Should We Stop Going For It On 4th Down?

[Air Coryell]

Most of you guys are delusional when it comes to winning. I'm a chargers fan, but they have NEVER won anything when given the opportunity. Football is won/lost on the line of scrimmage. Run the ball, protect the passer, STOP the run. Need 3 phases; Chargers have never had all 3. We have lame ownership and a lap dog GM. All of our coaches have very little NFL coaching experience. Yes, we have a great kid in JH. Lets have the organization step up and provide a different future.

[Boltgang74]

Yep.D line and O line this offseason along with CB and we will be ready to take the division.

[Xenos]

It should be pointed out that kicking it instead of going for it on 4th down did cost us a game this year. 5th one down.

[ChargersPowderBlue]

Yep.D line and O line this offseason along with CB and we will be ready to take the division.

The defense has more weakness that needs to be addressed IMO. On offense we need ROT and a 2nd and maybe even 3rd RB to help Ekeler. Maybe ROG unless Oboushi stays healthy.

[jubei]

I'm not upset over being aggressive on 4th downs but I thought try a FG on the longer one and one of the ones that wouldve given you a 7 pt lead. I'm more mad that we had yet another TD drop in the endzone (or was it 2 drops) as well as josh FREAKIN kelley trying to do a leap from beyond the 3 when he's got NO LEAPS!

[Xenos]

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2021/12/20/nfl-omicron-playoffs-week-15-fmia-peter-king/

Fourth down is the new third down


Two weeks ago I micro-analyzed Brandon Staley’s penchant for going against football tradition by consistently going for it on fourth downs when the math told him it advantaged him. On Thursday night, in the 34-28 loss to Kansas City that likely will determine the winner of the AFC West, Staley went for it five times on fourth down—and three times failed.

I asked Champion Gaming chief innovation officer Frank Frigo, a veteran numbers-cruncher at EdjSports, how he felt about each of the five Staley fourth-down calls. He liked four. He didn’t hate the fifth—fourth-and-one at the goal line at the end of the first half—but he would have kicked the field goal there and taken the easy three points. “They probably have a 55 percent chance to convert that into a touchdown,” Frigo said, “but all the benefit of leaving Kansas City with the ball at the 1 if you fail is taken away because it’s at end of the half.”

Frigo said he hopes Staley sticks to his guns, because the math is behind him. “Human beings love to play results,” Frigo said. “If they fail twice on fourth down, the tendency is not to want to go for it on the third try. I hope Staley stays the course. He’s right.”

[ChargersPowderBlue]

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...ia-peter-king/

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/s...ets-learn.html

That was during the time when Brady was last shut out prior to the most recent 0-9 beating.

[Xenos]

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/s...ets-learn.html

That was during the time when Brady was last shut out prior to the most recent 0-9 beating.

Article from 2006 though. 15 years have passed and now we know more.

[sonorajim]

The defense has more weakness that needs to be addressed IMO. On offense we need ROT and a 2nd and maybe even 3rd RB to help Ekeler. Maybe ROG unless Oboushi stays healthy.

DB depth is our greatest weakness. Nothing else is close. The drop off in DB talent results in L's, most recently vs KC. OL, depth incl, did Not lose that game. The OL depth is actually decent. The coaches have done a good job developing them. We're in a good position to take BPA in the 1st. PON is
1. CB, 2. S, 3, DT, Edge, RB 4, OL, WR, TE. It'll be interesting to see who we resign, take in FA, where we pick and how the draft talent stacks up.

[bartman83642]

It should be pointed out that kicking it instead of going for it on 4th down did cost us a game this year. 5th one down.

Do you have the bot calculation for that field goal like you responded to my previous post?

[Xenos]

Do you have the bot calculation for that field goal like you responded to my previous post?

I found something but only after searching through Popper’s Tweets.

[Xenos]

Here’s another great breakdown.

https://theathletic.com/3027288/2021/12/21/going-for-it-on-4th-down-2-point-tries-are-coaches-drunk-on-analytics-take-a-deep-breath-week-15-nfl-reality-check/

Did it work out? No. The Chargers went 2-for-5 on fourth downs and twice failed to convert inside the Kansas City 6-yard line. Some might argue that Staley should have learned his lesson and stopped going for it after he failed once or twice. But that would have been a mistake. The third failed fourth-down attempt had nothing to do with the first or second ones. The Chargers went into the game with multiple fourth-down calls that they liked and a well-conceived plan. It didn’t work out. That’s football.

The most common mistake we can make when analyzing these decisions is hindsight bias. As Philip E. Tetlock and Dan Gardner wrote in “Superforecasting”, “Once we know the outcome of something, that knowledge skews our perception of what we thought before we knew the outcome.”

Going into Thursday night’s game, the Chargers ranked second in EPA on fourth downs. In other words, Staley’s aggressiveness on fourth downs had helped the Chargers all season. The only team that had benefited more from going for it on fourth down was the Ravens.

If there was a way to know beforehand whether the fourth-down attempt was going to be successful, that would make life a lot easier, and the decisions would be simple. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Coaches have to make decisions based on the information they have at the time. And we should judge their decisions through that lens.