NFL

NFL Week 7: A Week of Weak Decisions

Keith Goldner  —  @keithgoldner Oct 23rd, 2012
Convinced your coach made the wrong call late in the game? You may be right, as Chief Analyst Keith Goldner explains.

numberFire.com Chief Analyst Keith Goldner occasionally takes a look at some of the big NFL decisions of the week and the advanced numbers behind them. Today, he takes a look at the Week 7 failures of NFL coaches. And boy, were there plenty of them.

There were a plethora of interesting coaching decisions this week, especially in the early games on Sunday. Avid readers cringe at these conservative calls so let's look at a few of them a little closer.

Cleveland Browns: Punted on 4th-and-1 on the Indy 41-yard line down by four with a little over six minutes remaining.

On what was likely the worst decision of the day, the Browns cut their expected win probability almost in half by punting. On 4th-and-1 from the opponent's 41, you should almost always go for it. You are expected to score +1.58 points by going for it (74% league-wide conversion rate) versus -0.04 points by punting.

Want to know about this decision and more? Check out Keith's full analysis at AdvancedNFLStats.com.