00:00or the Lions were likely to get the ball back even if they failed
00:03because there was four minutes and change left.
00:06And that was deemed a positive in favor of going for it,
00:09that, okay, even if you don't get it, you're likely to get the ball back.
00:14And I'm like, okay, so that's a small positive,
00:18but the larger positive is don't lose the game.
00:23That a turnover there gives the other team a 90% make on field goals
00:31without getting a yard, that's a dumb thing to do.
00:36Basic strategy says get a lead, hold the lead, close out the game.
00:42If the game is tied and there's under five minutes to go
00:46and you've got a difficult conversion, fourth and one and a half,
00:50and a half an extra yard's a lot, right?
00:54If it's a yard truly or less, B. Mitch, you can QB sneak it.
01:00You can tush push it if you have a version of the tush push in your arsenal,
01:05which I don't think the Lions do.
01:08Goff is not a real physical quarterback.
01:11But a yard or truly less is a lot different than one and a half.
01:17Yeah, yeah.
01:18So they go for it and they screw it up.
01:20They lose two yards on fourth and one and a half
01:23on a slow-developing Jameer Gibbs handoff.
01:26And the Packers take over.
01:28They run three plays.
01:29They get no yardage.
01:31They had a touchdown right in the hands of Josh Jacobs.
01:33He dropped it.
01:33And then Trey smacked their rookie kicker from Florida,
01:36misses the kick, chokes.
01:38They go on down, march down the field.
01:39They had two plays where Jameer Gibbs realizes,
01:43hey, wait a minute, they're letting me score here.
01:44Whoop, let me go down because time is more important.
01:47The Lions played the clock game perfectly at the end,
01:50even though the decision by Campbell was, I think, suboptimal.
01:55Again, I'm all for analytics, but sometimes basic strategy is basic.
02:02Don't put the other team at a chance to take a lead
02:05while you're assuming you're going to get the ball back.
02:08They say, well, they were very likely to get it back.
02:10I'm like, show me your work on very likely.
02:12How many situations like this does a team get the ball back?
02:15Because if the Packers get a first down on three running plays
02:20and you don't call timeout, that's two minutes off the clock.
02:24Now we're at 2.53.
02:25They run two more running plays.
02:28You're at the two-minute warning.
02:30Now on third down, you get a first down
02:34and you can get three more timeouts taken off the board.
02:39The Packers, if they had slow walked a short drive,
02:42could have drained the clock themselves.
02:44Totally.
02:45I don't know why anyone assumes, oh, you're going to get the ball back.
02:48Don't worry.
02:49And even if you get the ball back, if you're trailing, that's bad.
02:52It's bad to be trailing, even if only by a field goal.
02:57I know the analytics world love to suggest.
03:01They always suggest the positive side.
03:03They don't suggest the negative side.
03:05Or they don't tell you, but this could happen.
03:08Right.
03:08Well, more than likely, you're going to get the ball back.
03:12I can't go with more than likely.
03:15Right.
03:16Because don't fall into a losing position automatically, which that does.
03:20You get the Hogs from back in the day, a line like that,
03:26or the Eagles of recent, or you get the Cowboys from back in the day,
03:30and you do that to them and you don't make it,
03:32you're not going to see the football again.
03:35Yeah.
03:35They're going to run a four-minute offense on you and they're going to shut you down.
03:38Sure.
03:38And I don't think, like for me, when I'm watching games,
03:43I know what they say about analytics, but my whole thing is like,
03:45okay, you could tell me what I should do,
03:47but when it doesn't work, you don't tell me why it didn't work.
03:50I don't like anything that tells me what I should do,
03:53but never, ever explains why something didn't go right or what went wrong.
03:59Yeah.
03:59Yeah.
03:59You know, so they can always tell you what you need to do,
04:02and then their argument is, well, you pay the percentages,
04:07that's what you're supposed to get.
04:07Well, the percentages didn't work for me that time.
04:10And I'm about to get fired.
04:11Right.
04:12The other problem with the percentages is they are accumulated over an aggregate
04:18of every team in every game across a long span of games, a whole season.
04:24And so, therefore, that's where the number comes from.
