Cardinals kick field goal instead of going for TD, WTF!!!!

[MicroBob]

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They just do what other people have told them is best, be it reporters, other coaches, or whoever.

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They do what they have learned in the game via playing and other coaches. They are mostly following their hunches.

Anything that any reporter has told them or asked them in the past has very little influence. I think you don't quite get how little these coaches think of these guys' opinions or input.

I agree that they aren't familiar with thinking in terms of EV, etc etc. He was just playing a hunch here that to play it safe and go to OT was best and didn't even think about the percentages or the numbers. But his crappy decision had almost nothing to do with reporters imo.

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Right, but you are neglecting where the coaches who teach the coaches learned things. Its a constant pressure that impacts their decision making. "Whenever I make this kind of decision I am mildly compensated when it goes well and HUGELY criticized when it doesnt. Whenever I make this other kind of decision, the opposite happens." Its a subconscious effect but its built up through generations of coaches and systems for EXACTLY the reasons you talked about here. None of these guys learn a fresh set of ideas and then get pressure from the media and fans and front office. They learn a set of ideas that have THEMSELVES been a product of pressure from media, fans and front office and THEN they add in even more pressure.

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I really think that's incorrect.
They make all these decisions and analyze all these different schemes and try to find ways to grab any kind of edge and then incorporate these subtle little things that practically nobody else is going to see such as cutting some receivers route just 2 yards shorter than the week before or something...and then when it comes to a big decision they are just going to let the fan-pressure get to them?
I just don't buy it.

The reason they don't make better decisions there is because they have zero understanding about it. Plain and simple.
If they understood the math then they would go for it in a heartbeat and would not care at all what the fans or reporters had to say.