It wasn't Frank Reich's decision-making that cost the Colts a win
The NFL playoffs are cruel and unforgiving. Forget about mistakes, which are never forgiven, even good decisions that go bad are widely ridiculed. Frank Reich probably knew that already but he’ll be getting a reminder over the next few days as the media carries out its autopsy of the Colts’ 27-24 loss to the Bills in the Wild Card round.
Reich’s decision-making was put in the spotlight seemingly every drive. There were multiple fourth-down and extra-point decisions without obvious solutions.
Indianapolis ended up kicking two short field goals, attempting a pair of two-point conversions and going for it on one fourth down near the goal line. Rodrigo Blankenship shanked one field goal off the upright, Philip Rivers just missed Michael Pittman for a touchdown pass on the fourth down, and the Colts went 1-of-2 on the two-point tries.
Had Indy succeeded on all of those plays, they would have scored eight more points.
But that’s not really the correct way to look at those decisions, right? You can’t advocate for kicking a field goal in one situation and then do the opposite in a similar situation later on. We need some consistency to properly judge Reich’s choices.
What if the Colts had taken the old-school approach and made the more conservative decision in each case. That means they kick a field goal instead of attempting that failed fourth-down throw and kick the extra point instead of going for two. If Blankenship makes both kicks, that would have added three points to the Colts’ total.
So Reich did cost the Colts! They lost by three. If he had just kicked, they would have made it to overtime, right?
Unfortunately, that’s not how it works. We can’t assume Blankenship would be perfect, though. His missed field goal in the third quarter is proof of that. And that’s always the problem with the arguments we hear from the anti-analytics crowd that hates fourth-down attempts and two-point tries: Field goals are always seen as sure-things. But nothing in football is a sure thing.
It wasn’t just the anti-analytics crowd criticizing Reich, however. Analytics folks also took issue with his two decisions to kick field goals. But Ben Baldwin’s model for analyzing such decisions didn’t hate either attempt. It saw the first one as a “toss-up” with a slight lean toward going for it…
—> IND (0) @ BUF (0) <—
IND has 4th & 11 at the BUF 40Recommendation :
Toss-up (+0.6 WP)
Actual play:R.Sanchez punts 37 yards to BUF 3, Center-L.Rhodes, downed by IND-A.Dulin. pic.twitter.com/BwlULJ3KoQ
— 4th down decision bot (@ben_bot_baldwin) January 9, 2021
The second one was seen as a “kick it” situation…
—> IND (0) @ BUF (0) <—
IND has 4th & 7 at the BUF 12Recommendation (MEDIUM):
Field goal attempt (+1.5 WP)
Actual play:— 4th down decision bot (@ben_bot_baldwin) January 9, 2021
As for the two-point attempts, Baldwin’s model liked both of Reich’s decisions. The first one, which was the more controversial of the two and framed as “chasing points” by CBS commentator Charles Davis, boosted the Colts’ expected win percentage by 0.6%.
Reich’s worst decision is one that will probably avoid scrutiny over the next week. That was the decision to punt on 4th-and-five from the Bills’ 42-yard-line in the first quarter. According to Baldwin’s model, it dropped the Colts’ expected win percentage by 2.7%. All of his other “controversial” decisions actually increased Indy’s chances in the eyes of the model.
That’s not to say Reich shouldn’t be criticized for his performance on Saturday. Indianapolis was far too committed to the run, especially early in the game, the red-zone play-calling was conservative and ineffective and his timeout usage killed the Colts’ chances of mounting a game-tying drive at the end.
Reich did let a winnable game slip away. But we should at least criticize for the right things.