Scott Pioli...a genius!

[nigeriannightmare]

Now conspirancy theorists think about it. The chiefs were the first to offer a contract to manning knowing full well we were gonna go after quinn and how much elway dislikes tebow. Does anyone know what was offered, that contract may be why manning wants more money now and in doing so tied the hands of our hated rival while we became better and they, the donkeys, were forced to wait for manning who in turn may go to san francisco.....oh and signed a stud cb from oakland.....and may still get tolbert. Yeah pioli sucks.

[TopekaRoy]

I think a big key to the 4th &8 discussion is the situations. I would think that the majority of those occur on the final drive of a game, or at least a "last desperate gasp" kind of drive.

And, in those situations, defenses tend to be playing "prevent", giving a passing game an advantage.

Though that could be analyzed even more, I think the numbers are higher than many would expect because of the types of game situations where a team would go for it.

I thought the same thing, but according to the article from which I took that graph, only 1st and 3rd quarter statistics were used.

I used only data from the 1st and 3rd quarters to exclude situations hurried by an expiring clock and by desperate teams or teams with large leads playing differently late in games.

I would've expected the success rates to be lower than they are beyond 4th and 3.

[chief31]

I thought the same thing, but according to the article from which I took that graph, only 1st and 3rd quarter statistics were used.



I would've expected the success rates to be lower than they are beyond 4th and 3.

Wow. Guess that eliminates my theory. But I can't think of many situations where a team would go for it on 4th & 8 (+), aside from last seconds of the half, or game.

Has to be pretty rare.

[TopekaRoy]

Wow. Guess that eliminates my theory. But I can't think of many situations where a team would go for it on 4th & 8 (+), aside from last seconds of the half, or game.

Has to be pretty rare.

I agree. Unless your team has very bad special teams and the team you are playing has a very weak defense, it doesn't make sense to me. But then again, if the defense is so bad, why is it 4th and 8?

I wonder if fake punts are included in those numbers, and would that make the success rates higher or lower?

[chief31]

I agree. Unless your team has very bad special teams and the team you are playing has a very weak defense, it doesn't make sense to me. But then again, if the defense is so bad, why is it 4th and 8?

I wonder if fake punts are included in those numbers, and would that make the success rates higher or lower?

Good point. I bet they are, and that they increase the numbers. I mean, you just wouldn't expect that in a 4&8, nor in an odd quarter. So it would likely have a better chance of taking a defense by surprise.

Hard to say though. I didn't see any raw numbers. Not that I read the whole thing.