Tag: 4th down

What to make of Chargers HC Brandon Staley’s fourth-down decision-making heading into 2023

Brandon Staley’s fourth-down decisions have always been a hot topic. What should the Chargers expect in 2023?

Brandon Staley’s fourth-down decisions have always been a hot topic. In 2021, Staley roared onto the scene with a fairly aggressive approach relative to the rest of the league. The Chargers attempted the fourth-most 4th downs in the league.

Los Angeles was also very efficient at converting fourth downs in Staley’s first season. They converted 64.7% of their attempts, which was good enough for fourth in the league. Point blank: Staley’s 2021 Chargers were aggressive, but rightfully so.

However, Staley obviously had his detractors. Despite going 6 for 7 on 4th down in the Chargers’ Week 18 contest with the Raiders with a playoff berth on the line, the one conversion missed was from LA’s territory in the second quarter. It allowed Las Vegas to score a field goal that Staley skeptics would argue was the difference in the game.

In 2022, the Chargers were more conservative on 4th down relative to the Staley standard established in year one. They attempted 29 out of 145 total fourth downs last season. That’s a 20% attempt rate which was down from 2021’s 28.1%. LA also experienced the double-edged sword of season-to-season variance in the league. They converted 51.7% of their 4th downs in 2022 relative to the aforementioned 64.7% in Staley’s first season.

Brandon Staley would go on to explain in his season-ending press conference that the 4th down philosophy change was multipronged:

The Chargers dealt with impact injuries on offense, ranging from Justin Herbert to the offensive line and especially the receiver room. It goes without saying that fourth-down attempts are harder to be confident in without the right personnel.

The special teams boost is perhaps the biggest factor. Ryan Ficken turned the most maligned Chargers’ unit into a top 10 group in Rick Gosselin’s annual rankings.  JK Scott also might’ve changed the equation on fourth-down decisions with longer hangtime punts that led to fewer return opportunities.

2023 could prove to be the true test of whether “4th and Staley” still holds weight. The Chargers should have their ideal personnel more often. They will certainly have their handpicked offensive coordinator leading the play-calling charge in offensive coordinator Kellen Moore. Special teams, in theory, should remain in the top half of the league.

2022’s decrease in 4th down intensity and efficiency came after a period in which Staley received significant pushback as a rookie head coach for his decision-making. 2023 could potentially serve as a sample size in proving whether or not last season was a result of Staley waning in the face of media pressure.

Staley’s fourth-down decisions and the offensive efficiency on those plays in 2023 will be critical to the Chargers’ success.

Broncos call Cowboys’ 4th-down plays ‘disrespectful;’ Dak Prescott upset by ‘lack of execution’

Several Denver players took the Cowboys’ early 4th-down conversion attempts personally; Dak Prescott feels they could have swung the game. | From @ToddBrock24f7

When the Cowboys lined up on 4th-and-1 on just the fourth play of Sunday’s game versus Denver, it may not have seemed like a controversial decision. The Cowboys came into the contest with one of the league’s top-ranked offenses by most any measure, running back Ezekiel Elliott was averaging 4.8 yards per rushing attempt on the season, and the ball was on the Broncos’ 38-yard-line. The alternative would have been a 56-yard-field goal try from a kicker who’s gone 1-of-3 from beyond 50 this season and just 4-of-12 from that distance as a Cowboy.

Going for it made perfect sense.

Unfortunately, Elliott was stuffed for a one-yard loss.

On Dallas’s next series, they went for it again on fourth down. This time, the ball was on the Denver 20. Rather than attempt a 38-yard field goal and put the first points of the afternoon on the scoreboard, the Cowboys went for it again, needing just two yards. Quarterback Dak Prescott’s throw to open wideout Cedrick Wilson fell incomplete.

Never mind what the analytics might say about going for it in those early and short-yardage situations on the plus-side of the field; Broncos wide receiver Tim Patrick chose to take it personally.

“Disrespectful,” Patrick said, as per the Broncos team website. “That [expletive]’s disrespectful. They trying us. And that’s what happens when you try us.”

The Cowboys went on to fail two more fourth-down conversion tries on the afternoon. 0-for-4 total. It’s not the reason they were blown out by a 30-16 score, but turning the ball over on downs on the first two possessions surely helped set a tone of ineffectiveness that carried over throughout the worst Dallas performance in quite some time.

Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy talked about inadvertently giving the Broncos a huge boost with those two plays.

