4th downs in Ravens game - Coaching with Big Data

[Fins1971]

I ran across this abstract on what happens in certain situations over the last 10 years in NFL. Its a pretty long read but has some interesting info.

http://www.google.com/url?url=http:...jAAOAo&usg=AFQjCNFi-ZFUJuUYnlOiEqNluVxlT7ItLw

On page 4 figure 6 it shows a graph of what the most popular decisions are when faced with 4th down. It contains yards to go and where you are on the field.
It looks like both coaches used this chart to make their 4th down decisions in that game.

Philbin elected to take the FG in the 1st facing 4th and 1 at Ravens 28. It falls right into the Blue area where most go for the FG.
I really wanted them to go for it and hit a short pass to the outside to keep the drive going.

In the 3rd quarter Harbaugh faced 4th and 1 at his own 36. He decided to go for it and made it. It falls right into the green area where most go for the 1st down.

Later in the 4th Philbin once again elected to kick the FG when facing 4th and Goal from 16 after sack of RT17. This one is pretty easy to call and falls right into the Blue are where most go for FG.

There was also some text in the article that kind of opened my eyes after seeing conservative Football from the Dolphins for years.

"Coaches overuse the punt (instead of going for the first down) on their ownside of the field, and perhaps go for the first down too much on the opponents side when they should settle for the field goal in fourth and
short situations."

I've got some drive starting position data from this years Dolphins that I will add to thread that correlates to Figure 2 Page 2.

 

[SSnowman]

I don't have faith that this team could convert a 4th and one. We've been so bad at short yardage situations it's sickening. I miss when we had Polite and 3rd and 1s and 4th and 1s were pretty much a guarantee.

 

[Sons Of Shula]

Thanks for the read. I'll definitely have more time tonight to delve into it. :up:

 

[J. David Wannyheimer]

I don't have faith that this team could convert a 4th and one. We've been so bad at short yardage situations it's sickening. I miss when we had Polite and 3rd and 1s and 4th and 1s were pretty much a guarantee.

Part of the problem is that nobody on our coaching staff has ever bothered to look at what the Seahawks do in that situation with an athletic quarterback.

 

[datruth55]

Philbin elected to take the FG in the 1st facing 4th and 1 at Ravens 28. It falls right into the Blue area where most go for the FG.
I really wanted them to go for it and hit a short pass to the outside to keep the drive going.

3 of the stupidest play calls in the game. 1st and 5 after the penalty and you ran the ball 3 straight times. 1st and 2nd down would have been a perfect opportunity to take a shot at the end zone and Lazor calls 3 straight runs.

 

[Fins1971]

3 of the stupidest play calls in the game. 1st and 5 after the penalty and you ran the ball 3 straight times. 1st and 2nd down would have been a perfect opportunity to take a shot at the end zone and Lazor calls 3 straight runs.

Agreed, they should have taken a shot or 2 on 1st and 2nd down.

 

[Fins1971]

Here is some of the Dolphins Drive info I have been compiling

The Dolphins have 145 offensive drives this year in 13 games. That averages out to 11 possessions per game. I'm not going to go into details on each and every drive but rather giving a capsule of what our average game looks like. Here are the starting positions on field and how many times we start there with percentage of scores and TD's per game.

Drive Start - Times per game - Scoring % - TD %

1-20 - 4.5 - 25% - 20%
21-50 - 4.5 - 39% - 15%
51-79 - 1 - 62% - 31%
80-99 - 1 - 77% - 46%

Interesting that our TD % is actually better when we start at our 20 or deeper as opposed to starting past the 21 but not in the opponents territory. We have 11 TD drives of 80 yards or longer while only 8 from between 21 and 50 even though the drive amounts are about the same.

The fact that we are only 46% on drives that start inside the red zone. We lead the league with 13 such drives but our efficiency has been worse than our season long red zone % which is 50%. Leaving some points on the field there.

But the data mirrors most of the chart on page 2 Figure 2

 

[roy_miami]

Interesting article. One thing I would point out is you said Harbaugh went for it where most coaches go for it, which isn't accurate. The first chart shows you should go for it there but the second chart shows coaches rarely go for it there. Its one of those things that, even if its mathematically correct to do, it can make a coach look terrible if it doesn't work out, it may even get him fired. In other words, its profitable over the long term, but high variance, which could cost a coach his job over the short term.

