THE 2015 SUPERBOWL

[Much of the analysis that follows, and the story of Virgil Carter, comes from “The Hidden Game of Football” by Carroll, Palmer and Thorn, first published in 1988]

Greek tragedy doesn't do the boffo box office it did in Aristotle's day. In 2015, we're more into RomComs or CGI spectaculars or comedies like “Bad Bosses 2,” with Jennifer Anniston as the irrepressible nymphomaniac. Nevertheless, the ancient echoes of “Oresteia” and “Medea” and “Oedipus” still speak to us of the inevitability of doom that follows, that must follow, a moral transgression.

I am speaking, of course, of the Green Bay – Seattle game, a Greek tragedy with Packers coach Mike McCarthy in the role of Oedipus, for that is what Packer fans were calling him after the game. Well, not “Oedipus” exactly, but its modern 12-letter equivalent. In the first quarter, you didn't know how the Pack would pay for its sins against the gods of football, but you knew they would.

I watched the game with a horrifying certainty that Green Bay would be punished, with the suspense and drama residing only in the method by which their comeuppance would be exacted. An emergency on-field leg amputation for Aaron Rodgers? A Green Bay coach disemboweled in a bizarre sideline accident involving a linebacker, a cheerleader and a parabolic microphone? Instead, the vengeance from Mount Olympus was simple, but perfectly fit the crime. After giving away points in that first quarter (to the Seahawks! in Seattle! in the NFC Conference Championship!), Green Bay found itself, as the clock ticked down to 0:00 in regulation, needing just one of those squandered points for a victory they had thrown away. (And by the way, did anyone on Planet Earth think Green Bay would win in overtime?)

It was the field goals, of course. You can't kick those field goals. In the first quarter, with 8 minutes remaining, Mike McCarthy was facing 4^th and goal at the 1/2-yard line. He didn't hesitate, and sent out the fieldgoal team to kick an 18-yarder.

(Mike McCarthy: You're looking especially hot today, Jocasta!

Jocasta: I dunno, Mike, it feels funny somehow.

Mike: Hey, what could go wrong?

Jo: Oh...OK. Can you unzip me? Oh, wait. That's right. Zippers haven't been invented yet!)

Three minutes later, following a Seattle turnover, Green Bay again found itself 4^th and goal at the Seattle 1-yard line, and McCarthy again took the three points.

You can't kick those fieldgoals. You can't kill your father and you can't have sex with your mother and you can't kick those fieldgoals. I'm not really sure which of the three is worse, though I lean toward the fieldgoals. I guess I'll leave that issue to the professional theologians and philosophers.

The reasoning is not complicated, and you would think that most football coaches would have figured out the 4th-and-1-in-the-first-quarter scenario by the time they got their first paying job (or would have had it explained to them). We are only looking at two choices here---kick it or go for it---and all we have to do is calculate the resulting points (the “expectation”) from each option.

Option A, the fieldgoal, is easy to assess. You are almost certain to make a fieldgoal from that distance. Call it 97%. Multiplying 97% by 3 points is about 2.9 points, and that is your expectation. On the rare occasion the kick is missed, Seattle gets the ball on its 20-yard-line, which, as we will see later, holds no advantage for either side.

Option B, trying for the touchdown, is a bit more complicated since there are two possible significant outcomes---you score the touchdown or you don't---and the differing expectations from these alternatives must be summed.

First, the chance of making a first down (or in this case, a touchdown) on 4^th and 1 does not vary much from year to year in the NFL. You have about a 66% (or 2/3) chance of making the first down. Since a touchdown is worth 7 points, going for it nets you 2/3 times 7, or 4.6 points. This is already 1.7 points better than the 2.9 points to be expected from the fieldgoal.

(These are averages, of course, and the odds for a particular team against another particular team in a particular situation may be different. But is there any reason to think Green Bay's chances, even against Seattle, are worse than the league average?)

But there's more! What about the 1/3 of the time Green Bay fails to make the touchdown, and Seattle takes over at its 1-yard-line? What are the expected points arising out of that situation?

For this, we turn to the work of Virgil Carter, a BYU quarterback who became an NFL journeyman and backup for three teams in the 1960's. He was not a great QB, but he was a smart guy, and he had the brilliant insight that field position in football could be expressed as a number of expected points for one team or the other. His findings were published in Operations Research in 1971.

