didn't do, what I said, the coach should do. So the coach
just does what that person says, the coach should do
to protect himself with the owner.
That's why we're seeing this.
And that's why it loses sight. I talked about this yesterday.
Chris with the gym, or Jim John, not Jim, say hi to your
dad, for me,
John Harbaugh, right? Decision to go for it on Fourth and goal
from the to. It's not just go or no-go, it's what play do we
have that? We like,
how do we feel? All about executing that play, right? Can
we trust our quarterback not to throw an interception in
the end zone? Because it's not as simple as saying.
Well, if we fail, they have it on their two yard line.
No, they don't. They have it on their 20, good, or the So Many
Factors relations, right?
And what's, our Vibe today? Like where do we think their
weaknesses are? Where do we think our weaknesses are? How
do, I, how do the plays that we thought going into the game
would work in these situations?
How do we think now that we're actually
58 minutes into the game? They actually will work. Those are
all things you have to. Trusted discretion of the coach and
they are not conducive to a mathematical formula. That's
where the
rubber meets the road on analytics. It is still
football. It is still a human driven game, right? And and
there are so many factors that can never be Quantified. And
I don't want his
well, we account for that in the model b*******.
You can't have a model that accounts for everything and if
you did, whoever came up with that model, wouldn't be on TV,
wouldn't be in a team, they'd be in Vegas, beaten the odds.
Every single game and keeping their mouths shut about it.
Yeah. Well, it's like we talked about, yes, there's more to it.
There's there's is realizing how the games playing out in
real time, there's the human emotion aspect of it.
You know, we see it all the time. I mean, it's not just
John Harbaugh and I mean hey, there's a number of games you
can point to on Sunday that you just, you don't understand
the decision
and its always about aggressive and the analytics and
I understand that. But hey, let's look at last night. There was
a decision a little like
It's 8:46. The 49ers are inside the 10-yard line. We're in
an era now
where the announcers little man, generally go for it, go
for it and I'm sure the analytics probably said, well,
they win. If they go for it and score, it's a 64 percent chance
of winning and if they don't score,
it's still a 60% chance of winning.
Well, what did Shanahan do? He doesn't get caught up in
the moment he goes. Wait, my defense is whooping. The crap
out of the Rams Were the better team on the field tonight? Let
me protect myself and go up by eight. So they score
a touchdown in two
point conversion which is going to be hard against us. Okay. So
be it but the game is tied, but I believe at the very least, it
gives us more momentum, more confidence and we've been
the better team on the field
and the longer weep. I hear the more will separate themselves
017 to 90
the Rams, dinkin dunk, and they're fighting for every yard
and we're going to throw it 45. Times at 2 feet per throw and
what happens? They throw one of those short passes, it gets
intercepted game over.
So to your point, yes, there is way more into it than just
numbers are numbers on a sheet which is driving me crazy right
now in the NFL.
And I'm sure that I've already fully triggered, the analytics
Mafia. So let me go ahead and say this to another thing. That
drives me crazy. We have this conversation every year.
When you have these two choices. Well, we've got
50 point two percent chance of winning if we do this, we've
got a 49.3% chance of winning if we do that. So let's do
the thing. That gives us a 50 point, two percent chance of
winning.
That is so fundamentally flawed. Because as a head
coach, I don't have the luxury of doing this a hundred times,
I'm not going to get to play the long game over 20 years if
I don't win games, I'm out. So I got to make the decision that
I think
for me in this Circumstances more likely to help me win
the game. Not the one that if I do it a hundred times,
I'm going to get it right
a little more than half
versus the one that I'm going to get wrong a little more than
half. I gotta get it right now. I got to pick the one that's
going to work right now. This game, this field, these
players, these conditions, these circumstances, based on
everything I've seen all game long,
that's where these, like, if the margin is ninety five
versus five, okay? But when I hear people say, well, there's
a 62 percent chance of winning if you go for it and have 58
percent chance of winning if you don't, that's
margin of error stuff for me.
I want to know what's going to work right now,
and I'm not going to be guided by a hair here and a hair there.
A big difference. Yes,
but a small difference
to me, it's just one factor to consider in the way. I'd
consider it is, it's irrelevant. I'm going to do
what's right in these circumstances.
Yeah, I'm with you. There I am and you
It's unfortunate. I think it's leads to a lot of the reasons
why we're seeing games all over the place. You know, I do
I think it's too got its so caught up in the numbers head
coaches
and playing that game all the time. They've lost their gut
instinct and some of their things they've learned
throughout the history of coaching about wait. Let me
just take the lead and manage the game the right way
or do this and you know, we'll do the appropriate things
after. But yeah, it leads to Eating football,
but its momentum changes and it's a lot of reasons why
I think we see teams kind of blow leads on a weekly basis
sometimes, when they control the football games because they
are a little too number base
and it D emphasizes the power of the coach and the influence
of the coach. And look, here's what happens. It's like any
other industry. The industry changes at the top,
you now have owners who are very Savvy about analytics
they've got their analytics expert right there at the right
hand and
Takes that coaching job knows going in. This is just the way
it is, you know, it's like a rule change. This is just
the rules of how the organizational Dynamics work have changed.
And I've got to accept that, and I no longer have
the autonomy that maybe coaches, once had I now have to adjust
and adapt to this person who's going to be talking to my
headset, telling me these percentages.
And expecting that I listen to them because
the owners paying them high six figures
to be the one to have all these answers because they think they
can somehow Au turn this into the same thing as the balance
sheet that these owners have mastered over the years to earn
billions. I really do
think that's why it's taken a foothold Chris. I've never
thought about it that way, but you have all these people
except the ones who inherit their teams, who are successful
business people,
and they think they can somehow take the magic
that they've captured elsewhere to earn billions
and translated into success on the football field.
And this is a way to quantify
things that are inherently unquantifiable, but they're
trying to do it. I think Is making it harder for coaches to
do. The job, is the way that they're supposed to be doing
the jobs
that makes any sense at all. Well yeah, they're being and
they're being micromanaged. I mean, they're being, they're
basically been as I know from a lot of people being called into
a room on a Monday
and having to explain themselves for every decision they've made
and of course, when you have to do that and you realize that,
hey, link to your point, the owner seems to be leaning on
the GM and the analytics crew
as a coach, you start to just go well crap. I guess I'll just
you know Buy in and join the team's. When in Rome get fired
When in Rome exactly right. I had, I had a GM tell me
that it used to be.
And I mentioned this, I think in Playmakers and I think we've
talked about it before, but it's an important point. It
used to be the coach could just go in there and bamboozle
the owner with jargon not anymore
because the owners got the analytics person there
who can cut through the crap and the owner is asking
incisive, tough questions of the coach and the owners are no
longer. Blown Away by all the football jargon and they keep
their mouth shut, unless they come off as stupid. That
doesn't happen anymore and it makes it harder for the coach.
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