“I mean, momentum,” McCarthy said in his postgame press conference. “We talk about momentum swings all the time. I think it’s important to respond to all the momentum swings. Especially if you have it, what do you do with it? And then frankly, when the opponent has it, how do you respond to it? The decisions? I’m fine with the decisions. The execution, particularly on the first one, they had better defense than we had play called; we had penetration in the A-gap and couldn’t get the ball to the edge on the outside zone. They came in aggressive.”

The second one was far more troubling. Aside from being in near-gimme territory for an NFL kicker to make a field goal and eschewing the seemingly easy three points, Prescott’s fluttering pass on the fourth-down to Wilson was ugly. So ugly, in fact, that the TV announcers and observers alike assumed it must have been deflected by a Denver defender.

“Yeah, I don’t think it was tipped,” Prescott confessed to reporters after the game. “I think I got ready to throw it on the crossing route, saw the guy’s hands up, and I think I just tried to change my arm angle at the last second and threw it, what, at his ankles? At that point, I was hoping Ced maybe made a catch, but yeah, I don’t miss those throws. Those are throws that I’ve worked on a long time, whether I’m moving my feet or whether I’m not able to get my back leg through, just finding a way to make that throw. That’s something I work hard on. It pisses me off when I miss a throw like that. That’s a big fourth down early in the game that we can keep going and move forward and get a touchdown. I think it just changed the whole way that this game plays and goes from there if I complete that and we’re able to stay on the field.”

But Prescott didn’t complete it, and the Cowboys weren’t able to stay on the field. And with a second straight fourth-down stop, the Broncos suddenly had some added juice.

“You take the field with a little anger, honestly,” Denver quarterback Teddy Bridgewater said. “It’s like, ‘Hey, man, they’re going for it because they’re saying our offense is not going to score or something.’ We talked about it in the huddle, and we used it as motivation… It’s one of those deals where you take the field and OK, you have a little added motivation to it. You can see that today.”

By the time the Cowboys tried to convert an another fourth down, the game was getting out of hand and it was desperation time. Down 19-0 midway through the third quarter, Dallas once again kept the offense on the field for a 4th-and 1 from their own 40. Despite needing just a few feet, Prescott went for broke. His deep ball missed wideout CeeDee Lamb. Badly.

“I definitely remember the play,” Prescott recalled. “Came back, CeeDee has a little return route. When I got back to him, he had turned and threw his hand up. There was a hole-player who was starting to make his way toward me. I mean, maybe I probably could have run, now looking back at it, but at the time, I was just trying to get it to CeeDee and make a big play and just put too much on it. It’s something that, as I’ve said, I’m missing throws and some throws on some crucial downs. Can’t have that.”

In the fourth quarter, Dallas was on the wrong side of their own 20 when they tried to move the sticks on a 4th-and-7. Prescott’s pass this time was intercepted. Five plays later, Denver extended their lead to 30-0.

Coming into the Week 9 game, the Cowboys had been 5-of-10 on fourth-down conversions. Now they’re 5-of-14.

The list of things that didn’t work for the Cowboys on Sunday is a long one. But questionable decisions and atrocious performances on key fourth-down plays has to be near the top of things the Dallas coaching staff must address heading into the back half of the regular season.

Prescott, for one, feels like his unit needs to keep punching. He suggested that the failed fourth downs didn’t diminish the offense’s confidence, even though he acknowledges that they boosted the opponents’.

“I mean, sure. I’m sure it does. But it doesn’t take confidence away from us,” the quarterback said. “It wasn’t about their confidence as much as it was just about our lack of execution in critical situations.”

“We just never got going,” McCarthy said in summary.

Broncos coach Vic Fangio knows all too well that fourth downs can cut both ways.

“Everybody wants to go for it on fourth down, right?” Fangio said. “Fourth-and-1, fourth-and-2… they cite all the numbers, so on and so forth. But when you don’t get them, it hurts. And we were the beneficiary of the hurt.”

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News: Cowboys’ 2nd draft steal, Byron Jones 1 year later, longest 4th downs

Also examined, carrying just 2 QBs and RBs, Damontae Kazee’s upside, and why veteran Carlos Watkins could be fighting for a roster spot.

As the nation paused to commemorate Independence Day, news in NFL circles took a backseat. But plenty of good analysis and provoking food for thought from some of Cowboys Nation’s favorite sources provided topics of conversation for backyard barbecues and fireworks displays, even on the most non-football of holidays.

Among the items the fanbase is watching with just over two months until opening night: big expectations for newcomers Simi Fehoko and Damontae Kazee, and a lot on the line for veteran Carlos Watkins. Byron Jones’s departure is looking like a smart move one year removed, and keeping just two quarterbacks and two running backs on the roster may be the next bold decision by the team. There’s a difference of opinion on whether CeeDee Lamb should return punts, and a pair of nearly-forgotten Cowboys resurface on a list of the longest fourth-down conversions in history.

