Dallas Cowboys: Brett Maher’s problems a blessing in disguise

The numbers suggest teams like the Dallas Cowboys should be going for it on 4th down more than they are, maybe their FG struggles lead them that way.

Down by 28 points at one point, the Dallas Cowboys battled back to narrow the gap to 10 late in the fourth. But hope surrendered when field goal kicker Brett Maher shanked a routine 33 yarder, ending the potentially historic comeback and dropping the Dallas Cowboys to 3-2.

In a game chock-full of ill-timed mistakes from the offense and defense, it’s special teams that suffered the immediate backlash of Cowboys Nation. Most specifically, field goal kicker Brett Maher who’s only hitting on 57 percent of his attempts this season. But what if I told you his struggles and inconsistencies could actually be a good thing for the Dallas Cowboys this season? We dive into that topic now…

For years we as fans (and even they as coaches) have been conditioned to accept 4th down inherently meant it was time to kick a field goal or time to punt. And only in extreme situations like on the opponent’s goal line or late in game do we accept “going for it” as the wise move to make.

many of our priors towards “going for it” are baseless and built on our natural aversion towards risk rather than on fact.

As data became more readily available and analytics became more generally accepted, we see that many of these obvious kicking/punting situations are more harmful than helpful, and many of our priors towards “going for it” are baseless and built on our natural aversion towards risk rather than on fact.

Brian Burke, the Godfather of NFL analytics, has been behind this movement (less kicking/punting) for quite a while now. It’s his work that spawned the infamous New York Times 4th down bot that mathematically decides when a team should go for it and when they shouldn’t.

It’s human nature to take the easy money and avoid the risk, even if it does mean you’re statistically hurting yourself in the long-run. It’s similar to a card player buying “insurance” from the dealer who’s showing what may be blackjack. The numbers clearly say it’s always unwise to buy it, yet we see people (rookies) buy it all the time. Much like insurance in blackjack, our risk averse nature is negatively impacting our decision making in football games, effectively limiting our full scoring potential.

Kicking is now a gamble and the uncertainty of attempts of any distance may lead Jason Garrett, the ultimate Cowboys decision maker, to make more analytics-based decisions going forward.

But Brett Maher is not easy money. He’s anything but the sure thing many Dallas Cowboys fans were accustomed to during the Dan Bailey era. Kicking is now a gamble and the uncertainty of attempts of any distance may lead Jason Garrett, the ultimate Cowboys decision maker, to make more analytics-based decisions going forward.

Using Expected Points (EP)models we can place value on down, distance, and field position. We also have conversion percentages by distance to go, relative to location on the field. Since distance of field goals depends greatly on the actual location of the punt, we can even apply the EP to likely outcomes of a punt vs the risk/reward of a 4th down attempt (on the opponent’s side of the field, a punt is barely beneficial to even a failed 4th down attempt).

Rather than regurgitate all of Brian’s great work, check it out for yourself and you may see your priors challenged.