Kickers are a necessary evil in the NFL. Their importance is counterintuitive to the nature of the job. Trustworthy ones are hard to find and untrustworthy ones easy to replace. Still, our NFL Week 10 recap looks at two decisions made by head coaches that proved inordinately costly to their teams.
Coaching styles are difficult to gauge. However, it needs to be analyzed when factoring in pregame projections.
Zac Taylor and the Bengals’ Failed 2-Point Conversion
Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zac Taylor is from the younger school of coaches who do not adhere to conventional wisdom. Sometimes that’s good and sometimes it’s not. Like many of his contemporaries — Sean McVay, Matt LaFleur, Brandon Staley, Kevin O’Connell, Mike McDaniel, Nick Sirianni — he makes head-scratching decisions that make sense on paper and less sense in games.
In the Bengals Thursday Night Football loss to Baltimore, Cincinnati scored a last-minute touchdown to cut the deficit to 35-34. Taylor faced the choice of going for the 2-point conversion to win or kicking the extra point to send the game to overtime.
He chose the former. Quarterback Joe Burrow’s pass attempt to Ja’Marr Chase failed, and the Ravens won.
Was it the right call?
For those who wagered, the decision was imperative as Cincinnati was a 6-point underdog. Had they tied the game and it went to overtime, bettors would at least have been assured of a push even if Baltimore scored a touchdown to win. The failed attempt meant those who took the Bengals won. Those who took the Ravens and gave 6 points, lost.
Taylor knows the numbers. Teams succeed at a 2-point play around 47% of the time. Kicking the extra point is all but guaranteed, particularly with Evan McPherson making the kicks.
Overtime is also a gamble, but it is not a do or die situation as it was with the 2-point attempt.
Texans’ Field Goal Attempt Was a Similar Dynamic
In the Houston Texans’ last-minute loss to the Detroit Lions, Houston head coach DeMeco Ryans had kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn try a 58-yard field goal in a tie game with 1:56 left on the clock. Fairbairn missed leaving Detroit with a short field to get into their kicker Jake Bates’ range.
After killing the clock, Bates kicked a 52-yarder at the end of regulation to win the game for the Lions.
Houston had dominated the game for the first three quarters, leading 23-13 and intercepting Jared Goff an unfathomable five times. Detroit mounted a furious comeback to tie the game.
But it was that decision in the last two minutes that arguably cost Houston the game.
Would it have been better for Houston to pin Detroit deep in their territory with a long field? The Texans’ defense had been excellent to that point.
This is where kickers’ range becomes a blessing and a curse. Not many years ago, kickers trying for 55-yard field goals happened only as a matter of necessity. Now, they regularly hit those long-distance kicks dead center and 60+ yard field goals are common and no longer eye-popping.
The downside to that is that a missed kick puts the opposition within 10 or so yards of being in field goal range themselves. That is what happened for Detroit.
The dynamic from the NFL Week 10 recap needs to be factored in as one of the many consideration when calculating a likely outcome.
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