably would not be able to withstand the pressure of the media and public to keep a coach who consistently makes "bad" decisions (he needs to sell tickets and merchandise, after all). Even if the owner was willing to withstand that pressure, the coach would not be able to have that good a read on his owner's thinking, no matter how much confidence he tells him he has in him. (votes of confidence are given all the time, often right before a firing)