News: Cowboys’ 2nd draft steal, Byron Jones 1 year later, longest 4th downs

Also examined, carrying just 2 QBs and RBs, Damontae Kazee’s upside, and why veteran Carlos Watkins could be fighting for a roster spot.

As the nation paused to commemorate Independence Day, news in NFL circles took a backseat. But plenty of good analysis and provoking food for thought from some of Cowboys Nation’s favorite sources provided topics of conversation for backyard barbecues and fireworks displays, even on the most non-football of holidays.

Among the items the fanbase is watching with just over two months until opening night: big expectations for newcomers Simi Fehoko and Damontae Kazee, and a lot on the line for veteran Carlos Watkins. Byron Jones’s departure is looking like a smart move one year removed, and keeping just two quarterbacks and two running backs on the roster may be the next bold decision by the team. There’s a difference of opinion on whether CeeDee Lamb should return punts, and a pair of nearly-forgotten Cowboys resurface on a list of the longest fourth-down conversions in history.

Cowboys defend ‘aggressiveness’ of 4th-down call; rookie Lamb: ‘It’s on me’

Dallas coaches and players spoke about not kicking the easy field goal to tie Sunday’s game, and how that may set a tone for future games.

A ship in harbor is safe, the old saying goes, but that is not what ships are built for. Well, there’s a new captain manning the helm of the Dallas Cowboys. And he knows exactly what his ship was built for.

After nine-plus seasons of wishing the coaching staff were more aggressive and less predictable in turning-point game situations, Cowboys fans got what they said they wanted Sunday night. On 4th-and-3 from the Los Angeles 11-yard-line in the fourth quarter of a three-point game, Dallas head coach Mike McCarthy kept Greg Zuerlein on the sideline.

Even Al Michaels wondered aloud if Dak Prescott would really take the snap. Surely the play-it-safe option in that situation is the field goal. If trying to lure the defense offsides for the cheap first down doesn’t work, you call the timeout and trot out your kicker, tie things up, and let the final ten minutes decide the game.

“[Offensive coordinator] Kellen [Moore], I thought he made a good call. We just didn’t execute it as good as we could,” McCarthy told reporters via conference call after the Week 1 loss.

“There’s obviously things that go into those types of situations you’re always looking at, particularly coming off a second down, going into a third down. Based on your field position; obviously, we were clearly in field goal range. It was a three-point game. All those things you factor in, The conservative play there is to kick the field goal. But I just felt really good about how we were moving the football. It was a mesh-pattern-type concept with criss-crossers. You’ve got to give them credit- the safety made a hell of a play on the throw-and-catch, and we were short.”

Prescott’s pass to a crossing CeeDee Lamb wasn’t out in front of the rookie wide receiver; the pocket had collapsed- again- around the quarterback, and Prescott was forced to hurry the throw. Lamb made the grab, but was short of the first-down marker when he did. Rams safety Jordan Fuller navigated traffic to reach Lamb and brought him down short of the line to make.

It was a disappointing end to a promising drive that had covered 56 yards in nine plays, the Cowboys’ most productive possession since the first half. And while coming away with no points was deflating, Prescott believes going for it on fourth down was the right decision.

“I love the aggressiveness,” Prescott told the media in postgame remarks. “I think that was a point in the game when, if we get that first down and are able to punch it in the end zone, we’re looking at a whole different ball game. I think it was a momentum chance. I love the play call; we just weren’t able to get it. The guy played over the top; made a good tackle.”

Running back Ezekiel Elliott agreed with the strategy, but knows how costly the failure was.

“Coach has a plan,” Elliott stated, “and it’s our job to go out there and follow it. I think it was a good play call. I think we had a chance of getting a first down, and I think we were rolling on offense. He felt and just wanted to keep us on the field and score a touchdown instead of getting three right there. We ended up coming up short, and that’s just one of those plays of the game where you’ve got to convert. You’ve got to convert on that. That cost us the game.”

It was the rookie Lamb who got his number called in the critical moment, a significant show of trust by the team in the 21-year-old Oklahoma product. Lamb took the loss personally as he recounted how the play unfolded.

“At first, I was at at the sticks,” Lamb explained. “And then I came back for the ball. And then I got tackled, and obviously, I didn’t get the first down and make the conversion. That’s one of the plays that I wish I had back. But now, you live and you learn. Not really ‘a rookie mistake,’ but it’s definitely a mistake from a rookie. I feel like that’s mindful play that I could have expanded on and did a lot better. Going into practice this week and on, you’re definitely going to get a better CeeDee.

