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.

About This Blog...

Why is this blog a mish-mash of sports and politics, economics and game design?

The simple answer is that the game that pays my bills is both a sports simulation and an economic simulation.

The more complicated answer is public policy is game design. And yet legislators seem to be among the worst possible game designers.

A well-designed sports game is one that is easy to play for any sports fan. If you know the sport, you should be able to use the simulation as an interface between you and enjoyment of that sport. You shouldn't get frustrated just trying to understand how the game works.

Similarly, well-designed public policy should create a smooth interface between citizens and the basic laws of economics that allow them. A tax system that flushes more than 20% of the economy down the drain is bad game design, regardless of whether it is inherently "fair" or "unfair".

Although I have been writing games since I was five years old, I majored in public policy because I wanted to apply good game design to something more important than computer games. After 20 years, I'm still writing computer games for a living, but that hasn't stopped me from trying to fix bad game design when I see it.

Fixing Overtime In The NFL

Every year there's a clamor to "fix" overtime in the NFL. The complaint is that the results of a crucial game (especially a playoff game) can often be "decided by a coin flip".

The most popular idea is to adopt something like the NCAA, where each team is guaranteed a chance to score. I've also heard the idea to get rid of "sudden death" and play overtime periods until one team ends the game with the lead, much like in the NBA. I've even heard that field goals should be outlawed in overtime.

All of these ideas are horrible.

Football is a tough game. We don't want games stretching on to five or six hours. We also don't want to miss our favorite team's game on TV because the previous game runs over.

The solution is elegantly simple: play with the current sudden death rules, but automatically award the coin flip to the home team.

In addition to eliminating the coin flip, there are a number of other positive effects:

1) This increases the importance of home field advantage in the playoffs. If a team like the Colts goes 14-2, they should get an edge if a playoff game goes to overtime (just as the home team in baseball has a strategic advantage).

2) We now know who the "home team" is in the Super Bowl. And it matters. This could have been especially important this season, in that when the Seahawks and Colts faced off in Week 15, they would have had home-field advantage to play for. Instead, nothing was on the line and the game was unwatchable.

3) It adds drama to the final minutes of a game, and clarifies strategy for coaches. If you're the away team, and you're up against a good offense, you want to play for the WIN, not the tie, in any last-minute play calls. You go for two if you have the chance. And you go for the touchdown instead of the field goal on 4th down. More excitement, and less overtime (which tends to run into the next game, which doesn't make most football fans happy).

Related post: Fixing Overtime In The NFL (Revisited)

Stretching The Definition

My wife just told me about "OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb". It's a planet we've discovered in another solar system. Here's an exact quote from the news story:


"with a gravity like ours. And the great news is that it’s five-and-a-half times bigger than Earth." (emphasis mine)

Five-and-a-half times bigger means that I wouldn't be able to walk on the surface. I think that's stretching the definition of the word "like".

That's like saying "Billy Bob Thornton has breasts LIKE Jane Seymour". I mean, each one has a nipple, but after that the similarity fades.

How To Turn Anything Into An Incomplete Pass

Here's the rule I've learned after years of instant replay in the NFL:

By throwing that red flag, you can turn ANYTHING into an incomplete pass.

Brady fumbles. Belichick goes to his sock and pulls out the challenge flag. Incomplete pass.

Polamalu intercepts. Dungy grasps at straws desperately. Incomplete pass.

I've seen this happen more than once. The two examples I just mentioned are the most absurd. But completions and interceptions get overruled all the time for one simple reason. Using today's NFL rules, a complete pass frequently LOOKS like an incomplete pass when viewed in slow motion.

Shift everything down to 1/8 speed and the refs see the tiniest movements of the ball in the receiver's hands. They say he was "bobbling it" and never established control. A perfectly good completion in real-time can look like a turbulent froth of primordial ooze when viewed under the microscope.

I play ultimate frisbee whenever I can. It's a lot like football in that your job is to catch the "ball" before it hits the ground. It's a classic American game of of "People vs. Gravity". Like the NFL, some ultimate players make some AMAZING catches: laying out for a disc that's about to hit the grass or go out of bounds. These feats of athleticism should be rewarded, regardless of weather the disc grazed a blade of grass as the player was finishing his catch.

