The problem isn’t just Caldwell, obviously. The lack of aggressiveness on 4th
down extends to virtually all coaches at every level of the game. In my estimation, we need to completely
dismantle and reconstruct our thinking on the subject, both in theory and,
ultimately, in practice (and games!).
But first, I must digress. Speaking of the Lions, you may have noticed some controversy this past
weekend surrounding a certain was-it-or-wasn’t-it pass interference call
involving Caldwell’s troops against Dallas.
There was an inevitable glut of attention paid to that particular play,
and it definitely had an effect on the outcome of the game, so it does need to
be addressed, mostly so I can show how it has nothing to do with my actual
point.
As a football fan, I pride myself on my ability to see
judgment call-type plays correctly in real time on TV. When it comes to questions of down by contact
vs. fumble, in bounds vs. out of bounds, crossing the goal line vs. knee down
short of it, and similar kinds of plays, I get it right at first look much more
often than not. With that said, in real
time the play looked like PI to me.
Watching replays of it, I could see how the refs could interpret the
hand-fighting as incidental contact, as well as the underthrow of the ball
causing the receiver to come back into the defender, who was in good defending
position throughout the play. The whole
thing was one big judgment call, and I could honestly be convinced that either
call is correct (which is an issue for a different column). Had the refs just not called anything, the
Lions’ players would have barked and their fans would have gotten momentarily
upset about the perceived slight. Hell,
Caldwell might have even blinked. The
fact that the refs threw the flag, called the penalty over the PA, marched off
the yardage, and THEN changed their minds and picked up the flag without any
explanation is the reason why everyone lost their damn minds about it.
The point is this: the Lions called the play they wanted to
call and ran the play however they were going to run it (somewhat poorly, as it
turned out). They controlled the things
they could control. The refs called the
play the way they saw it, albeit in an unorthodox fashion. They couldn’t control what the refs did, and
ultimately, the end result was the same: 4th and 1 on the Dallas 46
yard line. Regardless of who you play,
coach, or root for, that previous play is over.
The only thing you can control is what happens next. And in my opinion, the Lions didn’t lose
because of a call by the refs that they couldn’t control; they lost because of
a call by their coach (who we must presume has full control of his faculties)
on the very next snap.
The
Lions lost because Caldwell didn’t have the balls to go for it on 4th
down. When his offense needed one yard
to greatly improve his team’s odds of winning the game, he couldn’t or wouldn’t
pull the trigger. Context is obviously
important in any breakdown of coaching strategy, so let’s dive a little deeper
into it and see how this particularly high-leverage decision can inform our
thinking on 4th down in general.
Before we talk about what happened Sunday in Dallas, we
first need to discuss what happens on fall Saturdays in Annapolis, MD. My father-in-law is a retired U.S. Navy
Captain who attended the Naval Academy.
Due to this relationship, I’ve watched (live and on TV) a pretty large
number of Navy football games.
The truth is, Navy football games are horrible, boring
affairs. As a result of the pool of
candidates from which the school chooses and the rigors and requirements of
being a Midshipman, their football squad is at a constant disadvantage in terms
of size and athletic talent. The way
that they (and other schools facing a similar predicament) compete is by
running the triple option offense. You
probably know what the triple option looks like, but the basic idea is to use
similar formations and looks in a variety of ways that create misdirection and
numbers advantages for the offense.
These advantages create consistent running lanes that can be exploited
for repeated positive gains. The
possessions are often long, drawn out, and repetitive. The beauty and athleticism of the game is
compromised in the service of a strategy that methodically grinds down the
opponent’s defensive will.
But here’s the thing: it works. Playing with less size, speed, and strength
than virtually all of its opponents, Navy consistently puts up winning seasons
with the same game plan every year. So
what does this have to do with 4th down, you ask? The answer: everything.
You see, the triple option tends to create small positive
yardage on almost every play. When you
run it three times in a row, chances are you’re going end up with either a
first down or a 4th and short situation. When Navy ends up in the latter scenario in
opposition territory, they virtually always go for it. Conventional football wisdom would say that
this is a risky, gambler’s mentality, but the truth is that it’s not at
all. It’s the smart way for them to
play.
