Everyone is destroying Bill Belichick for going for the win on Sunday night.  No one, and I mean NO ONE has even mentioned that the ref who came up with the spot kind of blew the call.  I am not one for conspiracy theories, but watch the play one more time and tell me if all of these things do not happen: 1) Faulk starts to make the catch very clearly past the yardage marker and gets hit immediately by Melvin Bullitt 2) Faulk slightly bobbles the ball 3) that bobble happens with Faulk’s ENTIRE body between the ball and the guy who came in with the spot.  Like I said, I am not here to spout conspiracy theories…I’m just saying that I might have noticed 1 or two anomalies on that particular play and the officiating of it – oh, and it was the first time I have ever, in over 35 years of watching the NFL, seen a single official actively favor the defense on a 4th down play.  Ever.  Kind of weird, no?

Now, about the call itself, I aim to prove (or disprove – it really could go either way, and here in paragraph  2, your guess is as good as mine) that it was the correct call according to the information that Belichick had available to him at the time.  Wait – I guess I should clarify…I am talking about the call to go for it on 4th down.  NOT the play call.  The play call was historically bad, no matter what the numbers in the following paragraphs say.

Here is my beef with Belichick – assume that the statistics dictate that you absolutely have to go for it on 4th down in that situation.  You are playing against a franchise that has ALWAYS been soft against the run.  The defense has 2 ends that love to get up the field and wreak havoc on passing plays.  Your go-to 3rd and 4th down back is averaging 6.6 yards per carry on the game.  What play do you call?  Every person reading this that has watched more than 50 NFL games just said either “draw” or “screen”.  Kind of a no-brainer, huh?  Should be able to pick up 2 yards on one of those plays pretty easily in that situation, right?

Don’t get me wrong – I love to see Belichick fail…but the only 2 people in the league that I love to see fail even more are Donovan McNabb and Peyton Manning (Jay Cutler is quickly moving up this list)…plus, I live in Indy and am surrounded by Colts fans on a daily basis.  It’s kind of rough for 11 months of the year, but except for one bizarre season, I have always had January to do all my talking…and I will have January once again in 2010…take that to the bank.  Plus, I am from New England and always had a soft spot for the Patriots until they got good and their fans turned into the the biggest a-hole NFL fans in the world outside of the state of Pennsylvania.  Anyway, I have some definite mixed emotions about this game and this play.

OK – one last point before I get to the numbers.  And by “numbers” I mean the kind of rudimentary analysis that even I can understand.  Nothing like the geeky section at our sister site, www.RPIBracket.com.  The point I want to make is this – ESPN has become an NFL outlet, and it sickens me.  I watched ESPN for a full hour after the Pats-Colts game, and I listened to at least 10 different “experts” analyze the 4th-and-2 play, and not a single one of them mentioned that the league might want to take a closer look at the spot.  Not one.  To make matters worse, the blown fumble call in the Dallas-Green Bay game was handled with kid gloves, too.  Quick recap – Romo fumbled at the most inopportune time (I know, big surprise), Felix Jones recovered the ball and demonstrated clear control of it, a Green Bay player jumped on top of Jones (who was, you would think, down by contact at that point), the two players roll over on the ground, complete a full rotation, with the Packer player trying to tug at the ball, with 2 officials within 10 yards of the play, and the ball finally comes out of Jones’ arms at least a full second after he was clearly and unequivocally down by contact.  Tom Jackson, doing the highlights on SportsCenter, described that situation thusly…and Felix Jones had the ball, then he can’t hang on to it (he actually said this as the replay was showing, in super close-up slow motion, the Packer player pulling at the ball), and the Packers recover.  Incidentally, possession of a fumble is not a reviewable call, but “down by contact” is reviewable.  The Cowboys got rooked on this one.  Romo was in one of his game-losing moods, so it would not have mattered, but it still would have been nice to see them  afforded every opportunity to win that they earned on the field with their play…it’s always a shame when the refs take something away from a team like that by blowing a very easy call.

