Its not hindsight.

There are only so many scoring chances. There is a clock. Teams that have more takeaways fewer turnovers have more success than their opponents. When a team turns it over on downs when they were in scoring position, it might as well be a fumble or an interception.

There is a time and place for going for it. SD had several chances to score, and they came away with nothing. KC took the ball with good field position, and scored.

A lot of little things add up to a big thing. There is a time and a place for taking a chance. They failed and gave the ball to a prolific offense, in decent field position. Is the charger defense good enough for that risk?

Apparently not.

o


The Chiefs also gave up 3 points.

I think that the FG-attempt which the Chargers eschewed right before halftime hurt the most ...... heading into the locker room with half an hour to think about it, that complete negation of any kind of points at all was huge for the Chiefs and devastating for the Chargers.

o

I find this a particularly compelling argument when made by a poster calling himself "ChaosTheory".

Dr. Ian Malcolm would approve.

o


Actually, that was 9 points that the Chargers had left on the table at that point.

I didn't start watching the contest until the 2nd quarter ...... the Chargers went for it on 4th down-and-goal from the Chiefs' 5-yardline on the opening drive of the game, and were stopped.

o

o


Excellent citation of the cause-and-effect phenomenon.

The same is true of baseball (and pretty much almost every other sport.) When a base-runner gets caught stealing and the batter then hits a solo home run immediately afterward, many fans will say that he would have hit a 2-run homer if the base-runner had stayed put ...... but if the base-runner had stayed put, the pitcher would have been pitching from the stretch (as opposed to a full windup) and likely would have thrown a different pitch than the one in which produced the home run. And the batter may have been looking for a different pitch than the one in which he homered off of.

So if the runner had stayed at first base, the batter might have hit a 2-run home run ...... or he might have hit an RBI-triple into the gap ...... or he might have grounded into a double play.

o

SD? Okay, boomer

Which is why teams often try to maximize the points scored when given the opportunity. A TD is worth more than two FGs. It’s exactly why redzone defense is talked about so much. Holding a team to 3 is a win for the defense when 29 teams currently have a 50% or better TD rate inside the 20.

That is different than your previous statement of always take the points.

I’d argue the KC prolific offense is likely the reason they felt the need to go for it. Similar to Belichick’s infamous 4th and 2 attempt against the Colts. I can tell you I wanted the Pats to punt. Contrary to all the talk here you need to take into account the opponent. The Chargers knowing their defense wasn’t good enough to hold Mahomes down was likely why they felt they needed 7 instead of settling for FGs. May have cost them the game this time. If it had won them the game we wouldn’t be talking about it.

No one in LA goes to charger games.

Frank out coached BB tonight. And it wasn’t even close

The decision to kick a FG late sealed the Patriots loss.