“At the end of the day, it’s on me. It’s my responsibility to make that conversion, to make that play. And I didn’t. So that’s not going to sit with me well at all. It’s going to be in my head for a minute. Obviously, that was the differential in the game. We lost 17-20. If we get that first down, who knows what would have happened after that? It’s definitely a tough pill to swallow.”

The loss will also be tough pill for Cowboys fans to swallow. It’s hard to imagine Jason Garrett going for it in that situation, and it’s impossible to imagine him not getting roasted afterward for playing it too safe.

But the USS Conservative no longer docks in Dallas.

A big part of what made McCarthy such an intriguing replacement for Garrett was his reliance on math and data, the hope being that analytics would provide a nudge toward playing for the win instead of playing not to lose.

McCarthy was asked what the numbers say about the decision to go for the first down. He answered with a knowing smirk, well aware the question would be coming.

“I think analytics give you good structure to help evaluate decisions,” the 56-year-old coach explained. “Analytics would tell you to go for it there. But there’s other factors into that. I think some of those are things I’m not particularly going to talk on when you get into decision-making. I mean, you have to look at your variables and you’ve got to trust your players. I think, especially the first time going out into a game, I want our offensive guys to play wide-open. We have that capability. I’ll pull back when I feel like it’s in the best interest of the team. I clearly recognize that it was a three-point game, but we still had a lot of time left. I just felt that would have been a huge momentum play for us at that particular time. They had six big plays in the first half, and we only had one, so that mindset was trying to create some more of those opportunities for our players.”

In McCarthy’s answers, there was a discernible undertone. Something just under the surface and in between the lines.

Sure, he wanted to beat the Rams on Sunday night. He would have preferred to win the season opener, start his Dallas tenure with a victory, get an early leg up on Philadelphia in the division. But one gets the very real sense that McCarthy and Moore’s decision to go for it on that crucial fourth down was about more than Week 1. He’s setting a tone for his players and staff and setting expectations for fans about how this Cowboys team is going to approach every game, all season long. Not all of the punches will land, but they’ll keep getting thrown.

Prescott, for one, loves it.

“I think that’s one of the good things that you can take out of this game: our coach is going to put it our hands,” he told reporters. “He expects us to go make those plays, he trusts us to do that, he’s going to call the game aggressive, and you’ve got to appreciate that. I know I do as a quarterback, and I’m pretty sure the rest of the guys do as an offense. So as I said, it’s up to us to execute better right there and to make sure that play is a first down and we get the momentum going and we try to capitalize and do exactly what Coach had in mind there.”

What McCarthy had in mind is something this Cowboys team can build on, and something Cowboys fans should start getting used to. The fourth-down decision may have felt like a preseason kind of move; McCarthy took a similar sort of longview approach as he put it in perspective.

“I think it’s all part of the growth of an NFL season,” the coach said. “You have to improve throughout the season. Number one, you have to win. We needed to find a way to win that game tonight, and we didn’t get that done. And we’ve got to make sure that we walk away from this opportunity and learn from it and be better for our home opener in seven days. And that’s really the reality for where we are. The only thing that we won’t accomplish this season will be a 16-0 season; that’s the only thing that’s guaranteed. But everything else is in front of us.”

No one expected smooth sailing for the Cowboys’ ship as they pursue a sixth Super Bowl championship. But the California waves proved to be a bit rougher than most anticipated to start the journey. And Mike McCarthy has made it clear: he won’t be keeping his ship docked safely in harbor this season.

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Garrett on analytical decisions: ‘We don’t use those stats within the game’

In an era when teams are using advanced math to help call plays, Jason Garrett shows no interest in overriding his gut in key situations.

The Cowboys’ decision to kick a field goal from the New England 11-yard line with 6:04 left in regulation seemed wrong to an awful lot of fans watching the game. It was only the second time Dallas had been that close to the end zone all day. They were down by seven; punching it in would have given the team the chance to tie with a point-after kick.

They had just tried, with a Dak Prescott pass to tight end Blake Jarwin in the back of the end zone. Prescott seemingly had room to run before firing the ball on that third down; even if he had not scored or picked up the first down, he likely would have, at the very least, lessened the fourth-down distance. Despite needing seven yards to move the chains, it was arguably a go-for-it moment.

Jason Garrett disagreed, math and analytics and the way some successful NFL teams are now employing hard and fast statistics to make real-time game decisions be damned.

