re: Going for 2 in that situation.

These discussions get into the philosophy of probability and frequentism vs bayesianism.

Teams in that situation may win with a certain frequency using a certain strategy but that does not take into account game conditions and what specific plays are run and how the opposing defense has performed against those plays and what personnel is on the field during the play.

The Bayesian is constantly updating their odds based on situations while the frequentist just says that if something happens a large number of times it will trend toward a certain probability.

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Thanks for proving your entire argument is nonsense.

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Tell that to Saban, Belichick, Shanahan, McDaniel, Andy Reid. They have crunched the numbers and adapted their decision-making to give their teams a better chance to win games.

The guys thats entire lives revolve around making these decisions know how important any edge you can gain is.

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it's not a straightforward problem especially in rare situations like season ending decisions.

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it is. Saban literally had a chart that he stuck to specifically to take emotion out of those decisions.

From the LSU 2022 game

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Saban had just answered a reporter’s question about Alabama’s decisions to twice attempt two-point conversions in the fourth quarter of Saturday’s loss in Baton Rouge. He punctuated his answer by reaching toward his back pocket and saying, “I got the chart right here, you want to see it?”

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Get out of here with your math, NERD!

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Why does that matter? You are either trying to win the game or lose it. There are no partial losses. If you are trying to win the game, you make the binary decision that gives you the best chance of winning. In this case, it is going for it, and its by a large margin.

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You're right, it's not some statistical outcome. But it depends on the play call and the defense and the personnel on the field. You've just got one or two chances and the season is done.

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It gives you a better % chance to win in regulation - that’s the benefit.

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Not necessarily. That's the frequentist argument but every situation is different.

I don't have the s but statistics but throwing a fade even to Mike Evans was probably on the low end of conversion chances.

Here is a practical version of the explanation of why it is correct.

So you need 2 touchdowns. So we are only concerned about when you do score those 2 touchdowns. Otherwise, none of this matters anyway.

Going for PAT after each score give you a 50% chance of winning, as it just goes to overtime.

Going for the first PAT and then going for 2 on the second one gives you a 50% chance of winning, as it just comes down to that 2 point conversion after the second TD.

Going for 2 after both. Let's look at the possibilities.

Miss - miss. You lose. This will happen 25%
Miss - make. You go to overtime. This will happen 25% of the time.

If there were no informational advantage, then make - miss and make - make should round out this decision matrix. Make-make being a win and make-miss being OT. Hence an aggregate chance of 50% OT, 25% win in regulation. 25% lose in regulation.

But make - miss DOES NOT EXIST because of an informational advantage. You would never try a second 2 point conversion if you made the first one. So the actual matrix is.....

Miss - miss 25% - loss
miss - make 25% - OT
Make - pat 50% - win

That is 50% winning in regulation, 25% losing in regulation, and 25% going into OT. Assuming you are 50/50 to win an OT game, you have to add 12.5% to the regulation win and regulation loss percentages. That gives us a final total of......

62.5% win
37.5% loss

Here is the math, assuming everything has a 50% chance of success. 2pt=50%, OT Win/Lose = 50% etc.

As the poster says above, the analytics say you that you have a 62.5% chance of winning going for 2 after the 1st TD, but there are some other factors which could play a role, good or bad.

1) If you make it, the other team might be more motivated to make the 1st down, thus preventing you from getting the ball back.

2) But this also makes them more likely to fumble or to throw an interception, or maybe stop the clock on an incompletion.

3) Likewise, if you don't score on the 1st 2 pt conversion, the other team might go into a shell mode and just try to eat as much clock as possible, therefore, you might be more likely to get the ball back.

4) If you don't get the 2pt conversion on the 1st or 2nd TD, you still might have time on the clock to get an onside kick. The percentages are super low, but it would add a percentage point or two to the W column.

I thought they were crazy for doing it last night, but after looking at the math, it actually does make some sense to me.