10-10-2022, 10:34 AM
(10-10-2022, 10:25 AM)KillerGoose Wrote: That math broke down to this...
Go for it and succeed - 59% chance of winning
Go for it and fail - 31% chance of winning
Kick the FG - 41% chance of winning
Conversion probability - 46%
It's impossible to say that the FG here removes Tucker from the equation. You're assuming that the game goes the exact same way, and it probably wouldn't have. The 4th down decisions are always going to inherently be controversial. You'll have fans like you, who are very conservative in what they want to do. On the flip side, you have fans who are going to be aggressive in what they want to do.
Both sides are going to swear you're the dumbest bastard alive, regardless of the decision. Most fans are also completely ignorant to what they are talking about, but that's a different conversation. It's always easy to criticize with hindsight. If ZT took the FG and still lost, there's fans arguing the exact opposite of what you're doing now.
Football is one of the most complicated team sports in history. There are way too many variables to account for. You can’t say that kicking the field goal has a 41% chance of winning because no past team with the exact personnel, coaching staff, opponent, etc has kicked that field goal with the same score with the same weather, the same crowd noise, and the same stadium. There are way too many outside factors to calculate this number. Do you honestly believe that those numbers are accurate and we just got unlucky?
Maybe the average team had those probabilities with that score, but there’s way more to the decision than that. We’re not the average team over the past 50 or so years, and there are outside factors that the analytics cannot account for. You’re a fool if you delegate coaching decisions to analytics.