So, I lied – one more point, speaking of the NFL highlights on SportsCenter.  When Chris Berman does his “TICK TICK-TICK TICK-TICK” bit when he is giving the highlights for a 2-minute drill, it is easily the most annoying sound I have ever heard in my life.  I would rather hear squealing brakes 10 feet behind my brand new dream car than listen to Chris “The Hack” Berman do highlights.  He is well and truly done.  He has done great things from the beginning for that network, but the only way he could make it better right now would be to have them put up a plaque of his likeness on the wall and fade into bolivion where he belongs.

Speaking of played out acts on ESPN – how is everyone feeling about the Stu “Left Eye” Scott cutaways where he throws a pass to someone off camera or catches a pass from someone off camera?  Anyone thinking that Stu can ball?  Or are people feeling about it the same way I am – like you just want to tell him “Stu, dude you are trying too hard.  And you should be embarrassed.”  I mean, is Stu’s Dad alive, or an uncle?  Anyone that can reign him in on this?

So, finally, here we are to the point of this column…the percentages.  We are going to do some simple math.  Try to follow along.  I will explain every step along the way.

So, here are the 2 options – go for it or punt the ball away.  The worst case is the same for each option – Manning leads to Colts into the end zone.  The best case, however is quite different…if you go for it and make it, you win the game…if you punt it, you need your defense to stop Manning in the 2-minute drill to win the game.  Here is a simple table about the percentages for each of the options and outcomes.

Sure, anyone on the Pats defense would tell you that the percentage for Manning driving 70 yards for a winning score is lower than 50%.  Well, they are fooling themselves.  Manning had gotten burned earlier in the half, but had just led consecutive scoring drives of 2:08 and 1:47.  I think giving Manning a 50% chance to win the game in that situation is conservative.

So, the numbers in the table are not scientific, but I would maintain that they are probably pretty damn close to accurate.  Here is how to analyze them:

Option 1 – Going for the First Down. Belichick had to figure that he had a 75% chance of getting the first down.  Not sure why he would think that with the shit play that he called, but for the sake of argument, let’s assume the he, along with every other football fan in the world, knew that the Colts were probably more susceptible to a draw or a screen in that instance than any NFL team in history.  Anyway, you have a 75% chance of getting the first down, which gives you a 100% chance of winning, and a 25% chance of failing to get the first down, which gives you a 25% chance of winning.  The “Win Factor” column just multiplies the probability by the win percentage…we do this so…when you add the 2 Win Factor numbers together for this option, Belichick had to figure that if he went for it on 4th down 100 times, the Pats could expect to win over 80% of those games…and that would be a valid statistical assumption.

Option 2 – Punting the Ball. Belichick had to know that Manning was going to do something special.  He has made a habit of doing it lately.  Looking like crap for most of the game and then finding magic at the end.  I stand by my 50/50 prediction for this option.  I know that the league average for driving 70 yards for a score in the 2-minute drill is under 30%, but Manning is not average, and he was not going to let his team lose this game.

So, I have basically provided the most conservative options possible, in terms of the probability for Manning to rally the Colts to a victory if he got the ball back.  Going for it on 4th down gives you around an 80% chance of winning.  Punting the ball gives you a 50% chance of winning.

I have news for everyone second-guessing Belichick and talking about how he did it because he was scared of Manning and has no respect for his defense or the Indy defense.  Belichick probably knew everything I have just described and absolutely made the right call.  He called a really bad play, but he still made the right call, according to the statistical facts of the situation. I don’t think that will make Pats fans feel better…but they technically had a 30% better chance of winning that game by going for it on 4th down than they did by punting it on 4th down.

I don’t want to try to figure out the numbers for different plays, since that would make my head hurt.  Plus, when I figured out the numbers for “send Faulk in motion and have him run a 2-yard curl” it would kind of disprove my entire point, and I have no desire to do that.

So, that’s 2 weeks in a row with at least one column in between my weekly picks columns.  Hopefully, I will be able to make a habit of it.

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