Peter King Gives Us Another Reason To Question His Football Knowlegde (1 Viewer)

[PatsWillWin]

From Monday Morning QB

I don't care if it didn't work. I loved Bill Parcells going for two after the Cowboys' first touchdown. You know why? Tony Romo is a mobile quarterback and showed last week on the same play how dangerous he is with five receivers spreading the field; he completed a two-point-conversion pass to Terrell Owens in Carolina eight days ago. Here, up 6-5, Romo spread the field again, rolled right but threw it incomplete

That decision probably cost the Cowboys the game yesterday. I don't like to work in hypotheticals, but by going for the extra point, the Cowboys are still up one and only running the clock out at the end of the game. Instead, they are attempting a game winning FG with 6 seconds on the clock and setting themselves up for the unthinkable to happen.

wouldn't you have to assume that if they had only gone for 1 and made it that the Redskins would've then gone for 2 on one of their extra point attempts, so the score could've easily still been tied?

Not according to Ditka. According to Ditka everything would've been the same, so you can just add 1 point to Dallas' score in the 4th quarter.

Really, please stop. The amount of relevant infofmation you are adding to this conversation has my head spinning.

LOL - Are you serious? I can do this too.I know you are but what am I.

Your turn!

 

[Limp Ditka]

the problem with your entire argument, Limp Ditka, is that its totally results oriented thinking. Suppose that they went for one and made it and they ended up losing the game by one point....then would that have been the wrong call to just go for one?You can say that you wouldn't go for two in that situation- that is fine. But your argument needs to totally ignore the results of this one game because that is the very definition of the fallacy of results oriented thinking.

First, I said it was hypothetical in the very first post.Second, I'm sure there were enough people questioning it when it happened. No one would have sanely questioned going for one at the time.Therefore, if the issue can be and was questioned while it happened, how is it results oriented?Last, my argument is more about Peter King and his football acumen then about anything else so the outcome of the game is somewhat irrelevant.

 

[Limp Ditka]

From Monday Morning QB

I don't care if it didn't work. I loved Bill Parcells going for two after the Cowboys' first touchdown. You know why? Tony Romo is a mobile quarterback and showed last week on the same play how dangerous he is with five receivers spreading the field; he completed a two-point-conversion pass to Terrell Owens in Carolina eight days ago. Here, up 6-5, Romo spread the field again, rolled right but threw it incomplete

That decision probably cost the Cowboys the game yesterday. I don't like to work in hypotheticals, but by going for the extra point, the Cowboys are still up one and only running the clock out at the end of the game. Instead, they are attempting a game winning FG with 6 seconds on the clock and setting themselves up for the unthinkable to happen.

wouldn't you have to assume that if they had only gone for 1 and made it that the Redskins would've then gone for 2 on one of their extra point attempts, so the score could've easily still been tied?

Not according to Ditka. According to Ditka everything would've been the same, so you can just add 1 point to Dallas' score in the 4th quarter.

Really, please stop. The amount of relevant infofmation you are adding to this conversation has my head spinning.

LOL - Are you serious? I can do this too.I know you are but what am I.

Your turn!

The powers that be won't allow me to answer this.I'm sure that you can make you own assumptions though. You already proven yourself quite good at it.

 

[PatsWillWin]

From Monday Morning QB

I don't care if it didn't work. I loved Bill Parcells going for two after the Cowboys' first touchdown. You know why? Tony Romo is a mobile quarterback and showed last week on the same play how dangerous he is with five receivers spreading the field; he completed a two-point-conversion pass to Terrell Owens in Carolina eight days ago. Here, up 6-5, Romo spread the field again, rolled right but threw it incomplete

That decision probably cost the Cowboys the game yesterday. I don't like to work in hypotheticals, but by going for the extra point, the Cowboys are still up one and only running the clock out at the end of the game. Instead, they are attempting a game winning FG with 6 seconds on the clock and setting themselves up for the unthinkable to happen.

wouldn't you have to assume that if they had only gone for 1 and made it that the Redskins would've then gone for 2 on one of their extra point attempts, so the score could've easily still been tied?

Not according to Ditka. According to Ditka everything would've been the same, so you can just add 1 point to Dallas' score in the 4th quarter.

Really, please stop. The amount of relevant infofmation you are adding to this conversation has my head spinning.

LOL - Are you serious? I can do this too.I know you are but what am I.

Your turn!

The powers that be won't allow me to answer this.I'm sure that you can make you own assumptions though. You already proven yourself quite good at it.

Gee - that is some "relevant information". Be consisten. If you're going to trash on somone for giving their opinion and it not being "relevant information", then perhaps you should refrain from doing it yourself, no?This is a thread of opinions. It is your opinion of Peter King's opinion of Bill Parcell's opinion. There is no irrelevant information except your useless drabble judging what everyone else is posting.

