PEDERSON CALCULATED ODDS BEFORE TAKING SUPER GAMBLE
Eagles head coach lauded for risk-taking style, but it’s all based on sound analysis
Following his career-altering win in Super Bowl LII, Philadelphia Eagles head coach Doug Pederson is being regarded as the ultimate riverboat gambler, a fearless risk-taker who rejects football’s traditional thinking while empowering his team to go for the jugular.
This is based on a couple of play calls in the Eagles’ heartstopping win, most notably the fourth-and-one gadget play at the end of the first half that resulted in tight-end Trey Burton throwing a touchdown pass to quarterback Nick Foles, and a fourth-down gamble at midfield late in the fourth quarter that led to the eventual game-winning TD. Those calls took guts, the experts agreed. Those plays were audacious.
But if you asked Pederson and his staff, the now-celebrated gambles weren’t gambles at all but, rather, the inevitable conclusion to a detailed mathematical analysis. The wonder isn’t that the Eagles rolled the dice a couple of times on fourth down in the biggest game of Pederson’s career. The wonder is that more teams don’t do it.
“Our coach has some guts,” Burton said after the game. “Some big ones. You never know what he’s thinking. Here we are. Philly’s never won a Super Bowl. We’re fourth-and-one on the goal-line and he calls a trick-play pass to the quarterback? Come on, man.”
Guts are just part of the equation.
While all NFL teams employ analytics to some degree, the Eagles are groundbreaking in their use of statistical data in shaping in-game decisions. Long before the Super Bowl, Pederson placed the Eagles on the cutting edge of a new philosophy, one rooted in numbers, not instinct.
This season, the Eagles gambled on fourth down 26 times, second only to Green Bay’s 28, and were successful 65.4 per cent of the time. OK, nothing too radical there, but the Eagles didn’t just try to extend drives in the second half when the game was on the line. It was an essential part of their playbook. Eleven times during the season they went for it on fourth down during the first half. The results are telling. The Eagles scored a TD or a field goal on 13 of the 18 drives they converted on fourth down, accounting for 85 points. But here’s the most revealing number. According to ESPN, the Eagles didn’t surrender a single point after they failed to convert on fourth down.
Based on that, the decision to go for a touchdown with the ball on the Pats’ one-yard line at the end of the first half was a relative no-brainer.
Less orthodox, however, was the play, and that’s what has cemented Pederson’s reputation. The play was a relatively recent addition to the Eagles’ playbook — it had been practised all of six times before Sunday — and it came with a significant element of risk. But the coach didn’t see it that way.
“I was thinking, ‘We keep talking about that play and calling it in the second half of the game,’” he said. “But when are we going to be in a situation like this to put us up by two scores? There are certain plays that you spend time doing them, repping them and you have no doubt they’re going to work. Without a shadow of a doubt, you know. I knew.”
The fourth-quarter gamble wasn’t quite as dramatic, but was even more important to the game and more revealing about Pederson. Facing fourth-andone with the ball on their own 45 and 5:39 to go, Foles completed a two-yard pass to tight end Zach Ertz to extend the drive. Ertz’s game-winning touchdown catch followed.
ESPN calculated teams have punted in that situation — fourth-and-one around midfield — 42 of the last 47 times.
There were, of course, a number of other storylines to this game, most notably Bill Belichick’s incomprehensible decision to bench defensive back Malcolm Butler, the hero of the Patriots’ Super Bowl win over Seattle three years ago. Butler played 98 per cent of the Patriots’ defensive snaps this year but, in their biggest game, was relegated to special teams.
Belichick said the decision was based on a myriad of factors, but, ultimately, he felt it gave the Pats the best chance to win. With Foles throwing for 373 yards and three touchdowns, the Pats became the first team in NFL history to record more than 600 yards in total offence and lose. Wonder what the analytics community says about that.
Now, the numbers are one thing. The other aspect of Pederson’s go-for-it philosophy is tied up in a host of intangibles that can’t be measured, but are every bit as impactful. It makes a statement about the confidence and aggressiveness of his team.
It’s also unsettling to the opposition. Before the NFC Championship Game, Vikings coach Mike Zimmer talked about the Eagles’ proclivity for fourthdown gambles, saying: “We have to be prepared at any point.” It didn’t show up that game but, two weeks later, it did.
There are any number of questions that emerged from the Eagles’ Super Bowl win. The biggest might be: Has Pederson changed the way the game is coached?