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OT FivethirtyEight Analysis: You Called A Run On First Down. You’re Already Screwed.

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Pete Carroll will never forget the bonehead pass play he called in the Super Bowl against the Patriots that was intercepted and Seattle lost the game. Seahawks had the premier RB in the NFL and they were on the Pats 1 yd line !
 
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That is an NFL article. But I absolutely agree with the premise in regard to the NFL. There is not nearly enough play action passing on first down. I used that same Seahawk/Cowboys game as example last week on Finheaven, the Dolphins message board. Seattle had nothing going offensively in the first half until Russell Wilson hit a couple of big roll action passes on first down. Back to back. The second one went deep into Cowboys territory to about the 15. The difference between a touchdown and field goal on possessions like that is massive. It basically decides the outcome. There is considerably less margin for error on pro possessions than college possessions. I said to the people I was watching the game with that Seattle should continue to be aggressive on the subsequent first down play, but the overwhelming NFL tendency is to get lazy and think you have to run the ball on the next play or two. That's exactly what Seattle did, it equated to a field goal, and a tight loss.

The Patriots often use hurry up and run the ball after a long successful play. No change of personnel. That is great strategy also. Defensive line is gassed and simply not ready.

I hope Diaz and Enos use hurry up and run the ball.
 
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Ethnicsands said:
Read the link. Interesting topic but flawed analysis. John Nash would not be impressed.
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Agreed. The success rate metric is only calculated if you take three downs. I understand why you'd do that, but you're really limiting the population there. It also ignores yards to go, which a) is probably more important to success rate and b) also dictates play call. This analysis goes under "interesting but not very useful" as far as I can tell
 
ItsACanesThing7 said:
Agreed. The success rate metric is only calculated if you take three downs. I understand why you'd do that, but you're really limiting the population there. It also ignores yards to go, which a) is probably more important to success rate and b) also dictates play call. This analysis goes under "interesting but not very useful" as far as I can tell
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It entirely ignores game theory, entirely. Running may be dumb, but as soon as defenses correctly expect offenses to pass all the time, the value of running will increase.
 
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