My opinion is that going for two there did not "cost them the game" as there were several other more influential plays that ocurred much later in the game that could all be said to have cost Dallas the game before a failed 2pt conversion in the 2nd quarter.

Your opinion is that since they could've kicked a FG in the 2nd quarter, you could just add 1 point to Dallas' score in the 4th quarter, and thus that cost Dallas the game.

My opinion is that is complete ###-backwards thinking since that 1 point changes the how the game could've/would've gone as Washington could've gone for 2 later as well as not settled for a FG if they were down by 4 as opposed to down by 3.

So there - that's my "relevant information" - I'm sorry if it's not as "relevant" as you wanting to take a dump on Peter King.

 

[Assani Fisher]

the problem with your entire argument, Limp Ditka, is that its totally results oriented thinking. Suppose that they went for one and made it and they ended up losing the game by one point....then would that have been the wrong call to just go for one?

You can say that you wouldn't go for two in that situation- that is fine. But your argument needs to totally ignore the results of this one game because that is the very definition of the fallacy of results oriented thinking.

First, I said it was hypothetical in the very first post.Second, I'm sure there were enough people questioning it when it happened. No one would have sanely questioned going for one at the time.

Therefore, if the issue can be and was questioned while it happened, how is it results oriented?

Last, my argument is more about Peter King and his football acumen then about anything else so the outcome of the game is somewhat irrelevant.

Go re-read your posts throughout this thread, mainly the first one. The majority of your argument has to do with results oriented thinking. If you can't logicially see this, then I just don't know what to tell you.

 

[Assani Fisher]

From Monday Morning QB

I don't care if it didn't work. I loved Bill Parcells going for two after the Cowboys' first touchdown. You know why? Tony Romo is a mobile quarterback and showed last week on the same play how dangerous he is with five receivers spreading the field; he completed a two-point-conversion pass to Terrell Owens in Carolina eight days ago. Here, up 6-5, Romo spread the field again, rolled right but threw it incomplete

That decision probably cost the Cowboys the game yesterday. I don't like to work in hypotheticals, but by going for the extra point, the Cowboys are still up one and only running the clock out at the end of the game. Instead, they are attempting a game winning FG with 6 seconds on the clock and setting themselves up for the unthinkable to happen.

Just quoting it, so you can re-read it for yourself. Looking back over it, EVERY SINGLE PART OF YOUR ARGUMENT IN YOUR INITIAL POST IS RESULTS ORIENTED THINKING.

 

[snorlax]

If you're going to be able to make the conversion more than 50 percent of the time, you're going to score more points than if you went for one every time. So why not do it?

I don't see how anyone could argue against this. Someone help me out here.

 

[NorvilleBarnes]

If you're going to be able to make the conversion more than 50 percent of the time, you're going to score more points than if you went for one every time. So why not do it?

I don't see how anyone could argue against this. Someone help me out here.

Seriously?

 

[Limp Ditka]

From Monday Morning QB

I don't care if it didn't work. I loved Bill Parcells going for two after the Cowboys' first touchdown. You know why? Tony Romo is a mobile quarterback and showed last week on the same play how dangerous he is with five receivers spreading the field; he completed a two-point-conversion pass to Terrell Owens in Carolina eight days ago. Here, up 6-5, Romo spread the field again, rolled right but threw it incomplete

That decision probably cost the Cowboys the game yesterday. I don't like to work in hypotheticals, but by going for the extra point, the Cowboys are still up one and only running the clock out at the end of the game. Instead, they are attempting a game winning FG with 6 seconds on the clock and setting themselves up for the unthinkable to happen.

Just quoting it, so you can re-read it for yourself. Looking back over it, EVERY SINGLE PART OF YOUR ARGUMENT IN YOUR INITIAL POST IS RESULTS ORIENTED THINKING.

The basic argument, outside of King, is that you don't take points off the board early in the game. If it needed to be spelled out for you in the first post, I'm sorry it wasn't. The facts are that it was questioned by people, including myself, when it happened. I apologize for not being here to start a thread about it at that exact moment, but this damn thing called life gets in the way of my innerwebs time every so often.

The results are there now and only help solidify the fact that it's not smart football.

And if this is really your stance on discussing things after they happen then please refrain from posting in any poker threads in the future.

 

[Doug Drinen]

If you boil it down to simple, unemotional mathematics and probability:

In the NFL, the national average for success on a two-point conversion is 43 percent versus 94 percent when kicking the extra point. In the NCAA, the two-point conversion is successful 43.5 percent of the time versus 93.8 percent when kicking the extra point.

http://www.humankinetics.com/products/show...excerpt_id=3766....you kick the extra point, as you are giving up a fraction of a point every time you go for two.

