Mike Nolan is an Idiot, Parag is a Stupid Quant!
I know I promised a post on asset values but I’m pissed. My beloved 49ers are being destroyed by incompetency. The team need to get rid of Mike Nolan and his quantitative analyst, Parag Marathe. Maybe that’s harsh… but I watched this team win 5 Superbowls and I’m disgusted to watch them play such sloppy football.
No doubt that Quant can do calculus way better than me, but I’m guessing he can’t throw a spiral. He probably knows all the standard deviations of average punting distances on an October Sunday in Green Bay, but it’s clear he does not really understand the game or love it. He is not a football guy. He would not screw this team up so badly if he loved the game.
Nolan is incompetent. The Quant needs to teach him some simple arithmetic. Nolan made two unforgivable errors that drove me crazy on Sunday. These were pee-wee level mistakes. No high school coach would have made them. I’m not talking about the instant replay challenges (those were retarded too). I’m talking about extra points.
Football is a game of 3’s and 7’s. Field goals and TD’s are the two ways that an offense can score. When you are behind by 2 points after scoring a touchdown, you ALWAYS try to tie the game up with a 2 point conversion. You don’t play to lose. Nolan disregarded this rule right before halftime by going for a free kick to bring the score to narrow Philadelphia’s lead to 17-16. Later, when the niners scored a touchdown to take a 22-17 lead, he refused to make the game a 1 touchdown game by going for the 2 point conversion. That second decision confirmed to me that he is either: (a) clueless, (b) stubborn, 3) both a and b.
This might seem nitpicky but it is basic strategy. In fact, below is a 2 point conversion chart from some random GeoCities site. That’s right… Geocities!!!! That is how old, ancient and basic the strategy is.
I MISS YOU EDDIE D!
October 14th, 2008 at 7:59 am
I was thinking about this since I had seen teams not converting two point conversions in a couple of games recently.
The argument is likely that if (1) the game is early,(2) one expects to see multiple scores later, (3) and the odds of making a two point conversion is significantly less than 50%, then a two point conversion is not necessary. It becomes progressively more important later in the fourth quarter.
On the other side of the coin, if (1) your kicker not very reliable, and (2) your high powered offense can convert two point conversions with relative ease, then one should go for the two point conversions in just about all plays regardless of the score.
That was what the St. Louis Rams practically had done when they won their Super Bowl back in the nineties.
- Gil
October 14th, 2008 at 11:27 am
Gil-
You are wrong. When you have a chance to tie a game up - you must. There is no effective difference between being behind by 2 points or 1. Either way, you are a loser when time expires.
To quote Herm Edwards:
“You play to win the game!”
October 14th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Rich,
I respectively disagree. To exaggerate the point, it’s like a basketball coach deciding whether to go for a 3 point play or a 2 point play when behind by three points early in the first quarter. There’s too much variance and noise to make that decision. That stuff is decided in the final seconds.
It’s all about odds and percentages. If your team can’t convert two point conversions (eg. a 20% conversion rate) and your team can easily make a point conversion, then I’d go for a one point conversion with no hesitation when it’s early in the game.
In mathematical terms, that’s 20%*2 points or effectively 0.4 points conversion rate. This is lower than the almost guaranteed one point conversion rate.