Dear Sean Payton: Stop Punting and Start Going For It!

Greg Easterbrook of Tuesday Morning QB on ESPN’s page 2 has been writing about this and other statistical football analysis for years. His weekly article during the season is a must read for me. He hypothesizes that coaches don’t buck convention because they don’t want to do anything that would cause themselves to be blamed for a loss, even if it is statistically sound.
I think Payton is aware of the statistical advantage and that’s why he frequently goes for it on fourth down. In fact, he did not punt in the playoff game against Detroit. This is one reason I love our coach. He’s not afraid to stick his neck out, discard antiquated tactics, and do the smart thing even though he may be criticized by those who don’t understand.

It’s easier to stop a team the closer they get to the endzone. Receivers are not able to stretch the field and make for smaller throwing windows. The safeties are able to play up a little bit more and support the run.

The only real concern with a short field is the field goal.

It’s hard to side with that in the NFL though. Kickers in High School aren’t NEARLY as good. How would this coach feel about going for it on 4th down when it was almost guaranteed a non-conversion equalled 3 points for the other team.

Let’s say you could convert 50% of your fourth downs in the NFL. In one drive you are face with a 4th down inside your 30 and if you convert it, another later in the drive. You live up to your percentages and fail to convert one of the two. They both equal 0 points for your team and a failure on the first one almost guarantees the other team gets 3 points.

Let’s not forget too, the NFL is all about offense now as well.

Could you imagine how pissed off the defensive players would get if a team continually went for it in their own red zone and failed to convert? I think they would definitely be frustrated with having their backs to the end zone, and they’d tell the media about that frustration, eventually causing a huge distraction for the team. Basically, the egos are too big in the NFL, and something like this could hurt team chemistry in a significant way.

On the other hand, I completely agree that teams need to go for it more often when they’re around midfield and on the edge of field goal range, and I do believe that Payton is one of the more aggressive coaches in that area.

…where are the Fanposts? And the Fanshots?

Would love to hear Pizza’s take on this.

from a Dan Wetzel article.

There’s been a slew of statistical studies that suggest NFL teams are too conservative on fourth down, that not only are they likely to earn the first down, but giving up the ball is a more negative play than coaches realize. And that’s even when they aren’t facing an offense like New Orleans or Green Bay or New England.

"Basically it’s because of loss aversion," said L. Jon Wertheim, the co-author of the book "Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports Are Played and Games Are Won," a sort of "Freakanomics" for sports.

"We hate losing more than we like winning and therefore make decisions, sometimes irrationally, to avoid loss," Wertheim said. "NFL coaches are almost comically conservative on fourth down. A Cal economist [David Romer] did a study that we replicated in ‘Scorecasting’ and found that more than 90 percent of the time, NFL coaches make the suboptimal choice on fourth down when they punt.

"From doctors to portfolio managers, imagine another industry where the decision makers could fail to maximize your chance of success 90 percent of the time and we wouldn’t mind. But conventional wisdom says that you punt after three downs and coaches would rather be wrong than take heat from bucking conventional wisdom."

Statisticians all said Mike Smith was right for going for it at his own 30. Football experts all said the guy had lost his mind. I think it plays into what part of your team you have more confidence in. Mike Smith had no confidence in his defense, and therefore he figured that punting from any point in the field equated to a loss.

For a team like the Saints, I’m not sure how it would work out. On one hand, our defense is pretty bad, and it couldn’t get that much worse than it has been. On the other hand, our offense is already doing close to everything they can, so I don’t know how much room there is for improvement since they are scoring on most possessions anyway..

He’s our best tackler.

Pulaski Academy is a private school that can recruit just like a college. They can put a better team on the field 99% of the time. If Alabama were playing Pulaski Academy, do you think the Tide would punt?

The difference in quality between teams in the NFL—say, the Saints and the Rams—is much, much narrower. You can’t afford to go for it on 4th and 10 from your own 9 when there’s a pretty good chance the prideful professionals on the other team will take it as a slight and run the ball down your fracking throat.

but when it’s a 4 and 1 or a 4 and 2. Obviously, it’s not a good idea to go for it against teams like Baltimore and San Francisco

“We hate losing more than we like winning and therefore make decisions, sometimes irrationally, to avoid loss,”