They understand two basic things about their style of play:
1) Possession of the ball is extremely important because the more they can
control the time of possession, the less opportunities the opponent has to
score; and 2) the option makes it very likely that they will convert in short
yardage situations. For them, the reward
(continued possession) is far greater than the risk (giving up field
position). They aren’t “being overly aggressive” or
“gambling,” they’re making the choice that most increases their chances of
winning the game. Every choice carries
risk (as Jim Caldwell found out, but hold that thought); in more cases than
most “experts” would care to admit, going for it on 4th down is
actually the least risky option.
You hear the phrase all the time in football: “trust your
defense.” Coaches use it, announcers use
it, fans use it. It’s become something
of a football truism, but since we’re in the mood to question assumptions,
let’s question this one too. Of course
context matters, but generally speaking (and assuming a reasonable 4th
down distance to gain), is punting from the opponents’ side of midfield and
“trusting your defense” to get the ball back a strategically wise
decision?
The analysts and internet tough guys who back the TYD
strategy usually employ some version of the justification that “if you go for
it there, you DON’T trust your defense.”
Well, what about trusting your
offense to make a play? Why does trust
apply to one unit and not the other? And
if you truly “trust” your defense and they understand that trust, who gives a
crap if they get put in a less-than-favorable spot because the offense didn’t
convert on your aggressive decision? If
the D is so worthy of your trust, then they’ll pay it off with a stop
anyway. TYD is a total justification,
and a lousy one at that.
In addition, and I’m going to say this a lot in the next few
paragraphs, CONTEXT MATTERS. There are
times where trusting the defense might make sense in these scenarios (to be
clear, I’m talking about 4th and short-to-medium situations between
midfield and the opponent’s 30-35 yard line).
Specifically, it could possibly be the right choice when your offense is
significantly worse than the opponent’s defense, your defense is significantly
better than the opponent’s offense, AND you are leading late in the game. The last point matters, for sure, but the
fact that Caldwell used it as his sole rationalization for the decision not to
go for it is total BS.
Caldwell should know what his team does well and what it
does poorly, along with the same information for the opponent. That is, you know, his job and
everything. And amazingly enough, there
are statistics to tell us how each team’s offensive and defensive units rated
over the course of the season. Your columnist
is a big fan of advanced statistics, so we are going to compare Detroit and
Dallas in terms of Offensive and Defensive DVOA. For the uninitiated, this is Defense-adjusted
Value over Average, a proprietary statistic developed by the very smart fellas
at Football Outsiders to measure a team’s performance based on every play of
the season, breaking it down by situation in order to compare it to the league
average. It boils down to a more
comprehensive measure of the performance of each team (and each unit on that
team) than do counting stats and simple per-game ratings.
Here are the offensive and defensive DVOA ratings of the
teams for the 2014 season:
Detroit Offensive DVOA: 19th
Dallas Defensive DVOA: 22nd
Detroit Defensive DVOA: 3rd
Dallas Offensive DVOA: 4th
Again, context matters.
When considering his options on 4th and 1, Caldwell obviously
isn’t poring over these numbers in his mind, but he HAS to be aware of them on
some level. He knows that his offense is
basically the equivalent of Dallas’ D, and that the same goes for the other
side of the ball. So statistically,
there is no real reason to trust your defense to stop Dallas’ offense any more
than there is a reason to trust your offense to beat the Cowboys’ defense. Punting is at best a 50/50 proposition,
probably worse (more on that later). So
when either option is justifiable, why would you not go with the more aggressive
one that gives your team the chance to keep possession of the ball and extend
your lead?
And I get it – it’s not all about stats and geekery. There is a human element here as well, so let’s
talk psychology for a minute. A big part
of the head coach’s job is to motivate his players, to show his faith in them
in the way he calls the game. In that
specific situation, everyone on Detroit’s sideline believed that they had just
gotten screwed. I strongly believe that,
at that moment, nothing would have sent a stronger message to his team than
Caldwell saying, “You know what? Fuck these refs and their bullshit calls. We are going to go for it, and we are going
to get it. Their garbage calls don’t
matter because we are going to TAKE this game by force.” He could have challenged his players to win
the game, and instead, he meekly punted the ball away because he “trusted his
defense.” The fact that the punt was the
worst shank you will ever see from a professional is merely a bit of karmic
justice for Caldwell’s cowardly decision-making.
Now this is the point where the internet wankers say, “Yeah,
Detroit should have brought their crystal ball so they’d know the punter would
shank it. Hindsight is 20/20.” But here’s the thing, and I can’t be clear
enough about this: THE RESULT OF THE PUNT IS IRRELEVANT. Even if that punt goes out of bounds or gets
fair caught inside the 10 yard line, it is still the wrong decision.
