Let's be honest, he got lucky on that one. Would have made it a two possession game if he missed, and frankly both 2pt conversions were on broken plays and very lucky. But, better lucky then good, we deserved a little luck for once. We can say he made a great call and also that Woody was a great motivator for Fields. When you win, all is good.
I'm glad we won the game, especially because of Mangold's passing, but also because I was starting to worry that we were going to go 0-17 and Glenn would be fired without ever winning a game. That said, I think he's a bad coach and we should fire him the instant the season is over.
There's a "down 8" theory that the calculator nerds push on Twitter. Glenn played the numbers. I sure didn't love it but 1. it worked and 2. I don't hate following analytics although I prefer more of a 50/50 split between numbers and common sense. Also to Glenn's credit, you can tell this locker room really does love him. He hasn't even come close to losing them.
I dont think "luck" is the right word there. at the end of the day it is a 2-yard play. Part of the decision behind going for it is that it's often something you can pick up off schedule. If it was a 30-yard play and Fields scrambled in for it, then yeah, they got lucky. But from the 2-yard line you are considering that it has a 50+ish% chance of conversion, and part of that is because you can run or throw it in. the real decision is related to risk management, how bad does it hurt if we dont get it. In Detroit they value the rewards more than they are worried about the spoils. That's where Glenn comes from
I liked the decision on the 2nd attempt down 8 a lot in the moment. I was surprised and concerned about the first decision, down 9, to go for it
The analytics don't work if you do this though because they rely on accruing a big enough sample size over the course of the season for the averages to work out in your favor. Glenn has shown he doesn't really understand this. It's one of my main gripes with him - he seems to wing decisions when the smart teams (like the Lions) do what the analytics say to do almost every time. One example is how we went for it on 4th and 1 from our own territory and then kicked a field goal on 4th and 1 in Bengals territory. There's no world in which that makes sense analytically.
He came from the organization that popularized going for it on 4th down a lot more often. It's honestly shocking that he doesn't have this stuff down pat already.
I don't find it that shocking. He's a first year head coach and with his previous team he was the DC. I don't think he was doing much deliberating on headset about going for it on fourth. These are things people learn with experience, I'm not all that worried about it.
I agree. indecision is worse than making the decision. Last year we had a veteran coach and a veteran, 41-year-old QB, and yet when forced with a fourth down decision they would waste the play clock all the way down and burn a timeout or take a delay of game penalty. Glenn is now signaling what he wants to do, right or wrong, right away. I respect it.
There shouldn't be any indecision. He should have a guy in the booth telling him immediately whether he should go for it or not. That he doesn't is an indictment on him. It makes no sense to say that making the wrong decision quickly is better than making the right decision after a delay. But regardless, there shouldn't be any indecision or delay in the first place. This is not some new trend that he can be forgiven for not understanding yet - it's been a league-wide trend for years and the team he came from is the one that sparked the trend.
Is there anything that says than the Lions always line up with what the analytics say in terms of go for or not situations though? Or does Campbell make the decision on the fly with the analytical idea that they’re going to go for it more often then not and let the missed opportunities come out in the wash over the course of the season?
If it was this easy every coach would be fantastic at knowing when to and not to go for it. There's no right or wrong way despite what the calculator analysts tell you. I don't want a head coach that isn't taking about 4-5 different things into account. How much time is left, how is the offense executing today, who is banged up, how well is the opposing defense playing, how many possessions are we averaging today. Analytics are used best in combo with logic.
I don't recall how often the Lions go for it on 4th relative to the analytics saying they should, but as of a week or two ago they led the league in going for it when they should. We were nearly last. The analytics account for all of those things. There absolutely is a right and wrong way. There are a lot of stats/analytics that don't fully account for context. Knowing when to go for it on 4th down isn't one of them. It's a free lunch if you understand the data. It's really that easy in this case, but the league is filled with dinosaurs who are unable to understand and implement new trends. We should know this better than anyone considering we've been behind every major league trend for a solid 15 years at this point.
the NFL prohibits any usage of models or software programs during the game. You are allowed to prepare as much as you want during the week but in-game decisions cannot operate through a statistical model. So what you are clamoring for is just a guy with an opinion to share it down to Glenn. thats not how they do it in Detroit and that's unnecessary IMO. I think your chances of converting decrease the longer you take to run the play anyway. If you are gonna go for it, line up and go - to try and catch the defense off guard. THAT is how Detroit plays.
Detroit plays quickly because they always know what the right thing to do is and thus don't have to spend any time thinking about it. They make the right decision and they do it quickly. You don't need to run the analysis in-game to know what the right thing to do is. The data on when to go for it on 4th down involves analyzing hundreds of thousands of plays. A sample size that large already accounts for any variables a given play involves. The sad thing is that the edge a team gets for making the right decisions on 4th down relative to their opponents is dwindling every year as more teams get it right. We'll probably figure it out right as the edge ceases to make much of a difference, at which point the smartest teams will have found some new edge it'll take us 10 years to discover.
It’s just hard to apply spreadsheets to a sport that has so few games and has so much human emotion tied to it. Spreadsheets can’t quantify momentum, personnel in the game, etc. It’s not like baseball where you play 8,000 games so the numbers literally do work out in your favor if you shift (which is outlawed but still) and a guy gets an opposite field hit 1/30 times. Let’s say you’re supposed to go for it and you win the game 9/10 times if you get it in 4th and 3. You only get two opportunities in that game. You go 0/2 and give up short fields (or don’t kick the FG on one of them) and lose the game. What good do the percentages do for you in those scenarios? You lost 1 out of only 17 games in a season based on those decisions. That’s a big deal.
This is why I rarely get into the analytics debate. You have to live and die by them or else you’re an idiot.
I agree that applying analytics to football is more difficult than say basketball or baseball which involve a lot of set pieces/fixed scenarios where context is easier to quantify. 4th down decisions are largely set pieces though. Over the course of a season, the average NFL team encounters ~110 4th downs where the decision to go for it or not isn't obvious (like it would be on a 4th and 20 from your own 5 yard line for example). The definition of "not obvious" is somewhat arbitrary, but for the purposes of this I've decided to only look at 4th down decisions where the difference in win probability when going vs. kicking (FG or punt) is less than 5%. 110 instances is a large enough sample size for the averages to work out in your favor assuming you almost always do what the analytics say. The idea is that by doing this, yes, you will sometimes lose a game you would have otherwise won, but more often than not you will win a game you would have otherwise lost.
