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[QUOTE="Scooch, post: 4770697, member: 628"]
Football coaches are comically risk averse.

For the most part, their guiding strategy is to extend the game as long as possible to avoid losing.  It's not necessarily to maximize their chance of winning.  They'll all say it's the latter, but very few actually coach that way.

Last night's game is a prime example of that.  There is conflicting data about what was the optimal decision for McDaniels to make in terms of maximizing the chance to win -- that being, kick the FG with 2 1/2 minutes remaining to cut the lead to 5, or go for the TD and subsequent 2 point conversion to tie the game.

But what is unquestionable is that kicking the FG extended the game, and thus prolonged the possibility of losing.

I can argue about the logic of the FG attempt -- if you trust your D enough to stop the Steelers down 5, don't you trust them enough to stop them down either 2 or 8 should the 4th down conversion or 2-point conversion fail?  Were you likely to be in a better position to score a TD than right there?  Wouldn't it be easier to kick a FG for the win should you force the Steelers to punt than score a TD?

But honestly all of that hardly matters because McDaniels clearly prioritized extending the possibility of losing rather than maximizing the opportunity to win.
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