Musings at Altitude

Otherwise brilliant people sometimes make really bizarre decisions.  That happened last night when the head coach of New England decided to go for it on a 4th and 2 with just over 2 minutes left instead of punting the ball away.  In punting, he would have stretched the field for the Colts and made them go 70 or 80 yards to get the needed touchdown to win the game.  In going for it, if he made the 1st down, he could ensure the win by running out the clock.  If he missed, he’d give the very potent Colts offense a very short field to get the winning score. 

He went for it; they didn’t make it; and the Colts scored and won the game. 

I have great empathy and sympathy for the coach.  I’m sure he had great confidence in his offense…they certainly moved the ball well all game.  I’m also sure he had some growing concerns about his defense, which had let the opposing offense seemingly score at will in those final few minutes leading up to that fateful decision.  I’m quite confident he quickly weighed the strength of his offense against the (at that time) weakness of his defense, and he put the fate of the game in the hands of his offense.  I’m also quite confident that this coach would have made a very different decision if the Colts didn’t have arguably the best quarterback in the game who had shredded his defense with several winning drives leading up to that particular moment in the game.  I’m also pretty certain that he would have made a different decision if his own quarterback hadn’t won 3 Super Bowls in the last decade and is a sure lock on the Hall of Fame.  And finally, I bet he quickly ran the odds in his head (I sure did when I heard he was going for it), and the 70% chance (just a guess) of making it was good enough for the “go for it” decision.

If he had made it, I’m sure some analysts would be asking, “What in the world was he thinking”?  But with a victory in hand, they’d all be calling him a risk taking genius.

But he didn’t, and now the very wise, incredibly brilliant, student of the game coach has given all of us a case study in decision making and risk taking.

PS.  I’m a risk taker as well, and in that same situation, I may have made that very same call.  In the heat of that moment, the safe call may very well have seemed to be offense over defense.  No decision is without risk, regardless of the odds, and with 3 Super Bowl rings in hand, he’s made enough right ones to warrant an errant one every now and then!  I wouldn’t count them out on a 4th ring this year just yet.