Have I Discovered Another Mathematical Football Coaching Error?

[pwnsall]

[ QUOTE ]
similar ideas of 'not wanting to score too quickly' have been tossed around before but I'm not sure a team has actually intentionally allowed a team to score to get the ball back.

This probably might become more interesting if the team with the ball is trailing by 1 instead.
Again, it's 2nd and 1 on the 10 with 1:40 left and the defending team has no time-outs.

If you let him score a TD right now then you get the ball back with about 1:30 left trailing by either 5 or 7.
If you stop them from getting a FG then you will get the ball back with about :15 left trailing by 2.

Has to be better chances with the first option.

[/ QUOTE ]
GB Denver SB but that was tied and probably the right decision tho I don't remember specifics.
I'd guess
19%
39%
1%
have to be stats about this somewhere.

[MicroBob]

part 3 has to be more than 1% I would think.
There's 2:30 to go AND 2 time-outs left for crying out loud. Very easy for some team to score a TD with 1:00 left or something.

[CieloAzor]

2 and a half minutes is a lot of time and teams can do awfully well when using all 4 downs

40%
60%
10%

I thought the point he was driving at was that a team trailing by 1 should be content to stop short of the goal line and set up a chip shot FG as time expires, rather than scoring a TD and leaving the other team time to march the other way.

Regarding the Redskins/Eagles game, the Redskins did admit after the game that they had let Westbrook score, and Westbrook responded that if he'd known they were letting him score, he would have kneeled at the 1. All players should be instructed NOT to score unnecessary TDs in spots such as that.

[Victor]

20
40
2.5

[David Sklansky]

First let me say that the general principle in this and many of these scenarios, is the average person or coach's incorrect gut feeling about going for ties that have to be played off. They just don't gamble enough when they can go for the win. Two 70% shots are an underdog but it doesn't feel that way to a non gambler. Thus they go for two point shots, bunt, punt, etc. etc. when they shouldn't. Or sometimes go for one extra point rather than two. This isn't just my opinion. Many experts have shown that some of these errors are egregious. The apologists invoke psychology to defend the coaches. But that is usually disengenuous because the coach had no idea that psychology would have to be his excuse.

But this particular play I have never before seen done, or talked about. Not even by the mathematically inclined. For it to be right you need things to be kind of just so. And you can't fall back on clear cut statistics like you can with the two point conversion, when down by eight, scenario.
Still I believe that what I am about to propose is often the right decision with about five minutes to go in the game. Especially if your team has a good defense and only a so so field goal kicker. Because it comes up so rarely and is most likely close and less obviously provable than other errors, I wouldn't even mention it. Except that it may be an original idea. For now I will state it without going into the relevant calculations. I will leave that to others.

If you score a touchdown with five minutes or so left in the game and that puts you down by exactly four points, go for two.

[Victor]

ugh.

with 5 min left i dont see much difference between being up 5 or 6. but being up 4 sucks.

5 min is plenty of time for the other team to score and leave some time on the clock. now when we get the ball back
i would much prefer to be driving for the winning field goal, rather than the tie.

[David Sklansky]

[ QUOTE ]
ugh.

with 5 min left i dont see much difference between being up 5 or 6. but being up 4 sucks.

5 min is plenty of time for the other team to score and leave some time on the clock. now when we get the ball back
i would much prefer to be driving for the winning field goal, rather than the tie.

[/ QUOTE ]

As a matter of fact I hate going for ties as well so I completely agree with you. You know your football. Reading is another matter.

[lastchance]

It's down 4, not up by 4.

[kbfc]

[ QUOTE ]
If you score a touchdown with five minutes or so left in the game and that puts you down by exactly four points, go for two.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why didn't you ask for 2pt conversion stats? If you assume ~50% (I don't know what the real number is, and I'm sure it varies a lot based on matchups for individual tries), then it looks like you're clearly right.

[VarlosZ]

This should help. So might this, for those who are into this sort of thing.

So, based on the table in the first link:

1) About 21-25%.

2) About 33-36%

Not based on the table, but I'd say that (3) is about 2-5%.

Note that the table is giving numbers for starting from your own 10 or 30 (not your 20), and with 2 minutes left (not 2:30), so my numbers are just guesses as to where the numbers in OP's scenarios would fall.