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

[vhawk01]

Do you think there is anyone on the defense who lines up 11 yards from the line of scrimmage when the Vikings have 4th and 1 at the 50? No chance.

[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.

[vhawk01]

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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.

[/ QUOTE ]

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.

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And somehow it makes more sense that they do all this analyzing and gameplanning and then somehow in the heat of the moment make an absolutely retarded decision that is incredibly simple and very obvious and makes a HUGE difference in wins, especially compared to all the other plays and decisions they make?

[gusmahler]

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It's because they're afraid of getting criticized in public if they do anything that could lead to an immediate loss.

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How true is it that they will get criticized? I don't recall any criticisms in the earlier Cardinals games I mentioned (though they succeeded both times).

To recap those situations, in the Rams game, the Rams were penalized on the last play of the first half. So the Cards were given a free play from the 1 yard line. Instead of kicking a FG (which I think most coaches would have done), AZ went for it and scored a TD.

In the Skins game, the Cardinals had 4th and goal from the 1 with 6 seconds left. Instead of kicking the FG, they went for it and scored a TD.

How many times this season has an NFL team been in this type of situation (or the PAT vs. 2 pointer situation) at the end of the 4th quarter and gone for the tie instead of the win?

[kidcolin]

According to Easterbrook, Herm got slammed for not going for the tie.

[MicroBob]

You and I get the part about 75% now vs. 50% later.
They get the part about being able to look at films and read plays and situations, etc.

You and I are about a zillion years behind them on the play-reading and film-analysis stuff. If you think you understood or learned something in a play-analysis that Jaws or Madden pointed out on a replay then keep in mind that was probably the most basic and obvious aspect of that play. The coaches spend so many hours watching and analyzing film it's unbelieveable.

So we're a zillion years behind them on that stuff which is where most of the game takes place.

They are about a zillion years behind any normal percentages-person on some key "kick/punt or go for it" type decisions as well as some occasional clock-management stuff. It only involves a small percentage of the number of plays in the game but obviously some of those decisions they are messing up can be pretty critical.

[Billy Bibbit]

MicroBob,

No one here is claiming that they would be a good NFL coach. I'm pretty sure we all realize that these coaches know a lot of things that we don't know. What we're debating is why conventional wisdom tells them to do so many retarded things with respect to clock management and 4th down decisions.

[jogsxyz]

Going for the TD or FG wasn't the biggest coaches' error.
There was no excuse for the delay of game penalty during
the OT. Wasn't any Card watching the clock?

49'ers need the luck. Else 9'ers would be 0-11 this year.

[MicroBob]

Yes, I get that.


I'm responding to vhawk's statement:
"somehow in the heat of the moment make an absolutely retarded decision that is incredibly simple and very obvious and makes a HUGE difference in wins, especially compared to all the other plays and decisions they make?"


I guess my overall point is that what is easy for some of us to understand is, for whatever reason, very difficult for them to understand.
And what is incredibly difficult for us to understand is insanely and stupidly easy for them to understand.


Now to your question of why specifically conventional wisdom tells them to make the exact WRONG decision on some of these situations: I'm not exactly sure. But I don't think it comes from fear of the fans or reporters. I think it more comes from just being plain-old ignorant on this specific kind of math or whatever.

I truly believe that some coaches could "get it" if you sat them down and explained it to them. And if they DID "get it" then they would go for it in a heartbeat and wouldn't give a crap what the fans or reporters would whine about afterwards.
Some of these guys actually do have some kind of an intellectualness about them even if their math abilities are kind of sucky.

My hope and belief is that some of this 'playing the percentages' stuff will eventually find it's way to a few coaches sooner or later.
I would not have really understood this EV type argument before learning poker a bit more. If somebody as stupid as me can get it then surely some of the players, who may eventually become coaches, could get it also.

Some of these players do go to Duke or Stanford or Harvard or MIT. I mean, they all have teams, right?
I assume that some of them are actually pretty smart.

[mutigers5591]

ya fwiw herm did get slammed for not going for the tie, i live in kc..mostly garbage about not believing in your kicker and stuff...even though dave ranier sucks