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

[mo42nyy]

Maybe this applies more to baseball but Im amazed how much managers/coaches talk about playing the percentages but then when they have a chance to actually do so they pass on it. A manager will bring in a horrendous lefty for an excellent righty to face Garet Anderson with a 1 run lead in the bottom of the ninth and the bases load with 2 outs and call it "playing the percentages" But then in a spot like this they pussy out.

[Greeksquared]

"People on the Cards boards aren't even upset about this. They are upset at the poor clock management. 1:01 left with 1 timeout, and the Cards only get off 3 plays! "

Human stupidity will never cease to amaze me. Your coach threw away a 25 percent increase in the chance of you winning the game. This estimate is on the conservative side I believe as well.

You must also consider the fact that there is about a 95 percent conversion rate on PAT's, possibly slightly less for field goals on a hash mark.

For all those saying that any team will win significantly more than 50% to win in overtime, give me some kind of statistical data to back up the claim. I would love to look at all first quarter data the last 30 years and give a "win" to the team that scored first just like the rules of overtime. Normalize this for who recieved the ball first and you will see that almost no team would have more than a 55 percent edge in overtime. This would give a fairly accurate picture of what the best teams could hope for in overtime. I would even go as far to say any NFL team vs Missouri would not be favored more than 60 percent in overtime.

I feel like I want to make it my life long pursuit to change the way decisions are made in professional sports. These games are not very dificult to analyze and like I said previously most high school stat students should figure out the egregious mistakes these coaches are making.

[Greeksquared]

Sports is the only area of society where such mistakes are so open to the public and so blindly passed over. I mean look at how quants have completely take over wall street and that is a "game" where optimal strategy is nearly impossible to figure out.

Football, basketball, and most especially baseball can be analyzed very precisely using relatively simple applications to determine the right play to maximize winning percentage which is all that matters. There isn't nearly as much money in these sports but just imagine if one of these quant hedge funds took over a baseball franchise. This team would break all sorts of records within 5 years and almost surely make the playoffs every year. This Cardinal loss probably cost the team at least 100k, possibly much much more if they fall 1 game short of a playoff game. I guess I'll stop now as I could go on forever but it just strikes me as an impossibility of how sub-optimal decision making is in all sports across the board.

[Dudd]

Baseball's run fairly optimally, it's not like by perfectly running a team you'll pick up 30 wins a season or that wall street guys would just rape the current sabermetricly inclined front offices when it comes to trades/the draft.

[niss]

[ QUOTE ]
On the year, Arizona has been in 3rd and 1 or 4th and 1 situations (similar to what they were in on the last play of regulation) 18 times; they successfully convered 16/18 times.

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you suggesting that a 3rd and 1 or 4th and 1 from the 1 yard line is the same as a 3rd or 4th and 1 from anywhere else on the field?

[Greeksquared]

[ QUOTE ]
Baseball's run fairly optimally, it's not like by perfectly running a team you'll pick up 30 wins a season or that wall street guys would just rape the current sabermetricly inclined front offices when it comes to trades/the draft.

[/ QUOTE ]

For all of you that have any doubt please read Baseball between the numbers by Baseball prospectus. It is run highly sub-optimal in terms of base stealing, bunting, batting order, pitching rotation,pinch hitting, closer usage and pretty much every other aspect of the game. If you want to discuss this more pm me, I don't feel like unleashing all my pent up feelings on sports management debacles here. Perhaps I will start a blog.

[MicroBob]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
On the year, Arizona has been in 3rd and 1 or 4th and 1 situations (similar to what they were in on the last play of regulation) 18 times; they successfully convered 16/18 times.

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you suggesting that a 3rd and 1 or 4th and 1 from the 1 yard line is the same as a 3rd or 4th and 1 from anywhere else on the field?

[/ QUOTE ]


That's exactly what I was thinking.
This isn't even close to correct and shows why people who try to use numbers but don't really think about the game itself can often-times be WAY in the wrong.

In a regular 3rd and 1 from the 50 or whatever your defensive alignment is MUCH different than it is on a goal-line stand on the 1.
Mostly it has to do with your defense needing to defend against big yardage too. Secondary needs to follow some guy who is breaking 20+ yards downfield.

On the 4th and goal on the 1 obviously everything is far more packed in and the situation is much different.
Converting 16 of 18 times on 3rd and 1 from elsewhere on the field really has very little to do with the goal-line situation or decision.

[Greeksquared]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
On the year, Arizona has been in 3rd and 1 or 4th and 1 situations (similar to what they were in on the last play of regulation) 18 times; they successfully convered 16/18 times.

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you suggesting that a 3rd and 1 or 4th and 1 from the 1 yard line is the same as a 3rd or 4th and 1 from anywhere else on the field?

[/ QUOTE ]

It surely is different and thats why I quoted a number around 75% as their "true" success rate, though I still think this is conservative.

[kyleb]

Dudd's right. Baseball is run fairly optimally; you aren't going to win 10 more games by outlawing sacrifice bunting and stealing. Look at Oakland.

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
It's because they're afraid of getting criticized in public if they do anything that could lead to an immediate loss. As I was watching the game, I was thinking "The Cardinals should go for it here" but you are the only other person I've heard say this, and you can bet that if they'd gone for it and gotten stuffed, every armchair coach in America would be all over it.

To be fair they have a slightly better than 50% chance of winning in OT because they're a better team than the 49ers but it's obv nowhere near 70%.

[/ QUOTE ]

Making the FG isnt 100% although its close, but it probably erases a lot of the edge the Cardinals have. If its the Pats or something it might start to become relevant, although probably still not.