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Bill Belichick - see also: cut off sleeves hoodie douche

Classic Sunday Night Football.  Colts vs. Patriots.  Brady vs Manning.  The comeback.  The 4th and 2 that will go down in infamy.   But all the blow hard football traditionalists in the media are getting it wrong, because Belichick made the right decision.

Trust me, that pains me to say.  I hate this cut off hoodie wearing douche as much as the next guy.  Sometimes late at night I picture him getting anally penetrated by the members of Gwar to soothe myself to sleep.  But when he’s right, he’s right.

The Patriots best chance to win that game was going for it on 4th down and 2 yards to go with 2 minutes left instead of punting.

The guys at advancednflstats.com break down the math on it. In a nutshell the league average for 4th and 2 is around 60% and if they convert then the game is over.  If they don’t convert, then the league average is 53% of the time that the other team will get a touchdown.  So that works out to a 79% win rate with going for it.  Take that against a team starting at their own 34 after a punt with 2 minutes to go and scoring a TD 30% of the time.  A punt gives the Pats a 70% win rate.

Even Keyshawn could tell you that 79 is greater than 70.  Now the only problem I have with those stats is that they were using the league averages, and it’s not fair to tie NE or Indy’s offense into any formula that includes the Chiefs.

I think NE has a better than 60% chance of converting on 4th and Peyton scores more than 30% of the time when it comes down to the 2 minute drill.  But either of those tweaks would drastically increase the positives of going for it and increase the negatives of punting.

So in the WORST case, it’s a good idea to go for it.  Realistic case scenerio, it’s an fucking GREAT idea to go for it.  But the NFL traditionalists will bemoan any play call that is out of the box, and shit on any stats that point to creative thinking.  The only upside of punting is that Belichick saves his own ass since nobody would question his bad decision to punt just like 31 other teams in the league.

And even without the math, imagine it this way.  What if good old Bill would have walked over to the Colts side line and personally asked Peyton “should I punt or go for it?”  I can’t imagine a scenario where Peyton would turn down the punt.  He’ll take the ball in his hands to decide the game every time.  Why does everybody expect the Patriots to do exactly what the Colts would want them to?  It’s idiotic.