You can probably guess who made the worst decision of the week, though. Panthers head coach Ron Rivera absolutely bungled his end-of-game scenario against the Falcons, setting Atlanta up for a dramatic comeback win. Let's not judge Rivera's decision by its obviously poor outcome; let's go through his thinking and analyze the process.
To set the scene, the Panthers came within a fumble of winning this game. Cam Newton actually got the ball past the sticks on a key third-and-2 run, but fumbled backward to the point where the ball was a yard short of the sticks, setting up a fourth-and-1 on Atlanta's 44-yard line. With 1:44 on the clock and no timeouts left for the Falcons, a conversion for the Panthers would allow them to kneel three times and hold onto their hard-earned 28-27 victory. A failed conversion would give the ball to the Falcons with excellent field position, and a punt would give Atlanta the ball with inferior field position.
The "indeterminate" field position is a key bit in analyzing this decision. After the fact, the argument in favor of Rivera's call seemed to revolve around the idea that the Panthers were able to down the ball at the 1-yard line, giving Carolina the best possible punting outcome before the long drive. The problem with that logic is that you can't assume whatsoever before the play that a Panthers punt will be downed on the 1-yard line, since such a great punt is far from guaranteed. Carolina's gunner was inches away from touching the goal line, producing a touchback that would have been of little value. There's a shot of downing the ball at the 1-yard line, of course, but you can't plug it in as one of Rivera's choices. Instead, you have to take the average of all the possibilities from the punt and use that as your baseline in making the decision. ESPN Stats and Info checked that and found that a punt from the 50-yard line will produce an average of 31 yards, giving Atlanta the ball at their own 19-yard line.
ESPN Stats and Info also found that, since 2001, teams who ran the ball on fourth-and-1 in the fourth quarter with a lead and the ball between the 40- and 50-yard line have converted on 71.9 percent of those carries. And according to Brian Burke's
fourth-down calculator, the Panthers would be in the right to go for it in this situation if they thought they could succeed 35 percent of the time on fourth-and-1. Thirty-five percent! Remember: that's the
average team. The Panthers are not your average short-yardage running team. In addition to the considerable skills of Cam Newton, Carolina has spent nearly $50 million on running backs DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart to ensure that their running game is effective. If you don't trust your team to pick up one yard with the game on the line in the fourth quarter,
why did you spend close to $50 million on running backs? What's the point of having Cam Newton?
Don't believe all those numbers? Fine. Throw all the numbers out. Pretend you've got your life savings riding on a Panthers victory. Would you rather the Panthers try to get one yard with Cam Newton or try to stop Matt Ryan from picking up 50 yards at home against Haruki Nakamura? Do you think a single Falcons fan in the Georgia Dome was upset that the Panthers didn't try to go for it against that legendarily fierce Falcons front four? Of course not. It felt like a gift because it was one.
Given his team's particular mix of strengths and weaknesses, and the extremely high stakes of the situation, Rivera's decision to punt is a strong candidate for worst coaching decision of the year. ESPN Stats and Info's win expectancy model estimates that it dropped Carolina's chances of winning from 83.5 percent to 57.4 percent without adjusting for the specific skills of the two teams; chances are that Rivera dropped his team's "true" chances of winning by 35-40 percent by punting.
But, hey, at least he iced Matt Bryant before the game-winning kick, right?
09-30-2012, 05:36 PM
