The problem with analytics is that it only make sense if you are applying it to the entire season where the results will work out in the wash. In an elimination game you have to take the sure thing because the universe of opportunities for things to even out is limited by definition.
Field goals aren't automatic and receivers don't usually drop passes. The only time he left points on the field was right before halftime. Making the decisions he made after halftime would benefit the Lions more often than not. They didn't this time, but that doesn't change the correct process used to arrive at the decisions. Making decisions based on feel and momentum is what dumb teams like the Jets do. This really illustrates part of the reason we're so bad. Saleh and Hackett, with a bad team, played most of this season as if they were a good team. They went uber conservative. That is the exact opposite of what you should be doing when you're a worse team than most of the teams you face.
I get that, but if you start going against the numbers here and there you end up like Brandon Staley where you're so far in your own head that you end up doing things you know are suboptimal due to public pressure.
Revision, I am a fan of your football takes my friend but this time you are way off base. He could have been up 3 scores midway thru 3rd quarter and instead he chose the risky play. In a play off game, you should take points each time you get a chance to go up by 3 score on the road. What Campbell did cost his team the game. I would drop out of the bridge if I was a Lions fan tonight. What a gut wrenching loss.
The two field goals that Campbell passed up on would have been from 45 and 47 yards. They were not sure things.
He was up 3 scores at halftime and the 49ers erased it in a single quarter. They were a better team than the Lions. The risk when you're the worse team is by playing conservatively, because if the game goes how it usually would you're likely to lose because you're the inferior team overall. You maximize variance when you're the inferior team. It leads to you winning the game the highest % of the time.
If we're playing the hindsight game, anyone want to get on McDermott for not going for it on 4th down and sending Bass out there? Yeah it was 4th and 9, so he made the right decision to kick, but it was a lot closer than it might seem. Bass was a bad kicker going in, and all the field goal would have done is tie the game and give Mahomes the ball back with 1:47 to go. Whereas if they'd converted the 4th down, they could have won it with a touchdown, or at least given Bass a shorter field goal that would have all but guaranteed overtime. But funny how nobody's willing to go there when it's a field goal attempt that fails.
I have been in show me mode with Lamar for years. He keeps not showing me. That sequence at the end with the clock running down, he's running around, running sideways, and even the announcer said he ran 40 yards just to gain 5. Can't do that with time running out, have to make a play. He is currently, not saying it's forever, but he currently hasn't gotten to a point where he has that gene that gets him over the top.
I don't feel like reading through everything, has anyone come up with a cute name for the facemask interception that wasn't? It was the turning point, even if you want to argue that going for on fourth was, but that play was something that immediately made you feel like they would lose that game. Almost a physical field to a momentum switch. It will be in the highlight reels for years along with the Immaculate Reception, the Butt Fumble, and everything else. Anyone?
This is easily the worst coached game on a cumulative level I've ever seen. There are dumber individual play calls, there are dumber decisions, but compounding each decision with another bad decision, I've never seen it before. Just incredible how stubborn and proud he was in going for it every time on fourth down. Even the one at the end was dumb. Fourth and goal from the three, they ended up scoring the touchdown, but how do you not kick the field goal there? And let's not even get into running the ball on third down to force yourself to burn a time out that you let all the clock run down to preserve. This was so Jets like I was sick for them.
See, I reverse those. I think you take the points at halftime, and I was OK with him going for it in the fourth quarter. I see the value in going up three scores, but I also like the idea of continuing the momentum and trying to boot stomp them into the ground. But saying that's the only mistake he made is really overstating the case. He made several big mistakes on the last drive alone. Brutal brutal mistakes.
Which mistakes did he make on the last drive? They shouldn't have run the ball near the endzone, but that's on the OC imo.
You can sell me on going for it when it was 27-24 even though I thoroughly disagree. It would’ve been a big momentum stopper for the 49ers to keep that drive alive and try to go get a touchdown. Not kicking the FG on 4th down up 24-10 on their first possession of the second half was utterly boneheaded.
I honestly think the moment was a little too big for Lamar. He was throwing very high all game and looked like he was just over anxious. He had plenty of time to throw but the Chiefs did that by design it seems. They went back to the Chargers gameplan in the 2019 playoffs when they just flooded the defensive backfield with defenders and asked him to throw in tight windows.
