Bad Coaching Thread: Matt Eberflus canned like chunk light tuna

Steichen using a timeout to try and draw Texans offside on opposition 15, 4th and 1, down 6, with 55 seconds left. Texans don't bite, he then takes out Taylor who has gone 30 for 188 in the game and they miss the pass and don't get the ball back due to the timeout they used

The Taylor numbers are a bit misleading. On that drive he was 9 for 23 yards and didn't get the first on the previous 3rd&2 play. Time looks wrong too. I think the previous play ended around 1:45 and they let the clock run down all the way on purpose before taking the timeout.

I don't know the exact numbers but the designed pass play looked good and obviously would have worked out perfectly if Minshew didn't mess up the throw and Goodson doesn't drop it.

But they obviously should have had the 4th down play ready to run instead of having to burn timeout.

Mike ****ing Tomlin with some title level imbeciliry

21-7 bills. Bills get the ball to start the 2nd half. Bills don’t have a punter. Stealers have all 3 timeouts

Allen gets sacked with 37 seconds left. Tomlin doesn’t call timeout

2 seconds left for some reason he calls timeout

I mean the game was basically over at 21-0. They just happened to get a lucky block. Most already know he’s terrible at managing the clock.

Todd Bowles didn't call his last timeout to get a very slim chance of winning his playoff game because he had already given up.

Yeah I need a better explanation of this and why the announcers didn't mention it at all at the end of the game.

Wow, I noted at the time that Goff kneeled @ 0:30, but just checked pbp and indeed it was 0:37.

Of course Lions could have ran more time, but TB could have forced a punt. Either Lions thought Bowles was not going to call TO on 4th (because he did not call one on 2nd or 3rd), or some signal was sent sideline-to-sideline that TB gave up.

It would have been a great angle shoot by Bowles to take TO there, with the misleading tactic of not taking TO on 2nd/3rd downs. He did a huge disservice to his players by not taking TO, as crazy things could still happen.

Most likely Lions would have taken a delay of game, then punted from the 36, draining 10 seconds or so leaving TB the ball inside the 20 with about 0:25. At the time I thought Lions would try the FG, but a miss would put the ball at the 39 with 0:32, and that is far too much time and field position to concede.

Guys like McVay would definitely take TO there, regardless of the angle shoot perception. At minimum a coach needs to force the opponent to earn the win.

Think Campell is being too aggressive. Going for it on 4th will eventually bite him in ass. Especially against 49ers or Ravens.

Anyone who goes as often as he does is going to lose some. Plenty of them. But it’s in his DNA, it’s not going to change and for now Lions fans are 100% fine with it.

The Lions went for the 2nd most 4th downs this season. I don't think he's going to change his strategy at this point. They had the 11th highest conversion rate at 52.5%. Unsurprisingly, the Eagles had the top conversion rate at 73.1%.

https://www.statmuse.com/nfl/ask/most-4t...

I don't recall seeing many bad 4th down decisions from Dan.

Especially against 49ers and Ravens it might be optimal to go for it on 4th down even more often because increasing variance obviously helps if you're the inferior team.

Dan GAMBLE is heading to Vegas!

Hide your kneecaps!

I couldn't believe it. I went back and made sure that the timeout graphic was actually right. And Detroit kneeling it was strange too considering.

it's way better to go for it from an ev perspective

4th and 1 conversion rates are about 65% - this is obv inflated by teams who are extra good at it ie eagles/brady so let's say 60%

not even accounting for the extra points or the possibility of missed/blocked/muffed fg then you have 3.6 points of EV (plus extra point ev) by going for it vs <3 by kicking it

like this is another thing in the 2pt conversion math, they forget that 7% of extra points are missed

so 45% conversion = .45*2=.9
vs 93% conversion = .93*1=.93

so the ev loss is minimal, and obviously some teams will be better at it than others, that 45% includes a lot of teams who are not good at, never practice it, and are only doing it in desperate situations

what I would really like to see is the renaissance of the dropkick extra point, i think if teams defaulted to this as their typical extra point conversion then that would really ramp up the success rate of the 2pt conversion because then it'd be easier to mix it up because it's the qb out there not the kicking unit

That's only true in exactly one situation: where a successful 4th down conversion results in a TD on that play.

