I think a reasonable prediction for the Colts to drive for a TD following a punt is 40%; better than league average, but I still would have expected the Pats to win the game if they punted. Had Peyton Manning driven the Colts down the field to win, it would have been an outstanding drive, not one I would say was more likely than not to happen. Giving the Colts a 40% chance of scoring the long touchdown basically ends the analysis; only if the Colts were exactly 100% likely to score a touchdown following a failed 4th-down-attempt would it make the probabilities even. Since the Colts were not guaranteed to score on the short drive, going for it was the right call.
To assign some final probabilities to the situation, punting would give the Pats a roughly 60% chance to win (ignoring things like blocked punts, quick IND scores followed by NE scores, etc.). Going for it would give the Pats a 70% chance to win (60% chance to win following a successful 4th-down play, and a 1-in-4 chance of stopping the Colts the other 40% of the time). While we’re using very fuzzy math here, I doubt you can come up with convincing math that says it was overwhelmingly a bad call to go for it here.
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