Herm Playing The Percentages?

From 1/18/05:

I've been having trouble sleeping, replaying the last 56 seconds of the Jets / Steelers game in my head. There was just so many things that make no sense and it all falls to Coach Edwards…aka Herm.

After listening to his press conference yesterday, I'm even MORE confused as to his decisions than I was after the game.

Herman told the media why he didn't try to move the ball closer before Brien's 43-yard attempt which could have ended the game and launched the Jets to the Championship Game. He said that Brien had made 86% of his attempts (12 for 14) in the 40 to 49 yard range this season and had never missed two consecutive field goals in two seasons with the Jets. He then added, "I don't go to Vegas, and I don't bet, but if you tell me (86%), I'm probably going to take that bet," Edwards said, adding that, "I trusted the player." And maybe that is true that there is only a 14% chance that he misses the kick but you can't just look at percentages. You have to take into account the circumstances. It is NOT September. It was bitter cold outside. There was some slight wind. He is kicking on frozen grass after rain all day prior to the game. He is on the road. There are 64,000 yelling Steeler fans twirling yellow towels. This is a huge playoff game; not a regular season game. The pressure was on. He had just missed a 47 yard kick less than 2 minutes earlier. He's a journeyman kicker playing on his 5th team.

Herman's analysis of percentages make sense if you take out the circumstances. However, he failed to take into account more meaningful percentages. In the history of Heinz Field, visiting kickers have only a 44% success rate in the 40+ range due to poor field conditions mixed with the winds off of the Ohio River. So, Herman is claiming that there is an 86% chance of making the kick when reality says there is less than a 50% chance he makes the kick. This percentage is enough evidence that Brien can't take the full blame.

Based on these numbers, with 56 seconds left, you can still be conservative but you MUST try and get the ball closer to make the kick easier. Fifty-six seconds is an eternity with time-outs. Barrett had just intercepted the ball and we regained all the momentum that was just drained out of us after giving the ball back to Pittsburgh. The offence did NOT need to get a touchdown in these circumstances; we just needed to TRY and move the ball 10 yards.

Hackett's play calling was horrific all day calling 3 yard outs when needing 10 yards for first downs. That is a pretty safe pass. However, I would have taken this approach. If we had called TWO three yard passes, a 43 yard field goal now becomes a 37 yard field goal. The kick becomes that much easier. But no, we call a run up the middle for Curtis for NO gain. The team had no sense of urgency and then called a 2 yard Lamont run. This was not the play to call. The Steelers KNEW we were going to run up the middle. The Jets were being Shottenheimered by our own coach. Didn't Herman and staff learn a lesson from the prior week? Now it is Third down and the clock is ticking. There seems to be such confusion on the field that Santana Moss of all people calls time out with 6 seconds left. We wasted a TON of time and we had a few time-outs. First of all, Chad Pennington should be the one to be calling time outs on the field in that situation. Why was Moss. Moss was probably the only one using his brain. It's a shame he didn't call the time out 30 seconds earlier. However, Edwards and company were NOT happy about the timeout which was supposedly 2 seconds premature. So, these geniuses call a Pennington kneel. Problem #1: Instead of trying to better center the ball in the field, the kneel was in the same part of the field. Problem #2: The kneel cost the Jets two yards on the field goad thus negating the pathetic 2 yard run from Lamont Jordan.

Yeah, it would have been nice if Brien made the kick. But poor coaching didn't put us in position to make an easier kick. They played the percentages and the percentages they played were WRONG. Herm can't be that good at Math. He doesn't know his percentages and doesn't understand clock management. Instead he had to hire a 90 year old man to help him with this and they still mess things up.