04:27But as you accurately said, each game in the NFL is an episodic moment
04:32in which there is a start and an end and a final result that is significant,
04:36win or loss, or tie, and a coach has to live with that,
04:41a coach has to stand up at the podium and defend that,
04:43a team has to respond to that.
04:45We've got a short schedule here.
04:47We've got 17 of these episodic events.
04:50You can't apply long-run statistical advantages on short-run episodic moments
04:57because had they gotten the first down, tell them what they've won, Bob,
05:01a new set of downs at their own 26.
05:04They've won virtually nothing other than the chance to keep a long drive going
05:11to get into field goal position themselves.
05:13So that was the win.
05:15The loss was a 90% near-automatic field goal,
05:20which Trey Smack bailed Dan Campbell out on,
05:24and they end up winning the game otherwise.
05:27It, to me, is the analytics guys out there,
05:31they obsess about hypothetical small wins,
05:34and they dismiss the obvious bad losses.
05:39A bad loss is you just gave up an automatic field goal.
05:43Oh, but don't worry.
05:44Theoretically, we're getting the ball back,
05:46and then everything's going to be fine
05:47because Goff's going to go right down the field and score a touchdown.
05:49What if you don't get it back?
05:50To win the game.
05:51But what if you don't?
05:51Right.
05:52Or what if he throws an interception or gets strip-sacked and fumbled?
05:55A million things could happen.
05:57I want the analytics world to be able to tell me,
05:59hey, go for it.
06:00The kicker's going to miss, and then you're going to get a chance.
06:02You can predict that, then I'll believe in you.
06:04Right.
06:04Now, here's my other problem with that go for it.
06:09More than just the situational, I think, tone-deafness of it,
06:14it was the play call.
06:16Here's what's dumb, and I see this a lot in the league, Brian.
06:19Fourth and one, big down.
06:22Teams come out in these heavy sets all the time.
06:26Three tight ends, single tailback personnel,
06:29and I'm like, so you're really not going to pass here.
06:33Why not?
06:34A pass on fourth and one is free.
06:39You know why?
06:40Because an incompletion or an interception doesn't cost any more than a stuffed run,
06:46unless it's a pick six.
06:48Okay, let me put that as a caveat.
06:50It doesn't, all of the risk and passing of incompletions, sacks, interceptions
06:57become non-factors in a fourth-down situation, because it's literally you make it or you don't.
07:03I would, as a coach, on fourth and one, come out in four wide, and I would say,
07:09oh, oh, wow, you subbed in a heavy set on defense.
07:12Looks like you're going to have a problem here.
07:14If I'm the Lions, and Goff is great, and he was dealing yesterday,
07:18I'm on Ross St. Brown, was carving guys up.
07:21If you can't complete a three-yard stop or a five-yard flare on third or on fourth and one
07:28and a half,
07:29then what are you even doing?
07:31Pass in that situation.
07:33A play-action pass even would kill him.
07:36But you have to have at least the requisite personnel of at least two wide receivers.
07:39But even think about this, you bring in your jumbo personnel, they get all tight,
07:46do what the damn Giants did.
07:47Which is?
07:48When Jameis just handed the ball off and Scadaboo went off tackle,
07:52and it was nobody out there.
07:53Everybody, the outside corner just crashed.
07:57Right.
07:58Didn't even see him, he ran right past him.
08:00So I just think whenever you bring in that,
08:02the mindset of everyone is to pile up in the middle.
08:05You've got to have something hitting them on the edge.
08:07Right.
08:08The tough guy sort of football coach ethic is,
08:13we can get a yard.
08:15We're going to show how tough we are.
08:16And Dan Campbell is the alpha when it comes to let's show our toughness.
08:21But toughness is not good strategy because it's a matter of bodies in a confined area.
08:28You're running a running play.
08:30You're telegraphing.
08:31This is a run.
08:32We don't even have anyone to throw.
08:33We've got one guy to throw it to.
08:35We're probably not going to throw it to them.
08:37It's a run.
08:38And they've got their heavy jumbo defense in there.
08:41What the hell did you think was going to happen?
08:43Yeah.
08:44Just play it like a normal down.
08:45Say, can we get two yards by any of our combination of plays?
08:51Runs and passes, by the way.
