Pete Carroll was lucky his baffling 4th-and-1 decision didn't cost the Seahawks a win

The football gods bailed Pete Carroll out.

Pete Carroll has never been a coach who seems to care about utilizing analytics in order to optimize the Seahawks’ chances of winning. If that were the case, he and offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer would let Russell Wilson, of the NFL’s very best quarterbacks, throw the ball a lot more. And he would not have kicked a field goal late in the first half of a game the Seahawks would win thanks to a missed field goal by Rams K Greg Zuerlein.

Let’s go back to that decision: There’s 1:38 on the clock in the second quarter. The Seahawks have the ball on the Rams’ 30-yard-line. It’s officially 4th-and-one but it’s more like 4th-and-inches.

The analytics are pretty clear here: You go for it every time. Seattle did not. Carroll called for the field goal unit and Jason Meyers missed the kick.

Now, let’s just ignore the result of the kick for right now. The case for Carroll going for it, even if he knew for a fact that Meyers would make it, is pretty strong. We don’t even need numbers to explain why, though I will present them in a moment.

But think about it this way: Even if Meyers misses, the Rams still have plenty of time (LA had two timeouts to burn) to drive down the field and get into field goal position themselves. And they proved they were capable of doing just that by driving down the field for a touchdown right before the half. So not only would going for it allow the Seahawks to score MORE points, but it would also prevent the Rams from scoring ANY points.

Now let’s bring in the numbers, which really make Carroll’s “conservative” decision look silly.

So it wasn’t even a “conservative” decision, per se! It was just the wrong one. Meyers pushing the kick right was only fitting.

Carroll was asked about the illogical decision after the game, and his explanation may have been worse than the decision itself…

You see, Carroll just KNEW the Seahawks would win the game, and there was no reason to, um, optimize their chances of winning the game. Do I have that right?

What makes Carroll’s explanation to kick so confusing is his desire to field a smashmouth offense. If the Seahawks want to establish a physical identity (whatever the hell that means) then a fourth-and-a-foot situation is a great place to start…

Of course, Carroll won’t learn from this experience. He hasn’t learned from the Seahawks’ playoff loss in Dallas when Seattle remained committed to an ineffective run game instead of putting the ball in the hands of his best player. His team is still running the ball way too much and putting Wilson into difficult situations. Fortunately for the Seahawks, he’s been good enough to bail them out this season. He did once again on Thursday night.

That the Seahawks ended up winning will only embolden Carroll to make more of these suboptimal decisions based on debunked philosophies, and it will eventually lead to Seattle’s season ending sooner than it probably should.