Obviously if you saw last night’s Patriots/Colts game, you know there is a wee bit of debate today surrounding Bill Belichick’s decision to “go for it” on fourth and two late in the game. Though it didn’t go so well for the Pats, I personally liked the decision. Apparently Advanced NFL Stats did as well, but for more statistically sound reasons than I did. (via rc3.org via Noah Brier).
Statistically, the better decision would be to go for it, and by a good amount. However, these numbers are baselines for the league as a whole. You’d have to expect the Colts had a better than a 30% chance of scoring from their 34, and an accordingly higher chance to score from the Pats’ 28. But any adjustment in their likelihood of scoring from either field position increases the advantage of going for it. You can play with the numbers any way you like, but it’s pretty hard to come up with a realistic combination of numbers that make punting the better option. At best, you could make it a wash.
Coincidentally, this week’s Time Magazine had a blurb that pointed to a Sports Illustrated article about a high school coach who believes that if you go by probability, punting is NEVER the better option.
“I don’t believe in punting and really can’t ever see doing it again”. He means ever. Consider the most extreme scenario, say, fourth-and-long near your own end zone. According to Kelley’s data (much of which came from a documentary he saw), when a team punts from that deep, the opponents will take possession inside the 40-yard line and will then score a touchdown 77% of the time. If they recover on downs inside the 10, they’ll score a touchdown 92% of the time. “So [forsaking] a punt, you give your offense a chance to stay on the field. And if you miss, the odds of the other team scoring only increase 15 percent. It’s like someone said, ‘[Punting] is what you do on fourth down,’ and everyone did it without asking why.”