“You need to run the football!” But should you?
http://espn.go.com/blog/new-york/giants/post/_/id/39755/why-are-the-giants-running-so-much-and-why-theyre-not-going-to-stop?ex_cid=espnapi_public
The article I have linked to describes the run versus pass play selection of this year’s New York Giants football team. As the article states the Giants have selected run plays more often than any other team this season. One of the oldest adages in football has been that in order to control the clock and play the game from a position of strength you have to establish the running game. In recent years professional football has developed into a game in which teams focus much more on passing. Teams have begun to shy away from the run heavy, “use the running game to set up the pass,” ideology and are now doing things the other way around. To coaches who still believe in the older style of football, like Giants head coach Tom Coughlin, the new style seems backward. In the article it is noted that Tom Coughlin intends to continue with his run heavy style, mainly as a way to limit the team’s turnovers. Coughlin makes this proclamation despite the fact that his selection of run plays so far this year has underperformed his expectations.
The analysis of the Giants play selection is a direct application of game theory we have discussed in class. Selecting plays during the football game is a strategic decision for the coach of each team. Using all available information and expectations of what the other team will do, each coach is then able to select a play. He does this numerous times over the course of a given football contest. If we wanted to create a simple game we can model with game theory we would say the offense has two choices for any play: run or pass, while the defense also has two choices: defend run or defend pass.
For the offense the basic tradeoff between any single running and passing play is that the running play is generally expected to gain fewer yards, let’s say 3 out of the 10 needed for a first down. The pass play might be expected to gain anywhere from 9 to 12 yards, but the probability of actually receiving this yardage payoff is lower for the offense than that of selecting a run play. There are also other factors at play here like the probability of a turnover (higher with a pass), the quality of players you have at each position, which will affect your probability of success on either type of play, the strength of the opposing defense against both the run and pass respectively, and the down and distance (how many plays you have remaining to reach the first down marker and receive a new set of downs). All of these factors must be integrated by the offensive coach and his staff for each play they select. This integration process is essentially an intuitive way for the coach to compute the payoffs his team would receive from either a run or a pass and would help him make his decision.
The interesting thing about this situation regarding the Giants’ and their opponent’s selection on any play is the effect that Coach Coughlin’s historical play calling has on the current play selection situation. It is known that Coughlin likes to run the football. He has done so consistently in the past, including this season. The article also points out how Coach Coughlin has announced he plans to continue to run the ball at this strong pace. The interesting question here is that when a coach like Tom Coughlin has such a long track record of selecting a high number of run plays, and in addition publically announces he will continue to do so, are defenses more likely to defend against the run? And thus Coughlin’s team’s success will be systematically diminished?
If we think about this using our game theory framework, Tom Coughlin should greatly diminish his run play selection in the future. Because there is so much evidence to point to the predication that the Giants will run frequently as they have done in the past, they should do the opposite. When we look back at the old adage regarding running the football consistently no matter how ineffective it has been in the past, it is extraordinarily stubborn and borderline irrational to continue to select plays in this manner. Now that the Giants have established that they have a strong tendency to call run plays, and Coughlin has made a public announcement to continue this practice, they have created the incentive to call more passing plays. This presents the wonderful short term opportunity for the Giants to surprise the defense. If this were to take place, the defense would then be forced to adjust their evaluation process in order to determine whether or not they should defend the Giants against the run or the pass on any given play. As it stands now the Giants could benefit from a change in strategy, because their past behavior has been so predictable.