As for the decision in the first quarter I would always take the points to take the zero off the board, I think that is huge for momentum and sets the tone. I believe Philbin goes with momentum for the most part when making his decisions on when to go for it.

As far as Lazor and going for it with a yard to go the one thing I'm most disappointed in with him is I thought he was supposed to be great at perfecting the QB sneak. Have we seen even one QB sneak this season? I expected that picking up a yard would go from a big weakness to a big strength this season. Which can be huge, as we saw vs the Ravens.

 

[Hayden Fox]

I wanted Joe to get points on that opening drive. I did not mind the kick.

 

[NBP81]

Interesting article. One thing I would point out is you said Harbaugh went for it where most coaches go for it, which isn't accurate. The first chart shows you should go for it there but the second chart shows coaches rarely go for it there. Its one of those things that, even if its mathematically correct to do, it can make a coach look terrible if it doesn't work out, it may even get him fired. In other words, its profitable over the long term, but high variance, which could cost a coach his job over the short term.

As for the decision in the first quarter I would always take the points to take the zero off the board, I think that is huge for momentum and sets the tone. I believe Philbin goes with momentum for the most part when making his decisions on when to go for it.

As far as Lazor and going for it with a yard to go the one thing I'm most disappointed in with him is I thought he was supposed to be great at perfecting the QB sneak. Have we seen even one QB sneak this season? I expected that picking up a yard would go from a big weakness to a big strength this season. Which can be huge, as we saw vs the Ravens.

I use this concept alot, thing is... You cant control your sample size in football...

 

[Fins1971]

Interesting article. One thing I would point out is you said Harbaugh went for it where most coaches go for it, which isn't accurate. The first chart shows you should go for it there but the second chart shows coaches rarely go for it there. Its one of those things that, even if its mathematically correct to do, it can make a coach look terrible if it doesn't work out, it may even get him fired. In other words, its profitable over the long term, but high variance, which could cost a coach his job over the short term.

As for the decision in the first quarter I would always take the points to take the zero off the board, I think that is huge for momentum and sets the tone. I believe Philbin goes with momentum for the most part when making his decisions on when to go for it.

As far as Lazor and going for it with a yard to go the one thing I'm most disappointed in with him is I thought he was supposed to be great at perfecting the QB sneak. Have we seen even one QB sneak this season? I expected that picking up a yard would go from a big weakness to a big strength this season. Which can be huge, as we saw vs the Ravens.

Thanks for the clarification. I was thinking that most don't go for it on their side of the field.
If we could have stopped qb sneak in the 3rd it would have been a huge shift. Harbaugh would have some explaining to do. But it worked out for him.
I do understand getting on the board 1st. But with of history of settling for FG's against this particulate opponent and only scoring 1 TD a game I think we needed to be aggressive there.
It actually worked pretty good since it gave us the early lead. We got the 3 and out and scored the TD on the next drive. So the decision really didn't affect the game. It was more the fact that we pretty much stopped playing good football after the 1st quarter.

 

[maralieus]

If we kick a fg this week in that situation them we will have our answer about philbin. Not that we don't already. Good guy, smart, a lot of football knowledge, no charisma or guts whatsoever.

 

[Hayden Fox]

I like getting points on an opening drive.

 

[J. David Wannyheimer]

I use this concept alot, thing is... You cant control your sample size in football...

Actually, you can to some degree.

It all depends on your offensive tempo. You can absolutely give yourself more possessions by running a hurry-up offense as opposed to a slow-tempo offense.

 

[NBP81]

Actually, you can to some degree.

It all depends on your offensive tempo. You can absolutely give yourself more possessions by running a hurry-up offense as opposed to a slow-tempo offense.

Of course, but not to the point where you get the long run to payoff IMO... Didnt look at the odds but if its somewhere between a 51%-55%, you`ll have to get a ****load of this exact play for it to be profitable on the long run, you could easily go on a 5x losing streak making the decision maker look very bad...