[Austroturf]

Despite the revolution taking place in basketball, despite Theo Epstein ending the two greatest curses in sports, despite AlphaGo going 60-0 against top human players, despite all evidence to the contrary, football stubbornly clings to the notion that experience always trumps analysis. Although NFL coaches have a level of expertise about the game of football that most of us will never approach, it’s hard to give them the benefit of the doubt when they’ve collectively demonstrated an inability to master basic tactical decisions — like when you should go for 2 points when your team is down 2 points (spoiler: pretty much always).

Good discussion about the math showing that coaches generally don't go for two points frequently enough in this article on fivethirtyeight:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/whe...ry-twitter

On two point conversions, I think there are definitely situations where coaches maximize their probabilities of "staying in the game the longest" rather than maximizing their chances to win.  There are two specific examples cited, where coaches almost always pick the conservative choice, despite it not being win-optimizing:

If you’re down 8 points after scoring a touchdown (with 10 minutes left), you should go for 2, because the difference between being down 7 points (if you make the extra point) and being down 6 points (if you convert the 2) is greater than the difference between being down 7 points and being down 8 points (if you miss the 2-point conversion). Note that this is backed up by the numbers but should also be apparent intuitively.6

If you’re down 4 points after scoring a touchdown (with 10 minutes left), you should go for 2, because being down 2 points instead of 3 helps you more than being down 4 points instead of 3 hurts you. This one is a bit more counterintuitive, but if you think ahead, the second point means a future field goal could win the game (and if you don’t convert, you just have to adjust to go for winning touchdowns instead of tying field goals).

BC

As an interesting counterpoint to this discussion, I recall watching the Oregon-Nebraska game in Helfrich's final season.  Maybe some of this decision-making led to his demise at the end of 2016.  Oregon and Nebraska each scored five TDs.  Helfrich went for two after each TD, while Nebraska always kicked the extra point.  Oregon converted 1 out of 5 (very poor percentage conversion), while Nebraska made all their kicks.  The logical result: Nebraska 35 -- Oregon 32.  Oregon needed a FG to tie, but could not get into range in the final 2:29 of the game.

[Austroturf]

Despite the revolution taking place in basketball, despite Theo Epstein ending the two greatest curses in sports, despite AlphaGo going 60-0 against top human players, despite all evidence to the contrary, football stubbornly clings to the notion that experience always trumps analysis. Although NFL coaches have a level of expertise about the game of football that most of us will never approach, it’s hard to give them the benefit of the doubt when they’ve collectively demonstrated an inability to master basic tactical decisions — like when you should go for 2 points when your team is down 2 points (spoiler: pretty much always).

Good discussion about the math showing that coaches generally don't go for two points frequently enough in this article on fivethirtyeight:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/whe...ry-twitter

On two point conversions, I think there are definitely situations where coaches maximize their probabilities of "staying in the game the longest" rather than maximizing their chances to win.  There are two specific examples cited, where coaches almost always pick the conservative choice, despite it not being win-optimizing:

If you’re down 8 points after scoring a touchdown (with 10 minutes left), you should go for 2, because the difference between being down 7 points (if you make the extra point) and being down 6 points (if you convert the 2) is greater than the difference between being down 7 points and being down 8 points (if you miss the 2-point conversion). Note that this is backed up by the numbers but should also be apparent intuitively.6

If you’re down 4 points after scoring a touchdown (with 10 minutes left), you should go for 2, because being down 2 points instead of 3 helps you more than being down 4 points instead of 3 hurts you. This one is a bit more counterintuitive, but if you think ahead, the second point means a future field goal could win the game (and if you don’t convert, you just have to adjust to go for winning touchdowns instead of tying field goals).

BC

As an interesting counterpoint to this discussion, I recall watching the Oregon-Nebraska game in Helfrich's final season.  Maybe some of this decision-making led to his demise at the end of 2016.  Oregon and Nebraska each scored five TDs.  Helfrich went for two after each TD, while Nebraska always kicked the extra point.  Oregon converted 1 out of 5 (very poor percentage conversion), while Nebraska made all their kicks.  The logical result: Nebraska 35 -- Oregon 32.  Oregon needed a FG to tie, but could not get into range in the final 2:29 of the game.