Two
thoughts about the Superbowl (the “Har-bowl”) just concluded:
First,
49er's coach Jim Harbaugh made a fundamental game-playing error in
the second half.
I
know that football coaches, unlike other types of coaches, are rarely
game-players. They don't play backgammon or chess or poker or Risk
or other types of strategy games. They have more in common with
military generals in that their primary task is to manage, and
control, and inspire a bunch of young men and get them to achieve
certain group goals. It's a very difficult job, especially
considering the psyche of the modern pro, and anyone who can keep
fifty immature, imperfectly-educated, testosterone-fueled, filthy
rich world-class athletes with no manners on something like “the
same page” has no time to learn how best to play games and make the
correct strategic decisions at crucial moments. I understand that.
But
why can't they hire somebody to do it? Why won't they hire some
numbers geek to tell the Jim Harbaughs of the world when to punt,
when to kick a field goal and (above all) when to try a two-point
conversion? These are not “football decisions” like whether to
blitz on a particular play or whether to replace your left tackle
because he can't walk anymore, and they don't depend on how a
particular coach “feels” at that moment. They are objective,
numbers-based determinations to be made about what should be done in
a specific situation in the game of football. And since they are
objective, there is one correct course of action. And Jim
Harbaugh, like many coaches, has no idea what that correct course of
action might be. In fact, it is unlikely Harbaugh is even aware
there is a correct course of action.
So
why won't the 49ers hire somebody to tell him?
With
14:49 left in the 3rd quarter, the Ravens led 28 – 6.
Jim Harbaugh was down by 22 points. What, at this point, were the
49er's chances, and what could they hope to accomplish? How could
they possibly get back in this game, and win it?
The
obvious answer, the starting point, is obvious: score three
touchdowns and four extra points. That's the 22; that ties it up.
Then you have to shut down the Ravens as well. This had to be what
Harbaugh was thinking and hoping and planning for. And in fact, the
almost-successful 22-point comeback was the entire story of the
second half, up until the last couple of minutes.
And
as luck would have it, 14:49 in the third quarter was the moment the
San Francisco fortunes turned around. Seven minutes later, they
scored their first touchdown of the game and presented Jim Harbaugh
with a critical game-playing decision. Assuming their dreams would
come true and they would score the three touchdowns they needed, how
should they approach the question of the four extra points? When do
they go for two?
There
is one right answer to this question.
For
the analysis that follows, for simplicity's sake, we will assume the
chance of kicking a single extra point is 100% and the probability of
success for a two-point conversion is 50%. The real probabilities,
from years of NFL data, are very close to those numbers. A missed
kick on an extra point is extremely rare, and NFL teams succeed on
two-point tries almost exactly half the time.
Since
the 49ers actually scored the three touchdowns they needed, we got to
see Jim Harbaugh's decision on the critical strategic question of
when to go for two. (A field goal by each side at the beginning of
the fourth quarter did not change the 22-point comeback equation.)
He chose to take single points after the first and second touchdowns
and try for two only after the third touchdown. Since the chance of
making a single two-point conversion is 50%, this meant that
Harbaugh's strategy had only a 50% chance to tie the game even if
his 49ers succeeded in scoring the three touchdowns and holding the
Ravens. This was not the
optimal strategy.
In
this situation, down 22 points, when a coach needs one two-point
conversion to go with his three touchdowns, he must go for it at the
first opportunity, after the first touchdown. If he makes it, he
need only kick single points after the next two scores. But even if
he fails, he has an additional chance. He can still get his four
extra points with two-point conversions on both the second and third
touchdowns, and that possibility would have provided an additional
12½% chance of success. By pursuing his optimal strategy and going
for two on his first touchdown, Harbaugh would have given himself a
62½% probability of scoring 22 points on the three touchdowns. By
waiting until the third touchdown to try for two, however, he limited
himself to only a 50% chance of tying the game. And he gained
exactly nothing by doing this. His failure to understand the
situation (or his failure to have somebody on the sidelines capable
of making the right decision for him) simply cost the 49ers that 12½%
chance.
This
is not to say the 49ers would have tied the game even if Harbaugh had
done the right thing, of course. And even if the 49ers had tied up
the game with ten minutes left (when the third touchdown was scored),
there was no guarantee they would ultimately win it. But that cannot
excuse Harbaugh's decision. This was a fairly simple math and logic
problem, and he got it wrong in the most important game of the year
and possibly the biggest game of his career. There is no
logically-defensible reason for what he did.
Elsewhere,
I have written about the 15-point deficit in pro football, and why it
is best for the trailing team to go for two on the first touchdown in
its comeback. The reason is that 15 points is not “two scores.”
It's either two scores or three scores and you won't know which it is
until you try the two-point conversion. Since it is essential for
the trailing team to know
whether
the 15 points is two scores or three scores, the team should go for
two as soon as it can. If it fails in the attempt and trails by 9,
it will at least know that it has failed and will have to score twice
more to overcome the 9-point deficit. There is really no reason to
wait.
If
a team is trailing by 15 points, however, and waits until its second
touchdown to go for two, it does not actually reduce its chances of
tying the game. A team down by 15 needs one two-point conversion and
their probability of getting that two-point conversion is the same
whether they try it after the first or the second touchdown. This is
not true when the gap is 22 points (or 29 or 36 or 43), however.
What Jim Harbaugh did significantly reduced
the 49er's chances of tying (and ultimately winning) the Superbowl.
*
On
the Ravens' intentional safety at the end of the game, the ball was
snapped with twelve seconds left. The punter then ran around a bit
before stepping out of the end zone with four ticks on the clock. It
should have been easy to run out the clock on this play and the
Ravens failed to do so.
The
Ravens had ten blockers. The 49ers had, at most, ten guys rushing
the punter. All the Ravens have to do on this play is assign a
player to each rusher and have him wrap his arms around the guy until
the clock expires. If necessary or desirable, each Raven could
simply pick one guy, tackle him and sit on him. There would be flags
all over the field, but (as Hillary would put it), what difference
does it make? The penalty for offensive holding in this situation is
to award the defense a safety.
In
effect, on an intentional safety, there is no penalty for holding.
Copyright2013MichaelKubacki
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