The top-scorer on Harbaugh's fantasy team.

It’s become trendy in this space and many others for stats folks to rail against bad 4th down decisions. It’s even trendier to do it when those conservative decisions backfire, leading to losses. But analyzing any decision — and especially decisions about whether to go for it or kick on 4th down — should not be done with the benefit of hindsight. So today, I’m going to rail against John Harbaugh, Bill Belichick, and Mike McCoy, who made some awfully timid 4th down decisions but won on Sunday. And while one could argue that they won because of those decisions, the better argument, I believe, is that they won in spite of them.

Trailing by 4 with 5:03 remaining, the Ravens kick a Field Goal on the 3-yard line

Harbaugh is no stranger to meek 4th down decision making; in fact, he’s no stranger to this particular brand of conservative coaching. Last year, he sent out the kicker when, trailing by 6 points with just over four minutes remaining in the game, the Ravens faced a 4th and 5 from the 6 yard line. Both Jason Lisk and I wrote about the silliness of this decision, which resulted in a Buffalo 23-20 victory.

Facing similar circumstances — a 4-point lead and an extra minute remaining makes it less objectionable to kick the field goal, but being on the 3-yard line makes it even worse — Harbaugh again sent out Justin Tucker to take the points.  That decision cost the Ravens 0.22 expected wins; according to Advanced Football Analytics, the decision to kick a field goal instead of going for it dropped Baltimore’s win probability from 54% to 32%.

As Mike Tanier facetiously wrote, this just set up the ultimate Ravens end game: one bomb from Joe Flacco and one kick by Tucker is all the team would need to win.  Sure enough, Flacco hit Steve Smith for a 32-yard catch, and Tucker kicked the chip shot for the win.  The Ravens wound up having two additional possessions: after Tucker made it a 1-point game, the Browns and Ravens traded 3-and-outs, and the Browns went 3-and-out again before giving Baltimore one final possession with 1:58 remaining.

At the time of the decision to send Tucker out for a field goal, Brian Hoyer was 19 of 22 for 290 yards and a touchdown. He wound up throwing incomplete on his last three passes of the day. But if not for two Cleveland three-and-outs — the only two of the day — Harbaugh’s decision to cost his team 22 points of win probability would be generating much more backlash today.

Leading by 1 with 13:45 remaining, the Patriots kick a Field Goal on the 2-yard line

The Patriots were content to let the Raiders hang around with them all day, and it nearly cost them the game. The Raiders mounted one last drive, down by seven, which appeared to end when Darren McFadden ran for a touchdown with 60 seconds remaining. Would Oakland go for two and the win? We never found out, as a questionable holding call on Gabe Jackson nullified the penalty. Had the Raiders won the game, it would have been reasonable to question Belichick’s meek decision at the beginning of the quarter.

Early in the 4th quarter, New England had 1st and goal at the Raiders two-yard line. The first play was a Shane Vereen run for no gain. The next was an apparent touchdown pass to Rob Gronkowski, but the tight end couldn’t hold on after the ball was deflected by Charles Woodson. On third down, Brady threw a pass to Danny Amendola that should have gone for a touchdown; it was both an Amendola drop and slightly off-target.

Did those plays scare the team from making the smart decision, which would have been to go for it on 4th down? Vereen’s first down run nearly scored, and the same could have been said about the 2nd and 3rd down plays. By kicking the field goal, the Patriots sacrificed 0.7 expected points, but the team also sacrificed the chance to shut the door on the Raiders. My hunch is Oakland fans were relieved to see the Patriots sent out Stephen Gostkowski and take Brady off the field, which is a good sign that New England was making the wrong decision. Even the worst-case scenario would have left rookie Derek Carr backed against his own end zone with the Foxboro crowd behind him. That doesn’t seem like a bad consolation prize if the Patriots couldn’t come away with seven.

Chargers kick, kick, kick, and kick some more

San Diego made a series of conservative decisions in its victory against Buffalo. Against a better opponent, it could have cost the team the game.

• Facing the same 4th-and-goal from the 2 situation as Belichick, McCoy chose to kick, again sacrificing 0.7 expected points. This decision came with San Diego ahead by 7 with 10 minutes left in the second quarter; at that point in the game, maximizing points should be the team’s only goal. Teams should almost never kick a field goal from the 2 yard line in the first half, and San Diego especially should never do that.

• Later in the half, San Diego punted from its own 42 on 4th-and-1. Almost every coach will punt there, but I’m just going to list this one in the interest of putting all of McCoy’s questionable decisions on paper.

• Facing 4th-and-5 at the Buffalo 44, up by 10 at the start of the 4th quarter, the Chargers punted. Teams leading are generally not too risky, but the punt (as many punts in no man’s land often do) wound up going for a touchback, giving the team just 24 yards of field position. There are few quarterbacks you can trust to convert a 4th-and-5 more than Philip Rivers — San Diego has been outstanding on 3rd down situations since McCoy took over — and the math here says to go for it.

• Facing 4th-and-2 at the Buffalo 43 with 3:36 left, McCoy could have gone for it to ice the game. The decision was not critical — the Chargers had a 96% chance of winning if they went for it, and a 93% chance by punting — but the break-even point to going for it was 14%. And there’s a better than 50/50 chance the Chargers convert in that situation, far ahead of the break-even scenario. Up by 10 with so little time remaining, the only way to lose is if the Bills offense suddenly resembles the Broncos. In that case, the extra 30 yards of field position won’t do much to stop them, but maintaining possession would have been a way to close the door on the game.

In the abstract, McCoy’s decisions were not terrible, especially the last three. But in the aggregate, it does paint the picture of a very conservative coaching day. If this continues, it could cost the them against better competition.