Comments on Advanced NFL Stats: Are Coaches Aggressive Enough on 2nd and 1?

I agree. But it could have some other consequences...

2009-05-10T22:45:00.000-04:00

I agree. But it could have some other consequences too. Offenses that regularly go for it on 4th down may be most effective by rarely passing. If the median run is 3 yards, it's really hard to stop a 4-down offense. We might see a lot less passing and a lot more 4th and shorts.

This essay also strengthens the case for teams bei...

2009-05-10T16:28:00.000-04:00

This essay also strengthens the case for teams being willing to go on 4th Down. 2nd-and-1 is dangerous because offenses have a "throw-away" down. They can afford to take a chance, because if they throw an incomplete pass, they are still in a very good situation.

Now if we assume that the offense has already decided that they are going to be going on 4th-and-Short. A 3rd-and-Short is also a "throw-away" down. And 3rd-and-Short is far more common than 2nd-and-Short

A team that consistently goes on 4th-and-Short puts a defense in the same situation in 3rd-and-Short as you describe above. They can attempt a deep pass and still have a good chance of converting if they throw an incomplete.

Better yet, they can call an audible based upon how the defense lines up. There is no way that a defense can disguise whether they are in Run-stopping defense vs. Deep pass defense. It is an easy read for the QB, and the offense can run the play long before the defense can adjust.

Bob-I think it's pretty interesting that the 2nd a...

2008-09-11T21:02:00.000-04:00

Bob-I think it's pretty interesting that the 2nd and 1 is relatively lucrative without coaches even trying to take advantage of it. I think it would be even more lucrative if they did.

I think you're onto something about the extra expected points being from the yards gained on the run play. But they'd need almost 15yards to equal the 0.7 additional exp pts. Which, incidentally, is a good way to think of the potential of a 2nd and 1--about 15 yds of field position!

Good point about the bias of better teams getting 9 yard gains more often. That's why I compared 9 yard gains to 10 yard gains from a 1st and 10. I did not directly compare 2nd and 1s to 1st and 10s for exactly that reason.

But the conclusion that 2nd-and-1 is better, is ba...

2008-09-11T18:14:00.000-04:00

But the conclusion that 2nd-and-1 is better, is based on what NFL coaches have done. There fore it is not an appropriate to ask if coaches take advantage of it, what the coaches did caused it.

Perhaps the advantage of 2nd-and-1 is the few yards extra the coach gets on the run play, then they are looking at the 'expected yards vs field position' gain from being a few yards better in field position.

Another point about this. All teams get first downs. But good offensive teams get a 9 yard gain more often than a poor offensive team. Perhaps this biasing of the results (good teams get more 9 yard gains, and is therefore more likely to score) is what you see in this calculation.

-bob

I would hypothesize that teams are willing to conc...

2008-09-11T15:27:00.000-04:00

I would hypothesize that teams are willing to concede the first down on a 2nd & 1 run in favor of preventing the deep pass and from what you are saying they would be foolish not to. As the defense is likely in a more pass preventative scheme, the offense just takes the run up the middle that the defense is giving them. I would also guess that the conversion percentage on deep passes on 2nd & 1 would be less than 35% and turnover rates a little higher, for the same reasons.

The expected point value of the 3 situations (run/short pass/deep pass) does not seem to be very out of line with optimization to me. If you lowered the success rate of deep passes to 25/30%, would it look more even between the 3?

That's a really good point. Defensive set data wou...

2008-09-11T10:41:00.000-04:00

That's a really good point. Defensive set data would be available only to game charters. Maybe Elias SB keeps it, but I've never seen it available publicly anywhere. Audible data would only be available to the teams themselves I suppose.

But you're right. The defensive posture is an important consideration. If they are aware of their vulnerability and send out a nickel package with an aggressive pass blitz called, then the run is going to be a very attractive option. The defense is really in a no-win situation.

I wonder if the play call really works this way: The OC tells the QB "if the defense shows X, then go for pass play Y designed to exploit it. Otherwise, just audible the run."

By the way, I think the Madden game can be pretty instructive, at least regarding strategy. I think the current tv commercial is hilarious. "Guys don't like to punt," so they get bad grades. John--the grade is the score. It's the real NFL coaches who punt on 4th and 1 at the 50 who should get "bad grades!"

Any data on defensive tendencies on 2nd and 1 situ...

2008-09-11T09:35:00.000-04:00

Any data on defensive tendencies on 2nd and 1 situations? Could it be that defensive coordinators say "uh-oh, 2nd and 1, we need to play the pass" (I def. think this when playing Madden, for whatever that's worth) and this results in the offense running more often than they might otherwise? How often do teams run play action in these situations? How often do they audible from a pass to a run (this would support the above suggestion...)? We already know coaches are risk averse, is this just another example akin to making sub-optimal decisions on 4th and 1 (though the risk/reward looks much different)? Good stuff.