[h=3]Thank You for Not Coaching[/h]It's pretty easy to pick on Browns coach Pat Shurmur this morning, so let's spare him the cheap jokes and get to the facts. When D'Qwell Jackson picked off Michael Vick and took the return back to the house for a 27-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter of Sunday's game, the Browns took a 15-10 lead before attempting the conversion. Shurmur sent his kicking team out there and picked up an extra point to go up 16-10. On their final meaningful drive, though, the Eagles scored a touchdown and picked up the deciding score on the extra point, winning 17-16 after Brandon Weeden threw his fourth pick of the day.
This isn't an egregious decision because it came back to haunt the Browns; it's a critical failure because Shurmur chose the option that added virtually nothing to his team's chances of winning.[SUP]
2[/SUP] Kicking the extra point gave thethan the Eagles scoring one touchdown. The value added by a successful two-point conversion is significantly greater, more than enough to justify the risk of going for two. The footballcommentary.com
two-point chart suggests that the Browns should have gone for two unless their chances of converting were below 24 percent, a conversion rate that even the league's worst rushing attack would find attainable.
Furthermore, it's an awful decision because it employs exactly zero foresight. You don't need to be thinking about win probability models or game theory to realize that going from a five-point lead to a six-point one in the fourth quarter is basically worthless. Coaches have charts that tell them when they should kick or choose to go for a two-pointer, but a second-generation coach like Shurmur should have easy decisions like this instilled in his DNA. There are some two-point decisions that require a closer consideration of the variables than the simple numbers indicate. This wasn't one of them.
Often, these sorts of scenarios end up being theoretical exercises because, eventually, the game situation after the decision morphs into something totally different, rendering the conversion decision mostly irrelevant in the bigger picture of the game. This was the rare example of a poor coaching decision that seemed ill-advised on the surface and immediately came back to bite the team in question. Situational play-calling tends to be overrated in terms of judging a coach's total effectiveness, but Shurmur's decision was so bad that it raises fundamental questions about his core competency.
APAs new Browns owner Jimmy Haslam unofficially takes the reins of the team, the man who helped turn the Eagles into a consistent contender in the salary-cap era unofficially is poised to join the effort.
