Playing Bold vs. Conservative

Two plays stuck out to me watching football yesterday -- both were "conservative."  Normally, I favor playing bold, which is why I'm a fan of Pete Carroll, Sean Peyton, and Bill Belichick, three coaches willing to make bold play calls.  But yesterday, I think one conservative play call was stupid and the other was smart.  Here they are:

1.  During the Falcons-Carolina game, Carolina had the ball 4 and 1 within about 10 yards of midfield with under 2 minutes to play and up 1 point.  A first down wins the game.  The Falcons are one of the best teams in the league.  Carolina decides to punt and actually ends up downing the ball on the Falcons 1 yard line.  I still did not like this play call.  Too conservative.  I believe, especially when you are the underdog, you still must "play to win."  Carolina was playing "not to lose."  Bill Barnwell outlines the percentages on this play and agrees with me.  But I don't need the percentages.  I try to win by maximizing use of my own teams strengths and minimizing the opponents strengths.  Carolina is good on offense and bad on defense.  The Falcons are stronger on offense than defense.  There is no good reason for Carolina to give the ball back to the Falcons at that point in the game.  I end up being right because the Falcons do drive down and score a field goal.  But I'm not entirely concerned with results, more the process of making the decision.  I still believe Belichick was right going for it on 4th and 3 against Peyton Manning several years ago, even though they lost that one.

2.  Right before halftime of the Niners-Jets game, the Niners had the ball at their 21 yard line with about 15 seconds left up 7-0.  They let the clock run down and tried a field goal, putting them up 10-0 at half rather than going for one shot at the end zone.  A very conservative play call.  But in this case, I thought it was smart for two reasons:  a)  The weakest element of the 49ers game is downfield passing. The odds of scoring a touchdown in 1 play from 20 plus yards for the Niners (emphasis added) is low, and might even be equal to a turnover and/or sack.  and b) the way the Jets offense was playing against the 49ers defense, it was more important to get up 2 scores than to take a 14 point lead.  Being up only one score against any team in any game is scary because there is always the possibility of the freak play - the turnover/score, the kick return, the one long pass.  Being up 2 scores against an offense as shitty as the Jets with a defense as good as the Niners, probably boosted their win percentage to around 90%.

If this were another game, against another team, I would have favored a different approach.  If the Niners were playing Green Bay, the Saints, the Ravens, New England, Atlanta, or basically any top 5 teams, a shot at the end zone might be advisable.  Any team who has a potent offense.  Or even a team who during the game had demonstrated an ability to move the football -- it might be worth going for the  end zone.  In fact, the majority of the time (the percentage play) says to go for the end zone.  But again, I don't care about percentages.  I can about this particular play in this particular moment and I think Harbaugh did absolutely the smart move against the Jets.

Sometimes the conservative play is the smart play.