By: Anthony Jones
For Week 14 we’ll look at the Best five and Worst five fourth-down decisions from around the league and the five plays with the biggest play execution swings.
For this recap, it’s important to keep a few things in mind. These best and worst decision analyses focus on the pre-snap component of 4th downs and whether a coach made the decision that gave his team the best chance to go on to win the game (i.e., GO, attempt a FG, or Punt). Play execution, on the other hand, looks at all downs and focuses on what actually happened during the play (i.e., the change in win probability between the start of the play and the end of the play).
Good decisions don’t always result in wins and bad decisions don’t always result in losses because of play execution. Understanding how decisions and play execution work together is a critical part of leveraging analytics.
Top 5 Best 4th down decisions

Top 5 Worst 4th down decisions

5 Biggest Play Execution Swings

Bottom Line
In addition to X’s and O’s, football is a game of coaching decisions and player execution and it’s important to understand both in the context of their impacts on win probability.
For more information about how coaches in the NFL, NCAA and High School levels are using our analytics to coach with confidence, visit www.edjvarsity.com.