Unless, of course, you don't happen to be a hypothetical average team with exactly average 2-point conversion ability playing against another hypothetical average team with exactly average 2-point-conversion-stopping ability.It is important to know the baseline. And yes, the stats do indicate that in most cases the PAT is the higher EV play. But it's also important to know when your particular case differs from the baseline. There have got to be scads of situations where a particular team has a better-than-50% chance of making a two, based on personnel and matchups. In those cases, the same argument you made above mandates a two-point try instead of a kick.

 

[Doug Drinen]

If you're going to be able to make the conversion more than 50 percent of the time, you're going to score more points than if you went for one every time. So why not do it?

I don't see how anyone could argue against this. Someone help me out here.

Seriously?

Seriously.Aside from the obvious fact that you should kick the point if it's late in the game and the TD just tied the game (and similar situations), why shouldn't you take the positive EV play? Early in the game, before particular scoring combinations start to become relevant, why wouldn't you try to maximize your expected points?

"You don't take points off the board early in the game" simply doesn't fly as an argument. If that's really what you believe, then you should never go for it on 4th-and-goal from the one yard line. Do you believe that? If so, how is that different from going for two instead of one?

NOTE: everything I've said starts from snorlax's premise: "if you're going to be able to make the conversion more than 50 percent of the time..." My understanding is that the 2-point conversion is considered bad strategy early in the game only because that assumption isn't true. Until today, I had no idea that people didn't like two-point conversions even if the conversion probability is greater than 1/2.

Question for the King/Parcells bashers: how high would your conversion probability have to be before you'd consider going for two in that situation? 60%? 80%? What?

 

[Limp Ditka]

If you're going to be able to make the conversion more than 50 percent of the time, you're going to score more points than if you went for one every time. So why not do it?

I don't see how anyone could argue against this. Someone help me out here.

Seriously?

Seriously.Aside from the obvious fact that you should kick the point if it's late in the game and the TD just tied the game (and similar situations), why shouldn't you take the positive EV play? Early in the game, before particular scoring combinations start to become relevant, why wouldn't you try to maximize your expected points?

"You don't take points off the board early in the game" simply doesn't fly as an argument. If that's really what you believe, then you should never go for it on 4th-and-goal from the one yard line. Do you believe that? If so, how is that different from going for two instead of one?NOTE: everything I've said starts from snorlax's premise: "if you're going to be able to make the conversion more than 50 percent of the time..." My understanding is that the 2-point conversion is considered bad strategy early in the game only because that assumption isn't true. Until today, I had no idea that people didn't like two-point conversions even if the conversion probability is greater than 1/2.

Question for the King/Parcells bashers: how high would your conversion probability have to be before you'd consider going for two in that situation? 60%? 80%? What?

There's a world of difference between the two- It's 1 yard to gain 4 points as opposed to 2 yards to gain 1 point.

- If you fail on 4th and goal at the 1, then you at least leave the opposing team pinned on their own goal line. If you fail at the 2 pt conversion, then its kickoff time and you lose the opportunity to score a point in what is closest to a sure thing in football, the PAT and gain nothing outside of the normal in the battle for field position.

And while I'd question someone not taking the 3 early in the game when faced with a 4th and goal at the one, the risk / reward is heavily in favor of going for it as opposed to going for 2.

 

[Doug Drinen]

Seriously.

Aside from the obvious fact that you should kick the point if it's late in the game and the TD just tied the game (and similar situations), why shouldn't you take the positive EV play? Early in the game, before particular scoring combinations start to become relevant, why wouldn't you try to maximize your expected points?

"You don't take points off the board early in the game" simply doesn't fly as an argument. If that's really what you believe, then you should never go for it on 4th-and-goal from the one yard line. Do you believe that? If so, how is that different from going for two instead of one?NOTE: everything I've said starts from snorlax's premise: "if you're going to be able to make the conversion more than 50 percent of the time..." My understanding is that the 2-point conversion is considered bad strategy early in the game only because that assumption isn't true. Until today, I had no idea that people didn't like two-point conversions even if the conversion probability is greater than 1/2.

Question for the King/Parcells bashers: how high would your conversion probability have to be before you'd consider going for two in that situation? 60%? 80%? What?

There's a world of difference between the two- It's 1 yard to gain 4 points as opposed to 2 yards to gain 1 point.

- If you fail on 4th and goal at the 1, then you at least leave the opposing team pinned on their own goal line. If you fail at the 2 pt conversion, then its kickoff time and you lose the opportunity to score a point in what is closest to a sure thing in football, the PAT and gain nothing outside of the normal in the battle for field position.