The coach explained his thought process to 105.3 The Fan on Monday morning:

“Just over six minutes to go in the ball game. We obviously hadn’t done real well on third downs throughout the game, so 4th-and-7 was going to be a challenging situation, particularly down there where you don’t have as much space. So we just felt like, in that situation, with that much time left in the ball game, just go ahead and make it a 4-point game. Let’s see if we can play defense, give our offense an opportunity to come back and win it. The other factor in a situation like that if they do move the ball and they kick a field goal, and you’ve gone for the touchdown and you haven’t made it, now it’s a 10-point game and a two-score game. So this keeps you in a more manageable situation if they do kick a field goal, it still would only be a 7-point game. Biggest thing you try to do there is make sure you give yourself an opportunity to come back the other way. Just under three minutes to go, three timeouts and a two-minute warning, we felt like that gave us a pretty decent chance coming back to win the ball game.”

In Garrett’s answer, some variation of the word feel shows up a lot. Lots of if. Ambiguous, open-ended phrases like let’s see. His usual emphasis on opportunity.

But there’s a big difference between opportunity and probability. And that’s where hosts Shan and RJ went with their follow-up question:

“Coach, there’s a stat called win probability. Basically, it tells you before each play, your chances of winning the game- whether they increase or decrease- based on the play you’re going to run. Do you have that information available to you during the game based on each play? Like, ‘Hey, if we kick the field goal here, our chance of winning the game goes up or down?'”

Garrett paused for a moment before replying, simply, “Yeah, we don’t use those stats within the game.”

One of the best teams in the league, however, does. As mentioned for the radio audience after Garrett’s phone interview, the Baltimore Ravens are taking some of the guesswork out of their playcalling. Sitting up in the coaching booth during every game, right next to offensive coordinator Greg Roman, is a 25-year-old behavioral economics major from Yale who runs the numbers when there’s a decision to be made on the sideline.

Sheil Kapadia of The Athletic has a fascinating profile on Daniel Stern, whose official title with the team is that of football analyst. Now in his fourth season with the Ravens, Stern assists the coaching staff during the week as they create an overall strategy for each opponent. And on gameday, Stern is on the headset, directly talking coach John Harbaugh through things like whether the math says to go for it or not in a key 4th-down situation.

It’s still ultimately up to Harbaugh and his gut, but the analytics give the coach the most data possible to help make the decision. Perhaps not coincidentally, Baltimore (through Week 11) had converted 10 of 14 fourth-down plays attempted in 2019, tied for most in the league. “And on the 10 drives where they’ve converted,” Kapadia writes, “eight have resulted in touchdowns. They’re averaging 10.5 yards per play on fourth down, which is tops in the NFL.”

The Ravens lead the NFL in 4th-down aggressiveness, with a “go rate” over 60 percent (in situations where the win probability is 1-in-5 or better). The Cowboys are between 20 and 25 percent, ranking among the bottom ten teams leaguewide in the above graph, which charts through Week 11.

Sure, it helps the Ravens that they have a weapon like quarterback Lamar Jackson. That obviously lets them be more aggressive in trying to keep opposing defenses on their heels on a do-or-die fourth down play. But Harbaugh has openly embraced concepts like win probability and expected points added and wants to be fed that information during the game.

“We talk about all the different scenarios, and [Stern] basically gives me a percentage,” Harbaugh is quoted in the Athletic piece. “So what’s the added win percentage of going for it? He’ll give it to me like one, two, three, four, five, six, up to whatever. Then you just decide if you want to do it. It’s not strictly based [on the numbers]. I listen to it. If he starts telling me 3 and 4 percent, I get really interested. If it’s 1 or 2 percent, I’m still interested — especially if it’s short, if I think we can get it.”

According to ESPN Stats & Info via Todd Archer, the win probability of the Cowboys going for it on that fourth down with 6:04 to play eleven yards from the goal line? 18.8 percent. “By kicking the field goal,” Archer notes, “the win probability fell to 16.7 percent.”

All of Garrett’s rhetoric about how it felt like cutting the lead kept things more manageable? How the field goal gave the offense a “pretty decent chance” to come back and score again? That decision actually decreased the team’s chances of sneaking a win out of Gillette Stadium. The numbers say so.

Garrett’s dismissal on The Fan?

“Yeah, we don’t use those stats within the game.”

Harbaugh says, “We’re chasing everything that’s gonna give us an edge.”

That sort of philosophy sounds like it would be a breath of fresh air to Cowboys fans, many of whom have tired of Garrett’s old-school insistence on doing things the way he’s always done them just because that’s the way it’s always been done. The 53-year-old Princeton grad may have a lot of football knowledge, but adding a little bit of math to the curriculum sure feels like it might present quite an opportunity.

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