Jaguars Draw Praise and Criticism For Coaching Decisions Made vs. Bengals

The Jaguars made two bold coaching decisions in Thursday Night Football's loss to the Bengals, neither of which aided them on their way to the 24-21 loss. But were the two calls the right ones? Next Gen Stats and EdjSports take a deep dive into both.

The Jacksonville Jaguars came so, so close to their first victory in over a calendar year on Thursday Night Football. A few yards here or there, and the Jaguars beat the Cincinnati Bengals as opposed to losing 24-21 in heartbreaking fashion on a last-second field goal. 

But, they didn't. Instead, the Jaguars lost on an Evan McPherson field goal at the end of regulation. There is a multitude of reasons why the Jaguars were outscored 24-7 in the second half, but two of the big reasons hinged on coaching decisions the Jaguars made. 

What do the in-depth stats say about a pair of the decisions made by head coach Urban Meyer last Thursday? From praising the team's aggressiveness at one point to lambasting their conservativeness at another, the reactions to the Jaguars and Meyer were ultimately a mixed back.

EdjSports.com, the data science and analytics sports firm that owns Football Outsiders, reviews every coaching decision during the season and ranks the best and worst decisions each week based on impact to Game-Winning Chance (GWC).

For their money, Meyer and the Jaguars made one of the week's best decisions -- the fifth-best, to be exact. The decision came late in the third-quarter of a 14-14 game, right after the Bengals drove down the field to tie the contest. With the Jaguars facing a 4th-and-3, Meyer and the Jaguars elected to go for it, with Lawrence completing a five-yard pass to Laviska Shenault to get the conversion. 

According to EdjSports, the decision to go for it as opposed to kicking the field goal led to a 3.7% change in game-winning chance. At the time of the play, the Jaguars had the ball in Bengals' territory and were driving with a new set of downs. Jacksonville would go on to score on a James Robinson run later that drive. 

The Jaguars would go on to lose the game, even with the aggressiveness of this move and another. NFL's Next Gen Stats applauded the Jaguars' decision to go for it on 4th-and-goal from the Bengals' one-yard, despite the Jaguars' failure to pick up the major score. 

"When an offense has the ball at their opponent's 1-yard line, it is almost always in their best interest to take advantage of their proximity to the end zone and go for the touchdown," Next Gen Stats said. "In fact, of the 223 fourth-and-1 situations that have come up across the NFL since 2016,

the Next Gen Stats Decision Guide

recommended going for the touchdown on all but two of them. Our model recommended Jacksonville go for it here by 4.2 percentage points in win probability value, driven by the unit's chances of scoring a touchdown on the play (70 percent).

Even with the Jaguars failing to convert, the Bengals had to start their next drive backed up against their own end zone. Instead of pressing for a score, Cincinnati ran out the clock to avoid any risk of a safety.

This is sound reasoning. The Jaguars had zero risk of the Bengals turning a failed conversion into a score, but the chance to go up 21-0 on a good Bengals team would have exponentially given the Jaguars a better position in the second-half, even as opposed to going up 17-0.

With that said, not all of the Jaguars' decisions were praised. Despite being aggressive on two fourth-downs earlier in the game, the Jaguars and Meyer completely changed course on arguably the most important fourth-down of the game. 

With the Jaguars facing a 4th-and-4 from the 50-yard line and 5:40 remaining in a tied game, Meyer had a crucial decision. Trust Trevor Lawrence with the ball to either put the Jaguars in field-goal territory or potentially further, or punt the ball back to Joe Burrow and hope the defense can get a stop. 

Considering the Jaguars' inability to stop Burrow or the Bengals on any of their second-half drives, punting the ball back to them is a bold call even before going into the analytics of the decision. But when diving deeper into the move, it becomes clear just how flawed of a decision it was.

"Instead of trusting 2021's No. 1 overall draft pick (Lawrence) to gain 4 yards, which the NGS model gave the QB a 44 percent chance of doing, Meyer gave the ball back to 2020's No. 1 overall pick (Joe Burrow). Successfully converting would have moved the Jags into enemy territory in the waning minutes of a tied contest, and they would have been favored to win, with a 59 percent win probability," Next Gen Stats said. 

"If they'd failed? The win probability would have dropped to 31 percent. Instead, Meyer's decision to play for field position instead of possession cost his team 2.5 percentage points in expected win probability -- and the offense never got the ball back, as Burrow drove Cincy 73 yards to set up the winning kick."

There was simply zero upside to punting the ball back to Burrow and playing for field position with five minutes remaining. Doing so is a big reason the Jaguars lost the game, and the numbers back this up.