What's all the hubbub about the 4th and 3?

[Flagg the Wanderer]

Why is this even controversial? They were down eight with less than 10 minutes to go. That means that for the field goal to make a difference you have to count on getting down into field goal range two more times. If you only make it down one more time, you have to go for the touchdown.

I get the simplicity of saying you take the points, but in this case those points don't help you unless you make two more trips into the red zone in the final 10 minutes of a game against a very tough defense. It's not a lack of trusting the Patriots defense to get you the ball back, it's a lack of trusting the pastry. It's offense to take full advantage of every opportunity from that point on. I was wildly unsurprised to see that the analytics backed that up and going for it gave you a higher win percentage than kicking it.

 

[Mazz22]

Why is this even controversial? They were down eight with less than 10 minutes to go. That means that for the field goal to make a difference you have to count on getting down into field goal range two more times. If you only make it down one more time, you have to go for the touchdown.

I get the simplicity of saying you take the points, but in this case those points don't help you unless you make two more trips into the red zone in the final 10 minutes of a game against a very tough defense. It's not a lack of trusting the Patriots defense to get you the ball back, it's a lack of trusting the pastry. It's offense to take full advantage of every opportunity from that point on. I was wildly unsurprised to see that the analytics backed that up and going for it gave you a higher win percentage than kicking it.

For me it was the time left. I believe there was 9:39 left when we decided to go for it there. I would have preferred the points and be down 5 with over 9 minutes left to get a TD to win the game. I think if there was 6 minutes or less left, I would have been fine going for it.

 

[HomelessJoe]

Why is this even controversial? They were down eight with less than 10 minutes to go. That means that for the field goal to make a difference you have to count on getting down into field goal range two more times. If you only make it down one more time, you have to go for the touchdown.

I get the simplicity of saying you take the points, but in this case those points don't help you unless you make two more trips into the red zone in the final 10 minutes of a game against a very tough defense. It's not a lack of trusting the Patriots defense to get you the ball back, it's a lack of trusting the pastry. It's offense to take full advantage of every opportunity from that point on. I was wildly unsurprised to see that the analytics backed that up and going for it gave you a higher win percentage than kicking it.

It's controversial because they did exactly that

 

[chevss454]

View: https://twitter.com/mikekadlick/status/1701199980222955914