This is about to get a bit subjective again, but here’s
why. Caldwell claimed in the postgame
presser that Detroit’s defense had been “stingy” (his word) up to that point,
which is true if you look at a football game in a static way, rather than a
fluid one. Detroit’s D stifled the
Cowboys early on in the game, particularly their vaunted running game. The Lions created a lot of pressure with
blitzes early in the game as well, getting to Romo for a number of sacks.
The thing is, as the game went on, the dynamic changed. Dallas’ pass protection started to hold up,
Detroit’s front four started to fatigue, and the Cowboys started moving the
ball and scoring points in the second half.
Based on the “eye test,” by the time Detroit booted away that ill-fated
punt, the Lions’ defense was already beaten.
The odds are that Dallas was going to score on that possession, regardless
of where the drive started, and to a degree, regardless of the DVOA numbers I
cited above.
You can often tell these things by the amount of pressure
that the defensive front gets on the quarterback on the decisive drive, and it
was instructive here. On the 4th
and 6 that Dallas converted (I won’t argue that Jason Garrett was somehow “ballsier”
here than Caldwell was; Dallas’ situation was much more dire) and the
game-winning touchdown throw, Detroit’s front four, consistently rated as one
of the best in the league, didn’t even get remotely close to Romo. Dallas’ offensive line, which by virtually
any metric you can dream up is the best in the league, had worn down Detroit’s
D-line and rendered it ineffective in that very specific situation. Regardless of what you think of Romo, he is
at a massive advantage when he can sit in the pocket and pick out one of his
weapons. On the touchdown throw, it
looked like he could have sat back there all day until someone got open. As soon as he dropped back, I knew it was
over.
Want more proof that punting was
the wrong choice? Right after the punt,
I texted the following to a good friend of mine (who believes in 4th
down the same way I do): “Odds that Detroit will have to convert a more
difficult 4th down than the one they passed up: 100%.” Then: “Odds that Joe Buck or Troy Aikman will
mention this fact: 0%.” Setting aside
how terrible Fox’s broadcast team is, without knowing how Dallas’ possession
would go or anything after that, I knew that Caldwell had screwed up. The result was dictated by the process, and
it came to pass exactly that way.
Sitting at almost exactly the same spot on the field as they were when
Caldwell passed up the earlier 4th and 1, the Lions fumbled away
their last chance at the win on 4th and 3 (which, for the
statistically-inclined, is more difficult than 4th and 1). If you were paying attention, it played out
so perfectly that you’d have to be suffering from post-concussive symptoms not
to see it, which explains why Aikman was so blissfully unaware.
That single decision to punt, albeit in an extremely
high-leverage situation, was a microcosm of the way that NFL (and to a certain
extent, college) coaches view 4th down. Caldwell used some coach-speak to defend his
decision in the press conference, but what he was really saying was this: “I
wasn’t playing to win. I was playing not
to lose. When we needed one yard to
greatly increase our chances of winning the game, I didn’t believe in my team
to get that yard. True leaders are
willing to make the hard choices, and I am not able to do that. Also, am I allowed to talk during the game?”
His Art Shell-ian silence notwithstanding, Caldwell is not
alone among NFL coaches. There is a
rampant tendency toward risk aversion when it comes to 4th down
decision-making, and it has to stop. So
many coaches are so worried about their job security that they make these timid
decisions on 4th down, pushing the blame to the players if they don’t
get it done, rather than accepting responsibility for not putting the team in
the best position to win.
Once again, context matters, and it’s on the organizations
to empower these coaches to make in-game decisions that are in everyone’s best
interests without threatening their jobs.
There are plenty of reasons to fire an NFL coach – a bad result on an
aggressive 4th down call shouldn’t be one of them.
Football is fundamentally a game of aggressiveness. Everyone knows and accepts this. What I can’t accept is that the gap between
the aggressiveness that the players are expected to display and the
aggressiveness that coaches display in their decision-making is so large. Every player is expected to put himself on
the line on every play of every game.
That the head coach, the leader of these men, won’t do the same on the
very biggest plays of the game (and in Jim Caldwell’s case, the season), should
be considered nothing short of a violation of the very principles upon which this
glorious sport was founded.
Bottom line: you get four downs – use them all. Say it with me, kids: YOU PLAY. TO WIN.
THE GAME.
Comments
Post a Comment