The New York Giants were faced with a fourth-and-goal from the Detroit six-yard line, nursing a 27-24 lead with roughly three minutes left in the game. Mike Kafka was faced with his first big late-game decision as head coach: should the Giants go for a touchdown and ice the game, or take the points and hope to hold the Lions out of the end zone?
Although New York failed to convert on fourth down and lost the game in overtime, going for it was undeniably the right call. In fact, the Giants did not have much of a choice with the defense repeatedly blowing double-digit leads this season, including multiple times in the fourth quarter.
Giants’ Defense Cannot Be Trusted to Make A Late Stop
Mike Kafka did not waver from his decision to go for it on fourth down, as he doubled down on it in his media availability postgame. Kafka said to reporters, “Our decision was a correct one. I stand by it. We took points to go up 10 points.”
While a strong defense may have been up to the task of holding the Lions out of the end zone, this Giants defense has proven to be anything but. A Malik Nabers touchdown catch from Russell Wilson with 25 seconds left in Dallas was too long to prevent the Cowboys from tying the game with a field goal.
A Jaxson Dart rushing touchdown with 37 seconds left in Denver was not enough for the defense to hang on to get a win, with the Giants allowing an unthinkable 33 points in the fourth quarter to the Broncos after leading 19-0 through three quarters.
A ten-point fourth-quarter lead in Chicago was not safe, as the Bears scored two touchdowns in roughly two minutes to take the lead. Again and again, Shane Bowen’s soft zone coverages allow the opposing team to pick up chunk yardage through the air and even on the ground, making the talented Giants defense look silly.
Even though the Giants forced a 59-yard field goal from Jake Bates (which is a reasonable attempt at a stop anyway), there was no way that Kafka or any Giants fan could have known that they would do that after the horrific fourth-quarter defense the team has played this year.
In addition, the Lions could have attacked the situation differently if they knew they had four downs to work with instead of three, potentially making the entire point moot.
Brian Daboll decided to kick a field goal to go up ten against the Bears, and the safe play ended up backfiring because of how bad the Giants’ defense was. Chicago won 24-20, meaning the Giants would have needed to score the touchdown in that spot just to take the game to overtime.
Analytics Favored Giants Going For The Touchdown
If the human element does not convince you, perhaps the analytics will. A model from NFL analyst Seth Walder showed that scoring a touchdown would have given New York an 86.5% chance of winning, while converting the field goal would have given the Giants a 79.4% chance of winning. That favors going for the touchdown over the field goal attempt by 7.1%.
Even a model from the NFL 4th Down Bot account on Bluesky that disagreed indicated that kicking a field goal would have been nothing but a safe play. Whether the Giants scored the field goal or touchdown or missed on either attempt, the math favors New York going for the touchdown in all four scenarios.
If Koo missed the short field goal, New York would still have a 52% chance of winning the game, according to the model. If he were to make it, that percentage goes up to just 74%. The Giants’ failure to score a touchdown left them with a 57% chance to win the game because of the improved field position relative to a touchback, while if they had found the end zone, they would have been a near-lock to win at 93%.
The only metric that favored kicking a field goal was the likelihood of the field goal versus the touchdown, with the chip-shot field goal being given a 99% chance of being made and the touchdown being given a 27% chance of being converted. But when looking at actually winning the football game, the numbers favor the more aggressive decision in every case.
The Giants may have lost the game, with Jake Bates connecting from 59 yards out and Jahmyr Gibbs scoring the opening touchdown in overtime, before New York failed to answer back on their ensuing drive. But when you look at the analytics, or more importantly, the unreliability of the Giants’ defense to get a late-game stop, the decision could not have been more correct.
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