Belichick Made The Right Call

Photo by Keith Allison

Last night, near the end of an important game against the Indianapolis Colts in Week 10, the New England Patriots faced 4th-and-2 on their own 28-yard-line. The Patriots were ahead by 6 points, with 2 minutes and 8 seconds left on the clock. Conventional wisdom said the Patriots should punt the ball, to force Manning to try to drive the length of the field for a game-winning score. Instead, the Patriots went for it and failed to convert. The Colts went on to win.

Commentators are already arguing about whether Coach Belichick showed too little faith in his defense, or too much faith in his offense. It has nothing do with faith. It's all about giving your team the best chance of winning. And the numbers say that Belichick made the right call.

To assess whether Belichick chose wisely, I used Football Mogul to simulate the situation that the Patriots faced. Football Mogul had access to every detail of the game, including current rosters and playbooks for each team. It even takes into account the weather and wind, and the fatigue level of the New England defense.

Specifically, I simulated the remainder of the game exactly 20,000 times. For 10,000 of these simulations, the Patriots went for it on 4th-on-2. For the other 10,000 simulations, the Patriots punted.

We could look at this simply in terms of what chance the Colts had to drive down the field and score, depending on whether or not the Patriots punted. However, that doesn't take into account all of the things that can happen during a football game. For example, in some of the simulations when the Patriots went for it, the Colts got an interception return for a touchdown. This gave Indy the lead, but also gave Brady two minutes to drive down the field for a game-winning field goal. Similarly, the "safe" choice to punt sometimes resulted in a blocked punt and an instant touchdown for the Colts.

Thus, the only way to accurately find the best call is to simulate the exact game situation thousands of times, taking into account all of the different possible results that can happen in an NFL game.

The verdict: Belichick made the right call.

Breaking down the numbers, we see that when the Patriots went for it, they got the first down in 55.2% of all the simulations. After the first down, they won the game 94.3% of the time (the Colts' one timeout gives them the chance to get the ball back and still score a last-second touchdown, which they were able to do about 1 time in 20, even when the Patriots got the first down).

When the Patriots went for it and didn't convert, the Colts won the game 76.1% of the time. Most of these were because Peyton drove the ball 28 yards for the score. But sometimes the Colts won for another reason. For example, the Colts might score a quick touchdown, leaving Brady enough time to get a winning field goal, but still have enough time to score on the following kickoff return (leading to the Colts winning 42-37).

All-in-all, Belichick's call to go for it gave the Patriots a 62.8% chance of winning the game.

On the flip side, punting the ball only gave the Patriots a 41.3% chance of winning the game. That's right; the Colts won the game 58.7% of the time when the Patriots punted.

So, not only did Belichick make the right call. It wasn't even close. He made the call that increased his team's chance of winning by more than 50% (from 41.3% to 62.8%).

The End Of The 50-Yard Field Goal

Stephen Gostkowski, the kicker for the New England Patriots, has one of the strongest legs in the NFL. Most of his kickoffs go into the opponent's end zone -- many of them for touchbacks.

But he doesn't have any 50-yard field goals this year. That's because Coach Belichick hasn't asked him to try any. Gostkowski has a 93% success rate on kicks less than 50 yards. But no attempts beyond that distance.

This stat is part of a larger trend in the NFL.

In 1994, the NFL changed the rules for missed field goals, so that the team taking possession got the ball at the point of the kick -- not at the previous line of scrimmage. This is only a 7-yard difference. But it's enough to shift the odds away from the decision to try long field goals.

This rule helped create a "no man's land" near the opponent's 35-yard line. On 4th down, it doesn't make sense to punt from within 40 yards of the end zone -- there's a good chance you'll kick too far and end up with a touchback, and a net gain of only 15-20 yards.

But a field goal attempt doesn't make much sense either. Let's assume the average kicker has a 50% success rate on 52-yard field goal attempt (this is a kick from the opponent's 35-yard line). Half the time, you get 3 points. The other half of the time, the other team gets the ball with good field position -- at their own 42-yard line. Getting the ball at your 42-yard line is worth, on average, about 1.8 points.

So, half the time you get 3 points; but the rest of the time you lose 1.8 points. This means that a field goal attempt from the opponent's 35-yard line is worth less than a point (0.6 to be more exact).