If you have a 60% chance of converting 4th&1 from the 30 (60% probability sounds way too low for 2023 btw) your EV is 0.6*(your EV for 1&10 from your average position after a successful play) compared to your EV for the kick which is below 75% from the 30.

yeah it's obviously more complex when not on the goal line or situations where getting a 1st down also means winning "up by 1 with <2 min left and 4th and 1"

yeah those numbers were random google results that were in line with memory so didn't dive deep on them

typically 4th and 1 on the 1 yard line have slightly lower conversion rates than say 4th and 1 on the 30 because there's less open field for receivers and the d-line can get away with stacking the box more because there's only so much space a wr can take if left in weak coverage

another factor in going for it that's often overlooked is that when you have a turnover on downs instead the red zone, the ball is often in better field position than if you kicked off, this is especially true inside the 5 where play calls are highly restricted to avoid giving up a safety

it's only in the simulation world and hs football right now, but a never punt /kick strategy has a higher ev than one that does kick and punt (obviously you'll punt on 4th and 17 etc)

thus far a few hs coaches have implemented it to great success, but then again you can get away with a lot at that level, i remember seeing a state championship game in colorado where the winning team just did the same exact run up the middle play each time and just slowly grinded out a victory because the offensive line was so much better and they could consistently open up a 4-5 yard hole and just grind out a td on every possession while eating up massive amounts of clock, they threw the ball just one time the entire game late in the 4th while up heavily and it was intercepted

Teams like this can go 10/10 on 4th down, then they'll miss one and everybody will spaz about how it was "too risky" while ignoring all the benefits they've gotten all year from the same aggressive playcalling. It's hilarious and just results oriented.

They key is if the owner has your back or not. Staley had a surreal string of bad luck with the still correct aggressive calls, because Chargers, and then went from super-aggressive to below average the next year. I wouldn't be surprised if the owner told him to knock it off.

this - every team knows the analytics and that you should go for it far more often than we do

they are too worried about optics and the corresponding job security

If there's one thing I've learned it's that you ALWAYS force teams from Michigan to punt, even if it seems like the game is over.

This is what Bowles said according to ESPN.com:

"It's not a gentlemen's agreement," Bowles said Monday. "They were in field goal range. We'd have had 12 seconds, calculated, after using that timeout to come back from it. Then we'd have been down 11 points, so it's kind of pointless. You kind of know when the game is over. The game was over."

No idea how he comes up with the 12 seconds, I doubt the lines are able to take 25 seconds off the clock on a punt or field goal. Also the FG claim is dubios with a kicker who is below 40% in his career on kicks of 50+ yards. That kick would have been 49 yards. So I wouldn't even be sure the Lions would have attempted a kick. If they did and missed, Tampa actually would have had a chance from their own 39 because the spot is from where they kick not the LOS on 4th down.

That whole situation also makes you wonder what Detroit was doing? Campbell says they didn't bleed the clock because he could tell Tampa wouldn't take the timeout.

everyone is laughing at Bowles here but Campbell almost earned a permanent spot in the title of this thread. even if you are 99% sure tampa will not use a timeout there is nothing to gain by snapping the ball with 20 seconds on the clock

I'd also love to see some numbers regarding the decision to kneel down 3 times instead of gaining a couple yards to give your kicker an easier shot. 3 runs also take off a couple extra seconds, but there's the obvious risk of a fumble.

there was 1:30 left on the game clock and Tampa had one timeout, anything besides snapping the ball with one second on the playclock and taking 3 knees is terrible.