And while I'd question someone not taking the 3 early in the game when faced with a 4th and goal at the one, the risk / reward is heavily in favor of going for it as opposed to going for 2.

OK, I'll give you all that. Your answer essentially reinforces my point, which is that there is a risk/reward calculation that's more complicated than "don't take points off the board." Yes you do take points off the board if the potential payoff is large enough.The question is how large does that payoff need to be? So I'll be more specific.

Let's say you're playing against a team that is roughly as good as you. Vegas says it's a pick 'em. You score on your opening drive to make it 6-0. How big does your conversion probability have to be to make you go for two? The reason I ask is because 50% is a pretty easy number to justify theoretically. It's the dividing line between positive EV and negative EV (actually, something like 49% would be, because extra points do get missed occasionally). So how far above that line do you have to go to make it worth your while? And why?

 

[Native]

I liked the call as well. I wish more coaches (and people) would have the balls to go against the grain and think for themselves rather than just going with the flow.

 

[Limp Ditka]

Seriously.

Aside from the obvious fact that you should kick the point if it's late in the game and the TD just tied the game (and similar situations), why shouldn't you take the positive EV play? Early in the game, before particular scoring combinations start to become relevant, why wouldn't you try to maximize your expected points?

"You don't take points off the board early in the game" simply doesn't fly as an argument. If that's really what you believe, then you should never go for it on 4th-and-goal from the one yard line. Do you believe that? If so, how is that different from going for two instead of one?NOTE: everything I've said starts from snorlax's premise: "if you're going to be able to make the conversion more than 50 percent of the time..." My understanding is that the 2-point conversion is considered bad strategy early in the game only because that assumption isn't true. Until today, I had no idea that people didn't like two-point conversions even if the conversion probability is greater than 1/2.

Question for the King/Parcells bashers: how high would your conversion probability have to be before you'd consider going for two in that situation? 60%? 80%? What?

There's a world of difference between the two- It's 1 yard to gain 4 points as opposed to 2 yards to gain 1 point.

- If you fail on 4th and goal at the 1, then you at least leave the opposing team pinned on their own goal line. If you fail at the 2 pt conversion, then its kickoff time and you lose the opportunity to score a point in what is closest to a sure thing in football, the PAT and gain nothing outside of the normal in the battle for field position.

And while I'd question someone not taking the 3 early in the game when faced with a 4th and goal at the one, the risk / reward is heavily in favor of going for it as opposed to going for 2.

OK, I'll give you all that. Your answer essentially reinforces my point, which is that there is a risk/reward calculation that's more complicated than "don't take points off the board." Yes you do take points off the board if the potential payoff is large enough.The question is how large does that payoff need to be? So I'll be more specific.

Let's say you're playing against a team that is roughly as good as you. Vegas says it's a pick 'em. You score on your opening drive to make it 6-0. How big does your conversion probability have to be to make you go for two? The reason I ask is because 50% is a pretty easy number to justify theoretically. It's the dividing line between positive EV and negative EV (actually, something like 49% would be, because extra points do get missed occasionally). So how far above that line do you have to go to make it worth your while? And why?

Off the top of my head, it would have to be about a 55 - 60% success rate. And in being a 55 - 60% success rate, it means it has to be attempted just about every time (outside of end of game and one point needed to win/tie) to gain the true benefits from it and no NFL coach is going to do that.And your argument also lends itself to question what you should do down by 1 and facing an extra point situation with little or no time left in the game. Do you go for two when the success rate of a 2PC is +50% because you only have a 50% chance of winning the coinflip to start OT, or do you kick the EP and risk OT?

 

[Utter Chaos]

The Cowboys tried and failed the two point conversion in the 2nd quarter meaning that the Redskins did not have to do so 4th quarter. That was the end result of the failed play. It didn't cost them the game as the Redskins could have tied the game at 20 with that fourth quarter TD anyways.I disagree with going for two in the first three quarters except for possible extreme situations in the late third. The extra point has a 98% success rate while a 2 pointer is less than 50/50 from what I recall. Take the near certain points early because you have no idea how the scoring will alter what scores you will need in the end.

Quoted to add...This is like passing up a uncontested dunk for a three point shot in the first quarter of an NBA game.

It is nothing like that.There are probably about 200 points scored in an average NBA game.When the average score of NFL games is around 40 every point has a premium on it that can not be matched by a point in an NBA game.

A better analogy might be a baseball team playing for 1 run by bunting in the first inning with no outs and runners on first and second. In the 7th inning or later it makes sense but not in the first inning.