Game Theory In Football
Game Theory and Football: How Irrationality Affects Play Calling
In this article, it discussed the probability and payoff of calling a run play on downs that vary in distance. It is no surprise that downs that have closer to 10 yards are more likely to have a pass play called and downs that have less than 3 yards are more likely to have a run play called. However, this article suggests that a defense could be expecting this and you would be better off running a run play on 3rd and 10 versus a pass play, this has to do with unpredictability. Unpredictability can make it more difficult for a defense to decide what they want to do because there might always be a chance of the offense doing the exact opposite of what they are prepared to defend against.
The way that this relates to what we learned in class is that play calling is similar to Game Theory in that depending on what you chose to call can affect the payoffs of a match. For example, if a defense runs a run defense and you call a run play, you are far less likely to be successful than if you call a pass play. On the other hand, if you call a pass play against a drop 8 defense it would be more advantageous to call a run play. Deciding what offensive play you want to run against a certain defense can be considered Game Theory because there are different payoffs for each strategy.