For the NFL, I say "loosen up the completion rules". If it looks like a completion in real-time, it probably was a completion. Give these guys credit for the outstanding plays they are making, and play on! 

Will The Real Guillermo Mota Please Stand Up?

By now we all know that Mike Lowell and Josh Beckett are headed to the Red Sox in exchange for Hanley Ramirez, Anibal Sanchez, Jesus Delgado and Harvey Garcia. But it was just announced the Red Sox insisted that Guillermo Mota be added to the deal, in exchange for even more players from Boston's farm system.

Mota is an interesting commodity. In 2003, and part of 2004, all with the Dodgers, he had an ERA near 2.00. Since being traded to the Marlines in mid-2004, his ERA has ballooned to 4.74.

So the question is, who is the real Guillermo Mota? The dominating setup man that helped the 2004 Dodgers win the N.L. West? Or the struggling reliever who was relegated to a reduced workload in the 2005 Marlins bullpen.

When I wrote Baseball Mogul, I realized that ERA isn't the best indicator of a pitcher's underlying ability. So I created a stat called Defense Independent Component ERA (aka DICE). DICE looks only at the events within a pitcher's control: Home Runs, Walks, Hit Batters and Strikeouts. It then uses these events to project that player's ERA. This gives us a number that looks like ERA, but with the bloop singles, great defensive plays and other random events removed.

DICE is pretty easy to calculate. We start with an ERA of 3.00 and modify it according to the walks, hit batters, strikeouts and home runs allowed by the pitcher:

DICE = 3.00 + (3*(BB + HBP) + 13*HR - 2*K) / IP

Mota's 2003 ERA was a tiny 1.97. Here's how we calculate his DICE for that same year:

2003 (LA): 26 BB, 1 HBP, 7 HR, 99 K, 105.0 IP

           DICE = 3.00 + (3*(26 + 1) + 13*7 - 2*99) / 105.0   

     = 3.00 + (81 + 91 - 198) / 105.0   

  = 3.00 + (-26) / 105.0 = 2.76   

So we see that Mota's actual 2003 ERA was more than 3/4 of a run lower than what we would expect from how he pitched.

Here's a table of his DICE over the past 3 seasons, along with his real ERA in each season:

Guillermo Mota: DICE

Season	Team	BB	HBP	HR	K	IP	DICE	ERA
2003	LA	26	1	7	99	105.0	2.76	1.97
2004	LA/FLA	37	4	8	85	96.2	3.58	3.07
2005	FLA	32	1	5	60	67.0	3.66	4.70

As we can see, Mota's ERA in 2003 and 2004 was better than what you would expect from the underlying stats. It's no surprise that his ERA went up in 2005.

What is interesting is that Mota's 2005 DICE was virtually the same as his 2004 DICE. In other words, Mota's core ability appears essentially unchanged from 2004 to 2005. It's only the final outcome -- his ERA -- that went up by more than 50%.

Guillermo's struggles in 2005 appear to be due primarily to his defense and bad luck. If the Marlins had stuck with him and given him as many innings as he had in 2004, it's likely that his ERA would have moved closer to the 3.66 figure predicted by DICE.

What does this mean for the Red Sox? Will we see the 2005 Mota? Or a return to the 2004 edition? The question is misleading. Mota was essentially the same pitcher in 2004 and 2005. It's only the ERA that changed. Therefore, we should expect Mota to continue on the same path his been on for the last 2 seasons -- an above average relief pitcher capable of posting ERA's below 4.00.

That said, we should point out that both Dodger Stadium (in L.A.) and Pro Player Stadium (in Miami) are pitcher's parks. Pro Player has about 5% less offense than an average NL stadium. Dodger Stadium is roughly the same, with even a bit less offense. By contrast, Fenway is a hitter's park with about 5% more offense than average. This fact, combined with the shift from the National League to the American League, means it's extremely unlikely for Mota to match the numbers he put up with the Dodgers in 2003 or even 2004.

An ERA just under 4.00 is the most likely projection. Considering the troubles the Red Sox bullpen had in 2005, that still makes Mota a valuable acquisition.

The Williams Shift