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John Harbaugh Was Wrong to Trust the Analytics

Buffalo Bills v Baltimore Ravens

Photo: Getty Images

Monday on 2 Pros and a Cup of Joe, Jonas Knox, Brady Quinn and LaVar Arrington try to make sense of John Harbaugh's decision to go for it on 4th and Goal at the end of the game instead of taking the chip-shot field goal to go up 3 points with 4:15 left in the game.

Jonas Knox: "Hindsight is 20/20, I get the analytics and all that stuff, but I would just rather take the points, give me the three and let's move on."
Brady Quinn: "The problem is we haven't been in this aggressive era of teams going for it on fourth down in those scenarios. So you're looking at the data, but the data is skewed because we've had a lot more conservative head coaching decisions, probably over the past 20 years, and these situations don't present themselves that much where you'd have a ton of data on it."
LaVar Arrington: "I just think if you're going to go for it, you keep the ball in your best player's hands and [Lamar] is the one that generally is able to find his way into the endzone. Why wouldn't you just call a play that gives him the ability to run the ball in? Hell, two yards? Hunker down, get behind the center, let somebody push you in. It's two yards!"