There is a fine line between being aggressive and reckless. Unfortunately, Josh McDaniels has been neither for most of the season as the head coach for the Raiders. Too often, he coaches timid and scared.
His performance on Thursday Night Football was a great example. The Raiders kicked three field goals in that game, two of them inside the 18-yard-line of the Rams. Instead of trying to convert on fourth down and scoring touchdowns, they settled for short field goals.
In a recent article by Amelia Probst of Pro Football Focus, no team in the NFL lost more win probability on fourth downs than the Raiders did in Week 14. Here is what Probst had to say about the decision to kick so many short field goals:
“The Raiders’ close loss to the Rams on Thursday night was partly due to poor decision-making on fourth down. They punted three times in the second half when they could have gone for it in at least one of those situations. The Raiders also settled for three field goals in this game when they could have been aggressive.”
The worst decision by the Raiders was a fourth-and-one punt from their 34-yard-line after the two-minute warning. If the Raiders would have gone for it on fourth down and converted, the game would have been over and they would have improved to 6-7 on the season.
But even if they were to fail on fourth down, the Raiders would have had time to go down and get the game-winning score on the next possession as they still had all three time-outs remaining.
The Raiders need McDaniels to be more aggressive. Too often this season, he’s coached “not to lose” and it’s ended up costing them games. It’s time for this team to go win games rather than be afraid of losing them.
