Quote:
Originally Posted by rubecube
Between McDermott and Lafleur, the analytics crowd are losing their #### today.
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It's funny because they both got a few of the correct analytics calls right, they just botched the most important ones. McDermott though, like this is where you don't even need analytics to tell you that you are playing the Chiefs and you are never beating the Chiefs kicking FGs. One of these days we will see a team playing the Chiefs who will employ the full David strategy and just go hyper aggressive trying to score points. Pinning your hopes of stopping Mahomes is probably the single worst strategy in the league right now.
With more time to think about LaFleur though, the analytics crowd is all about GWC as you know, so I was somewhat surprised to learn that going for the FG only cost the Packers 1% GWC. But it makes sense because winning based off going for it you need a lot of things to break right. Converting a 4th and 8 is probably a 1/3 proposition, getting the 2PT is 1/2, and then keeping the Bucs out of a FG to win probably 1/3, plus the coin toss at 1/2 and then scoring a TD to guarantee the win is probably 1/3....yeah that's a lot to go right even if you do go for it. Kicking the FG is a given, so at that point stopping the Bucs is probably 2/5 and then scoring the TD to win 1/4.
This is not absolving LaFleur for the decision, because in the end it's still about trusting your defense over Aaron Rodgers and that's a terrible choice you don't need analytics for. But from a purely analytics perspective it wasn't a disastrous decision. But it's funny because when they were down 28-23, LaFleur actually made the correct analytics call to go for two. But it hurt them I think in the end because if you're down 8 you have to consider the 2 and with the 2 minute warning and all the timeouts you can justify a FG more. But if you were down 7 then you remove a 50/50 2 PT element from the equation going for it becomes a lot more logical.
Speaking of Rodgers though, he should get more stick for not running for it on 2nd or 3rd down when there were lanes to maybe score. Even if he gets stopped short it makes going for it far more likely from the 3 yard line than the 8. The Packers strategy there appeared to be throw quick three times so that if you score you can miss the 2 and have timeouts on the two minute warning, and if you don't score you can kick the FG and have a chance to get it back. But in that moment Rodgers needed to take a chance that he'd be stopped short and their strategy takes a hit. But even if it was a bad decision to kick from the 8, it's more reasonable than kicking from the 3. Either way it was another heartbreaking loss for the Packers, and it underlines that the Rodgers era has been closer to a disappointment than a success.