By contrast, having the ball at your opponent's 30-yard line is worth about 4 points. So even if you have less than a 50% chance of getting the 1st down, it frequently makes sense to go for it instead of trying to kick the field goal.

Although kickers continue to get stronger and more accurate, we'll see fewer and fewer long field goals as more coaches continue to realize that 50-yard field goal attempts are bad bets.

Did Bill Belichick Use the "Maddux Gambit" Against Tony Dungy?

This weekend, we will see the third post-season matchup between Tom Brady's New England Patriots and Peyton Manning's Indianapolis Colts. As my fellow New Englanders know, the Patriots have won the previous two games. At least some of the credit for these two wins was given to Belichick for "outcoaching" Tony Dungy in both meetings. But when the Pats and Colts played in Foxboro during the regular season this year, it looked like Dungy was doing the "outcoaching".

Even though the Patriots were having success running the ball up the middle, Belichick chose to try some tricky plays, such as a reverse that was stopped for a big loss, and a delayed draw that had Brady and Faulk tripping over each other in the backfield. The Patriots lost 27-20.

At the time, I was baffled by Belichick's play-calling -- a bit like when Grady Little left Pedro Martinez on the mound to start the 8th inning in Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS. It seemed like Belichick was more worried about trying different plays than about winning the game. And then I wondered if Belichick was actually willing to lose during the regular season if it created an advantage that the Patriots could use if they met the Colts again in the playoffs.

Of course, this is ridiculous. The example above of the Maddux Gambit was when Greg Maddux was winning 8-0. Why would Belichick be so crazy as to use the Maddux Gambit in a game that decided home-field advantage in the playoffs?

When you think about it, there are several reasons that Belichick might play the game this way.

1) He wanted to "save" his best plays. This is the primary argument for the "Maddux Gambit" at work. Belichick gave up an advantage during the regular-season game so that he would still have an advantage in this area if the teams met again. In the first three quarters of the game against Indy, Corey Dillon rushed up the middle six times for gains of 4, 4, 7, 9, 9, and 10 yards. In short, they had found a play that worked consistently against the Colts defense (if I remember correctly, most of these plays involved trap blocking by the Tight End or Guard). But when the 4th quarter started, Brady went to the air and the trick plays came out, even though the Pats were only down by 4 points.

The Pats ran Dillon up the middle enough to learn that it was effective, but not enough to win the game. If Bill had kept calling this play in the 4th quarter, they could have driven for a game-winning score, but they also create more film for Dungy and the Colts staff to study. If you assume instead that Bill's primary goal wasn't to win the game, but to use the game as a practice session where he found the Colts' weaknesses, then it makes sense to stop calling this play before the Colts see it enough to figure out how to defeat it.

2) He used the game as a scrimmage. The best way to see how a team will respond to a play (or defensive scheme) is to use it in actual game against them. It's possible that some of the trick plays weren't intended to win the game, but simply to test the Indianapolis defense in case he needed to use these plays at a later time.

3) He didn't want to spoil the Colts undefeated record. Last season, the media spent much of the season talking about the Colts matching the feat of the 1973 Dolphins and playing a "perfect season". Peyton Manning has never even played in a Super Bowl, but the media was assuming the Colts were good enough to not only win the Super Bowl, but also finish 16-0. As it turns out, the Colts not only lost a couple of regular-season games, they didn't even make it to the AFC Championship Game. An undefeated record can distract a team more than it helps them, and Belichick knows that.

4) He didn't want home-field advantage. The Patriots were 7-1 on the road this year, and only 5-3 at home. The Patriots players have been quoted as saying there are fewer distractions on the road; you go straight from your hotel to the game.

5) He wanted to create a psychological advantage. Beating a team builds confidence. But losing by only a touchdown when your QB throws 4 picks and your coaches are making unorthodox play calls. I wouldn't be surprised if Bill sits down with his team this week and admits that he got "cute" with the play-calling in Week 9, and assures them that he learned a lot from his experimentation and now he has a complete plan to pick apart the Colts and go to Super Bowl XLI.

I'm not saying Belichick threw the November game. But it's not the craziest idea that winning a single game in Week 9 wasn't his only goal that day.