Strategery - 4th Down Edition

As I settle down on my couch, with laptop comfortably resting on my lap, preparing to launch yet another scathing, profanity laced critique of the Bengals, I sometimes wonder to myself, "Why do I, who has never played more than a few downs of JV football in my life (and miserably at that), think I have the right to judge those in charge of the Bengals?  Do I actually believe I could run the organization better myself?" 

And, in weaker moments, when I am sometimes about to give in and admit that, "Okay, maybe lil' ol' me, armed only with years of passive observation of the sport and some data the interwebs has provided me, is in fact outmatched by the cumulative lifetimes of hands-on experience of the Brown Family and Bengals' Staff"...I see a stat like this and all doubts are sent fleeing to the farthest recesses of my mind.

In 2007, the Bengals were ranked 27th in the league in attempts to convert on 4th down, with 12 total attempts to convert on 4th down all season - 2 more than the lowest total in the NFL.

I'll come back to this in a moment, but first, let me channel my inner TMQ (Gregg Easterbrook) and see if I can't describe a moment that I believe has gone through all Bengals fans' heads:  The Bengals are driving, as they often do with their terrific offense, and find themselves somewhere close to the 50 yard line or just outside of field goal range.  The drive stalls and the Bengals are faced with 4th and short (or even 4th and medium).  And, as (overpaid) Kyle Larson and the punting unit run in from the sidelines while Carson whips off his chin strap in disgust, you think "Why not just go for it since our supremely shitty defense will probably allow their offense to march right back to the point where we punted in just a few plays?"

You'd be thinking right (and you'd have science on your side), dear Bengals fan, but sadly, your thoughts are not congruous (congruous? fuck it, I like that word) with those going through Marvin Lewis' head.  So let us come back to that 4th down attempts stat.  12 attempts?!  That's it?!  Well, of course, other factors play in to this stat.  Go here and you'll notice that a lot of the tremendously awful teams rank really high in 4th downs attempted, but that is simply because they are always behind and find themselves in desperate situations and situations with nothing to lose.  But after sifting through the noise, the risks to going for it on 4th down are way overblown and superior strategy dictates that teams should take this particular risk more often.  The Jaguars and Patriots get it.  Marvin does not.  To be fair, many coaches in the NFL do not (check out where the Colts and Chargers rank).

Two things make our 4th down strategy and terrible coaching in these situations even more apparent.  First, our offense ranks 5th in highest percentage of 3rd downs completed.  That is good.  The offense is good.  There is evidence they can convert in tough situations.  We should be taking our chances with them and not our defense.  Second, when we do rarely attempt to go for it on 4th down, we are horrible at converting (4 of 12, 29th in the league).  This may seem to contradict the first point in this paragraph that our offense is good at converting in tough situations, but I assure you it does not.  The more plausible explanation is not that our offense suddenly becomes bad only on 4th down but that our play calling is dull and predictable coupled with the fact that we pick our spots to go for it on 4th poorly.  I cannot provide any evidence besides the anecdotal, but I guarantee everyone reading this blog knows exactly what I am talking about.

Thus, though I may be just a regular Bengals fan, if given the keys to the Bengals, I am quite confident, at the very least, I could manage our 4th down game strategy better than our coaches.  In fact, I'm pretty sure a monkey could.

Comments

[Paul Katz]

The Rally Monkey could definitely have outcoached Breshnahan. Bratkowski? Maybe.

[Sleeping With Bieniemy]

The one word that comes to mind when I think of Bratkowski is: underwhelming.

I plan on keeping pretty detailed track of situations where going for it versus punting is not obvious so I can truly see how often we wuss out. Then I am going to keep track of the plays we call when we do go for it. My prediction is that it will be ugly. I hope I'm wrong though.