ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Decisions, decisions.
When it’s fourth down, the game nears its end and the outcome teeters on the success or failure of that do-or-die fourth-down play, NFL head coaches quickly discover that even with all those big bucks in their bank account, life ain’t easy.
“When you’re in tight games and when it comes down to the wire, everything’s magnified nowadays,’’ Brandon Staley, head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers who has been under attack for his fourth-down decision-making the past two seasons, said in a Zoom call Friday with the Denver media. “And so every decision down the stretch … it’s either going to be because of that decision or not that decision. Or even if you win the game it could have gone this way, it could have gone that way – and so all you can do is respect your process, trust the people you work with and trust your players.’’
Staley’s Chargers play the Broncos on Monday night at Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium. Broncos’ first-year head coach Nathaniel Hackett has received more harsh criticism than even Staley this year. In the season opener before a primetime Monday night audience last month, Hackett decided not to go for it on fourth down and instead called for a 64-yard field goal attempt at Seattle’s sea level with his team down 1 point. The kick by Brandon McManus barely missed. Broncos lose. Hackett was heavily criticized.
And then in last Thursday’s 12-9 overtime loss to the Colts, Hackett went for it on fourth-and-1 from the Indy 5 yard line. No matter that receiver KJ Hamler was wide open coming off a pick. The pass across the middle fell incomplete, the game was over, the Broncos lost, and Hackett was blamed for not running the ball.
Hackett wasn’t being facetious, then, when he was asked about the key to making crucial in-game decisions.
“Make sure it works,’’ Staley said Friday. “Regardless of what you decide, you have to make sure it works. That has been a huge topic of conversation, both for me as I start and all coaches across the league. There is this thing called analytics that are out there that give you a great starting point. I think for me and all the coaches, that is what we want to hear first. What are the true analytics on that one?
“But in the end, it’s about the play, it’s about the players and executing and making that play. In the end, we have to execute, and we have to convert, then it’s a great decision. If you don’t convert, it’s a really, really bad decision.’’
Staley’s correct. It’s the end-of-game fourth-down decisions that get all the scrutiny. Overall, the Broncos and Chargers are pretty good on fourth downs. The Broncos have converted half the time (3 of 6) which is better than the league average, and last year, when Staley was lambasted for his fourth-down decisions near season’s end, the Chargers had the fourth-best, fourth-down conversion rate overall.
When Staley surprisingly got the Chargers’ head job prior to the 2021 season despite having only one year of defensive coordinator experience, he may have thought he understood how hot the head coach’s seat could get. But did the reality of such intense heat surprise him?
“No. I’ve watched sports since I was 5 years old,’’ he said. “Drinking coffee when I was 7 years old with my dad reading the newspaper. I’ve been watching sports my whole life and all I’ve ever wanted to be was a coach. It doesn’t matter what era, what sport, you know you’re in the league whether you’re a player or coach, that that’s part of the game. And that’s the part of the game that you cherish because you know how competitive it is.’’
(We’ll inquire about Staley’s young caffeine habit at another time.)
Much has been made in recent years about NFL analytics and its place in decision-making. It started 20 years ago in baseball with Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane and his assistant Paul DePodesta taking the Moneyball approach to roster-building and game management. It wasn’t until about a decade later that the method started trickling into the NFL.
Staley, though, has too much knowledge and respect of football’s history to say analytics is a recent development.
“It’s just the context of this framework has changed because of the word “analytics,” Staley said. “But since Paul Brown started (in) this league, people have been looking at data, tendencies, scouting, to make decisions.
“It’s just how it’s framed now and the amount of scrutiny and the amount of information that you have to analyze all these situations.’’
Still, old school coaches, players and executives grew up relying on gut instinct when the pressure was on. And while the gut has a prominent place in decision-making, it’s no longer the be-all, end-all, Staley says.
“Your mindset is No. 1 and then the math is No. 2,’’ Staley said. “What you don’t want to be is someone who’s just winging it. Those people who tell you, hey I’m going off my gut instinct and my instincts are superior to you – anyone who knows anything about decision-making knows that’s the worst way to make a decision.
“So you have to have plans in place, you have to have models in place that allow you to think faster.’’
Think fast and think it correctly doesn’t matter, though, if Hamler is open and quarterback Russell Wilson instead throws to a well-covered Courtland Sutton.
“It’s a great baseline though on how everybody is working through this stuff,’’ Hackett said. “But it makes it more fun for entertainment in the game.”
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