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- Thread starter Captain Buckeye
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sparcboxbuck
What happened to my ¤cash?
Those of us in the optimization business would refer to that as 'constrained optimization.' And yeah, it's fuck'n hard. More constraints, all things being equal, significantly reduce the likelihood of global optimization as you're focused on solution optimization in the constrained space. If the global optimal lies outside of the local constrained space, there's no chance to globally optimize without relaxing constraint(s). That's the real math of it. We can debate all day long what the best method for local optimization under constraints would be, but I think @Jaxbuck is doing a pretty good job of explaining / interpreting what we would guess Day was operating under while managing through the season.
That said, I think that a more nuanced set of heuristics could be applied. Something along the lines of:
-- When there is a significant advantage for the offense and defense do whatever the hell you want to do. I'd argue that this is where you speed up play, practice things against someone who wants to take your head off your shoulders, experiment with tempo and get the starters out early after getting their reps to make room for the 2nd and 3rd lines to get significant run.
-- When there is a significant advantage for the offense but not the defense, long sustained offensive drives to burn clock OR quick strikes for TDs are a must... provided the defense is giving up field goals. Every TD you score for every FG they score creates a 4-point gap in your favor... so you want more plays than the other guy... again, provided the defense is keeping TDs from being scored.
-- Where there is a significant advantage for the defense but not the offense, I agree with the Day MO this year. Minimize where you fall shorter and just be good enough to score one more point than they do... win the games ugly and with defense. Field position is key and the special teams has to be on point.
-- Where there is no significant advantage for either side of the ball... or talent equated games as they like to call them... is really poker on grass. This is where creative play calling and self scouting are stupid important. Break tendencies, find your best match-ups for a play at the line and go play football. This is where I think Day got in trouble this year. Without good OL play to protect a QB who wasn't getting the ball out quick, offensively they were not able to get the ball to the best match-ups. And I don't know that they significantly broke tendencies. The only real tendency that I saw broken was handing the ball to CJ Donaldson when we weren't on the goal line.
Good stuff... I'm really enjoying reading the debate(s) on this.
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Captain Buckeye
Assistant Coach
I agree with this. When you’re heavily advantaged it doesn’t matter how you play and like you point out maybe the more plays the better to hash things out.
The issue I think many of us have (including a lot of the media it seems) is we had the advantage in nearly all of the games yet still continued with the same approach all year.
So in your opinion what’s the correct approach when your defense is elite but offense is just merely good? I’d think (in these rare situations) we should have more opportunities. First because the defense can take the stress but also because you’re likely to need the extra possessions due to drive efficiency going down.
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sparcboxbuck
What happened to my ¤cash?
I think that's covered under this:
-- Where there is a significant advantage for the defense but not the offense, I agree with the Day MO this year. Minimize where you fall shorter and just be good enough to score one more point than they do... win the games ugly and with defense. Field position is key and the special teams has to be on point.
Ultimately, in this case, we would be the team that just hung around and was there at the end with a chance to win it. This is a rock fight and you want to keep it low scoring and close because one can count on the defense to get the out. The offense just needs to score one point more than the other guy for the W.
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I agree that ability to get the extra possession is going to be worth several deltas of pts/possession for teams that are fairly even.
That seems to raise a question about teams having a preference for winning the coin toss and deferring. By deferring, a team is giving the opponent a chance to have an extra possession in the first half. And is more likely to end up playing from behind.
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Going back to my fundamental model of an outcome (skill + random variance = outcome)
My issue is (and this is what's changed for me as a football observer over the years), I don't care how good the defense is, RV/"luck" is asymmetrical on the defensive side of the ball. When that skinny tail variance expresses itself on defense, the opponent scores. Springs slips.
As a general strategy (not talking about in game tactical uses of tempo) therefore, I would always optimize to play as few defensive snaps as possible if I had the better team. The surest path to victory in football is to have the per play points advantage because of your skill and to have more offensive plays relative to your opponent...not just absolute, volume more plays because you are actually increasing your odds of winning by limiting their chance at luck.
In general, every offensive snap is a chance for you to express skill and suppress luck. Every defensive snap is an elevated chance for the lesser skilled team to get lucky. It's like giving them more lottery tickets or playing Russian Roulette with more bullets, not fewer.
So anyway, you clearly understand it so that's my only actual point on the risk mitigation/constraint/game theory side of it.
My main argument is that people are confusing the undesirable outcome with the approach and this is the real mistake. Not once have I seen anyone who says "go faster" give equal mind share to the very real possibility that you fail and just end up punting faster.
It's a very common cognitive bias buy essentially it's if they just did this we would have won.
they get x = desired outcome anchored and give zero credence to the possibility of failure of x
It's why the Spinal Tap bit on "these go to 11" is so funny, it hits close to the mark on the truth of the human existence.
NT: "If we sped up, we'd have more chances"
Marty: "What if you sped up and just punted faster?"
NT (long pause): "If we sped up we'd have more chances"
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Agreed and I think it gets down to then stepping outside of just the possession math and also taking into account the other big constraint which is clock and to a lesser degree game state.
I think that middle 8 is the real world spot where they are making the bet that they can grab the extra possession (in essence) by getting ahead two scores at that spot in the game (clock constraint now) you really start to squeeze the opponent and change the efficacy of their possessions the rest of the way.
We have all seen it work a lot more than it fails.
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I agree with you on the middle 8 concept. Day brought this up a lot. Unfortunately we did not win the middle 8 in the games we lost.
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It's a pretty clear mid game tell of how the game is going to go with a Day coached team.
Lack of execution in the middle 8 vs reasonably skilled team is a problem. Typically can be overcome against bad teams. It's a kill shot against almost anyone when it works (which is a lot).
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Onebuckfan
classof76
what have I become. I’m pining for the Illinois kicker. Don’t tell Woody.
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I won’t tell Woody. I was hoping for that guy also.
But Olano announced yesterday he’s headed to aTm.
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