{"id":29470,"date":"2013-01-14T02:30:24","date_gmt":"2013-01-14T02:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/if-going-for-two-when-down-eight-is-a-winning\/"},"modified":"2013-01-14T02:30:24","modified_gmt":"2013-01-14T02:30:24","slug":"if-going-for-two-when-down-eight-is-a-winning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/if-going-for-two-when-down-eight-is-a-winning\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>If going for two when down eight is a winning strategy, why doesn\u2019t anyone do it? Because\u2014just as in the case of punting on a short fourth down\u2014kicking the PAT minimizes the chance you\u2019ll look dumb. As SportsQuant\u2019s David Annis explains, the extra-point strategy decreases your chances of losing in regulation while increasing your overall chance of losing the game. As a consequence, Annis writes, it seems the typical football coach \u201creally isn&rsquo;t trying to maximize his chances of winning. Rather he&rsquo;s attempting to prolong his defeat.\u201d<br \/>\nMy correspondent Walter Sun suggests there\u2019s a simple way to get risk-averse, play-not-to-lose coaches to come around to the right way of thinking. \u201cIf you go for two when down eight, you not only improve your win probability (the sound mathematical reason), you also control your own fate (the reason fans\/management will accept),\u201d Sun says. Even in the age of the NFL\u2019s new, fairer overtime system, the team that wins the OT coin toss still holds the advantage. \u201cIn a sport where the phrase \u2018controlling your own destiny\u2019 is overused,\u201d Sun continues, this is the one time the clich\u00e9 makes sense. Come on, NFL coaches\u2014do you really want your fate to depend on whether a coin comes up heads?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<div class='attribution'><a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/articles\/sports\/sports_nut\/2013\/01\/two_point_conversion_strategy_the_late_game_scenario_in_which_going_for.2.html\">Two-point conversion strategy: The late-game scenario in which going for two is always the right move, and the NFL coaches who refuse to do it. &#8211; Slate Magazine<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If going for two when down eight is a winning strategy, why doesn\u2019t anyone do it? Because\u2014just as in the case of punting on a short fourth down\u2014kicking the PAT minimizes the chance you\u2019ll look dumb. As SportsQuant\u2019s David Annis explains, the extra-point strategy decreases your chances of losing in regulation while increasing your overall [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[],"tags":[1560,1538,1559,428,334],"class_list":["post-29470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-quote","hentry","tag-high-investment-games","tag-humane-games","tag-player-roles","tag-sport","tag-strategy","post_format-post-format-quote"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6PWot-7Fk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29470\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}