Game Theory and Football: How Irrationality Affects Play Calling
Game Theory and Football: How Irrationality Affects Play Calling
This article talks about Game Theory and how it in involved in Football. There is a relationship between how both the offenses and defenses call their plays in anticipation of what the other team is going to do. For example if it is a third and ten play, the defense will be more inclined to play a pass coverage verses a more run focused defense. This could lead to the offense trying to run the ball on third and ten to try to trick the defense since they won’t be expecting it. These choices can eventually result in the defense calling the best response to the offense’s play. Therefore it is a Nash Equilibrium since both teams pick their best response to the other team.
The way this relates to the things we have learned in class is that the choices that each team makes results in payoffs. Whether they are positive or negative, each strategy that the team chooses results in an outcome. That could be the offense getting a big yardage play or the defense getting a sack. This is helped by scouting the offense or defense and deciding what is the best response for your team. In football there are these strategies just like the ones that we learned about in class.