Carter compiled years of data from NFL games and determined, for example, that a team with a first down at the 50 yard line has an expectation of +2 points. This doesn't mean they would score a safety, and it doesn't mean they would score at all in their current possession. It means that when you average all the “next scores” in all the games where a team had a first down at the fifty, the average result was +2 points for that team. This could also be expressed as a -2 expectation for the team on defense.

All of which brings us to Seattle's expectations if they succeeded in stopping Green Bay and took over possession at their own 1 yard line. According to Virgil Carter (and subsequent work), Seattle's expectation with a first down at its own 1 is -2 points. In other words, if you are stuck that deep in your own territory, the other team is more likely to make the next score than you are.

Remember that 2/3 of the time, Green Bay scores its touchdown, with an expectation of 4.6 points. The other 1/3 of the time, when Green Bay fails, they are still a favorite to put up the next points, and that expectation is equal to 1/3 times 2 points, or .7 points.

Green Bay, by going for the touchdown, expects 4.6 plus .7 points, or a total of 5.3. Since their expectation when kicking the fieldgoal is only 2.9 points, they give away 2.4 points when they kick from the 1 yard line. And they did it twice.

Kicking those fieldgoals was a dreadful mistake. Green Bay gave away almost 5 points by doing so. Worse, they summoned the vengeful gods of football and made their defeat the only just result.

There are people who will not criticize a coach for doing something unforgivably stupid, like kicking those fieldgoals. The broadcasters certainly didn't. They said something like, “Seattle forced the Packers to go for three.” Of course, the Seahawks did no such thing. McCarthy did what he did because in a situation he has seen hundreds of times in his career, HE HAD NO IDEA WHAT TO DO! Or he “went by his gut” (another dopey thing broadcasters will often say), as if there is no objective answer to the question of whether to kick the fieldgoal or try for the touchdown. But there is. There always is. Sometimes it can be a close call, but there is always an objectively correct answer. And this was decidedly not a close call.

When you are playing blackjack and you have twelve while the dealer is showing a face card, you take a card. You do so not because you “have a feeling,” but because it is the correct play. Presented with that situation a million times, you will win more (or lose less) by taking a card than by standing pat. Your feelings have nothing to do with it. Among other things, the cards don't know you have feelings and they wouldn't care about your feelings even if they did know. The inexorable percentages in the NFL are much the same way.

Mike McCarthy won a Superbowl a few years ago, and it's hard to fire a guy like that no matter how little he knows about basic game strategies. What Green Bay should do, however, is to hire some local kid who plays poker and backgammon and a few other games, and have him stand on the sidelines with Mike and tell him when to punt or go for it or kick a fieldgoal or when to go for two after a touchdown. You wouldn't have to pay him much---let's say $100 a game and a few hotdogs. He would win a game for them every year, a game they should win but which Mike McCarthy would otherwise piss away.

** ** **

And then there's the Superbowl, featuring Seattle and Green Bay, which Vegas says is a pick-um. Based on my numbers, Seattle is better. Surprisingly perhaps, the Seahawks win the yards/pass contest 6.4 to 6.1. With defensive yards/pass, they are even better. Seattle wins that matchup by a 4.7 to 5.3 score.

As you may have gathered, I don't like Seattle much. I don't like the way they play, I don't like their ethically-challenged coach who left USC one step ahead of NCAA sanctions, and I don't like the way the NFL allows them to get away with what is politely called their “defense.” Also, I have grown fond of Bill Belichick for his increasing resemblance, behaviorally and even physically, to Richard Nixon. I want New England to win.

However, I don't think they will. “Inflategate,” or as I prefer to call it, “Ballghazi,” probably hurts New England here. First, it's a continuing distraction for the Patriots, while Seattle is left entirely unmolested by the media and can focus completely on their game plan. In addition, the media obsession with New England can be used by the Seahawks to pump themselves up. I mean, here they are, the World Champions, back for a second title, and nobody is talking about them. They ain't getting no respect, and it probably pisses them off.

After the gift victory from the Packers, Seattle wins the Superbowl this year.

Copyright2015MichaelKubacki