If you want to know how mediocre coaches think, sometimes all you need to do is listen to the announcers. Take Nick Sirianni’s decision to go for it on fourth-and-goal from the 3-yard-line on Sunday. After falling behind 14-0 early in the second quarter, the Eagles drove 50 yards down the field to put themselves in position for their first points of the day. On the CBS broadcast, color commentator Jay Feely sounded genuinely torn about what Sirianni should do.
On the one hand, the Eagles were down two touchdowns and playing in sloppy conditions where points looked like they would be at a premium. They had a dominant offensive line and a dual-threat quarterback who has thrived near the goal line and they had a coach who’d faced a similar situation nine previous times in his career and had decided to kick a field goal only twice.
On the other hand, in Feely’s words, the Eagles had a chance to take the three points and “make sure you feel good about this drive.”
No offense to Feely, but you don’t win games with good feels.
Anybody who knew Sirianni knew what he was going to do. He kept the offense on the field, Jalen Hurts ran for a touchdown, and the Eagles scored the first seven of their 29 unanswered points en route to a 29-21 win.
It was the latest example of the three building blocks of good decision-making that has carried Sirianni and the Eagles to a 4-0 record in 2022 and 10 wins in their last 12 regular season games dating back to last season.
How many times do we see coaches do the opposite of what Sirianni did? And how many times do we wonder what they were thinking?
In fairness, the numbers are interesting. Since 2021, teams that opt for a first-half field goal on fourth-and-goal inside the 4-yard-line are 12-10 in those games. Meanwhile, teams that go for it are 22-26. In fairness to Feely and all the conservative coaches out there, points do matter.
At the same time, those numbers don’t tell us a whole lot, given the number of situational variables that are in play. One thing we do know is what the micro-level analytics say: If the Eagles had lined up for a field goal, their Expected Points for that play would have been 3.0. Once they lined up to go for it, their Expected Points were somewhere in the neighborhood of 3.3. The underlying math goes something like this: A touchdown is worth seven points (PAT assumed), your odds of scoring a touchdown on fourth-and-goal from the 3 are 48%, multiply one by the other and you get 3.3ish points.
3.3 is greater than 3.0. Ipso facto, etc.
Again, football is a possession game, and possessions are all or nothing. You can’t score 3.3 points. You get seven or zero. But Sirianni’s track record has shown him consistently making the right call in these situations. This was the eighth time that Sirianni chose to go for it on fourth-and-goal from inside the 5-yard-line. That’s the most in the NFL since the start of the 2021 season, Sirianni’s first as a head coach. The results speak for themselves. Only once did the decision result in a turnover on downs. Five times, they scored a touchdown. Twice, they were flagged for offensive pass interference.
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Sirianni on fourth-and-goal from inside the 4-yard-line:
Decisions: 10
Field goals: 2
Go-For-It: 8
Touchdowns: 5
Turnover on downs: 1
Offensive pass interference penalties that resulted in a field-goal attempt outside the 3-yard-line: 2
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From Day 1, Sirianni has shown an impeccable feel for the flow of a game. Usually, that means doing the opposite of what the other team would rather you do. Does anybody think the Jaguars were hoping that the Eagles would go for it instead of settling for a field goal that would have made the score 14-3?
Thing is, even if you don’t get the touchdown, you still have your opponent backed up inside their own five-yard-line. Even you go for the touchdown and fail, there’s a decent chance that you’ll get a shot at a field goal on your next possession because of field position. Since 2021, nearly 50% of drives that start inside the 5-yard-line end inside the 15. Teams who set up shop in the shadow of their own goal line are nearly as likely to turn the ball over as they are to score.
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Of 201 NFL drives starting inside the 5-yard line since 2021, number of drives resulting in:
Touchdown or field goal: 39
Interception, fumble, or safety: 36
Punt: 89
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Consider the one time the Eagles went for it and turned the ball over on downs. This was in a 17-11 loss to the 49ers in Sirianni’s second game as head coach. Wrong decision, right? All Sirianni needed to do was take the field goal there and the Eagles would have. . .lost by three points instead of six. The only potential winners in that situation are the gamblers. And they would have pushed.
Granted, it doesn’t always work out that way. There are scenarios in which the Eagles would have been better off with three points instead of zero. Take that Niners loss, for example. If the Eagles had held the Niners to a field goal early in the fourth quarter, AND if the they’d forced the Niners to go three-and-out after Hurts’ touchdown with 4:02 left cut the lead to six, then they could have gotten the ball back with two minutes left and a chance to kick a game-tying field goal. But that’s a lot of ifs.
Which is the whole point. Do you want to control your own fate? Or do you want to rely on the ifs?
