How To Screw Up a 4th Quarter Lead

Not starring the Packers and M3, but the Colts and Chuck Pagano. This nugget should get you going:

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The 2017 Colts are the ONLY team in the last 20 years to hold a lead entering the 4th quarter in at least 9 games, but win no more than 4 games.

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Sharp Football has provided some stats that push back hard on my favorite theories for McCarthy's late game struggles. But those same play call level details show how the Colts managed to screw up a bunch of late leads.

My first read is this:

1. Substituting likelier to fail play calls for one's that are more successful is a bad idea if the only return is to service a second order effect (running versus a loaded box to drain the clock). You are in essence, handing the other team what they need (multiple possessions) when they need it. It may make sense very late, but not before. And doing it will less than a 2 score lead is probably dumb before 2 minutes.

2. You want to drain clock? Stay inbounds and muddle huddle on every down you can waiting to snap until late in game clock. You can do that at any time.

3. Slowing things down and managing a lead versus a good opponent is just a bad idea in general. At some point, they will figure you out and adjust and score.

http://www.sharpfootballanalysis.com...the-2017-colts

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Originally Posted by pbmax

Not starring the Packers and M3, but the Colts and Chuck Pagano. This nugget should get you going:



Sharp Football has provided some stats that push back hard on my favorite theories for McCarthy's late game struggles. But those same play call level details show how the Colts managed to screw up a bunch of late leads.

My first read is this:

1. Substituting likelier to fail play calls for one's that are more successful is a bad idea if the only return is to service a second order effect (running versus a loaded box to drain the clock). You are in essence, handing the other team what they need (multiple possessions) when they need it. It may make sense very late, but not before. And doing it will less than a 2 score lead is probably dumb before 2 minutes.

2. You want to drain clock? Stay inbounds and muddle huddle on every down you can waiting to snap until late in game clock. You can do that at any time.

3. Slowing things down and managing a lead versus a good opponent is just a bad idea in general. At some point, they will figure you out and adjust and score.

http://www.sharpfootballanalysis.com...the-2017-colts

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Does this change any of your theories yet?

Its Martyball.

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Combining every down in the 4th quarter, if the Colts were leading, they went 100% run unless they lined up in 11 personnel with 3 WRs. They were the only team in the NFL to go 100% run when fewer than 3 WRs were on the field. With these predictable runs, they gained just 1.9 YPC and recorded a 38% success rate.

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Originally Posted by Smidgeon

Does this change any of your theories yet?

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Not yet.

Most of the work Sharp did that vince (I think) quoted a while back showed McCarthy wasn't quite as run oriented as some famous games tend to suggest nor as eager as I thought to get to the 4 minute offense early. His overall record in games with a lead is not bad at all. Its more worrying against better teams in the playoffs, which to some degree is to be expected.

McCarthy isn't this stubborn. And he clearly adjusted to favor more first downs since the Seattle meltdown. Ironically, the rest of the offense seems to have suffered a bit for multiple reasons, but M3's late game offensive approach has improved.

THIS sounds familiar.

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Why were the Colts so bad when passing with a 4th quarter lead? First, we need to understand the Colts were primarily a 11 personnel team when passing, which means 3 WRs. When passing, they used 3 WRs approximately 79% of the time and 2 or fewer WRs 21% of the time.

The Colts were substantially more efficient when passing from 2 or fewer WR sets.
When using 3 WRs on the season, they were successful on 43% of passes, delivered an 82 rating and averaged 6.8 YPA.
When using 2 or fewer WRs, they delivered a 52% success rate, with a 91 rating and 7.8 YPA.

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They needed a good self scout.

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they gained just 1.9 YPC and recorded a 38% success rate.

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Sounds like my university team. This is particularly bad in 3 down football...

1.9 ypc...sounds like hundley at the helm. lol

The part about Sharp that is frustrating is that last time I went to their website, there was no historical data. It was all current or past year (don't remember which), and in the case of the Packers made it hard to judge some of McCarthy's poorest results in any kind of context. I couldn't even find a pay option to access it.

The other thing here is that he thinks of this as analytics and its really just a first level pass at collecting data. Pagano is a D coordinator by training and he knows offensive tendencies. I tend to think the Colts were hamstrung not by a failure of analytics, lack of film work about tendencies or self-scout, but by a failure of imagination that affects almost all defensive trained head coaches with the always exception of Belichick.

They always want to offense to protect the D, which is how you get run/run/pass. Pagano doesn't have Luck and he assumes his offense, despite the 4th quarter lead, is outmanned. So despite a very questionable O line, he decides conservative is the way to play it. Losing by the book this is called. Its why they kick FGs in the fourth quarter down by multiple scores.

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Originally Posted by gbgary

1.9 ypc...sounds like hundley at the helm. lol

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Sort of a disservice to the running game with ole Wrigley at the helm. The running game was at least mediocre with him in there.

The key is getting a first down, don't be afraid to throw the ball. Yes, there are times when strictly running is the best scenario (like when the other team has no timeouts and it's under 2 min) but getting the first should be the priority, by any means necessary.

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Originally Posted by Cheesehead Craig

The key is getting a first down, don't be afraid to throw the ball. Yes, there are times when strictly running is the best scenario (like when the other team has no timeouts and it's under 2 min) but getting the first should be the priority, by any means necessary.

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Did you cover all of it ? :-)

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