{"id":1149,"date":"2019-11-14T09:53:44","date_gmt":"2019-11-14T15:53:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/?p=1149"},"modified":"2019-11-19T09:57:38","modified_gmt":"2019-11-19T15:57:38","slug":"second-guessing-play-calls-is-like-second-guessing-rock-paper-scissors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/second-guessing-play-calls-is-like-second-guessing-rock-paper-scissors\/","title":{"rendered":"Second Guessing Play Calls is Like Second Guessing Rock, Paper, Scissors?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Most fans think they are smarter than the football coaches\nof the team that they cheer for.  They\ncurse, stomp their feet, throw things at the wall (or the TV) and tweet up a\nstorm.  Coaches are in a no win\nsituation.  If a play fails (regardless\nof reason), the talking heads on TV and sports talk radio will join in the\ncacophony and support the fans who were outraged by the decision to\nrun\/pass.  Perhaps no play in NFL history\nsymbolizes this phenomenon better than Pete Carroll\u2019s decision to allow Russell\nWilson to throw from the 2 yard line with the game on the line.  Malcolm Butler makes a play for the ages and\nforces his way inside to pick off the pass and the Patriots are the ones that\nare raising the Lombardi Trophy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat are you thinking?\u201d was the theme of the outrage.  \u201cHow can you not hand off the ball to\nMarshawn Lynch?\u201d  Lynch was certainly\nhaving a great game.  But would that play\nhave worked?  None of us know that\nanswer.  Wilson\u2019s pass could easily have\nresulted in a TD and the masses would have jumped on board and said \u201cGreat\ndecision to fool them and NOT hand the ball off to Marshawn!\u201d  On the flip side, had they handed the ball\noff to Lynch and he was stopped by the Patriots defense, the critics would have\nhowled \u201cHow could you call such a predictable play?\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though I am certainly guilty of that at times as well, when\nyou truly think about it, we do not watch as much tape as the coaches. We do\nnot know the health of the players. We do not know the feel of the game in\nterms of what is working.  That doesn\u2019t\nmean we can\u2019t express our frustrations and that we cannot believe a different\ndecision would not have created a better result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each time I find myself going down that rabbit hole, I try\nto come back to this theme\u2014Second guessing play calls is like second guessing\ndecisions in a game of rock, paper, scissors (RPS).   Actually, it is probably worse.  Nobody spends 50+ hours a week studying rock,\npaper, scissors film (at least I hope not). \nTherefore, you really cannot tell someone\u2019s tendencies.  In addition, unlike RPS, which has only three\noptions, a football play has hundreds of options on each the offensive and\ndefensive side of the ball.  No call is\ninherently good or bad.  It only becomes\nso based on the combination of several factors:<\/p>\n\n\n\n