How much will the New York Jets attempt to emulate the Detroit Lions?
That question pervades every aspect of the Jets’ new regime, but most specifically their offense. After bringing over Lions passing game coordinator Tanner Engstrand, the baseline expectation is that the Jets will run an offense similar to the one Ben Johnson ran from 2022-24 in Detroit.
But there is another aspect of the offense that will be fascinating to monitor for the Lions’ influence.
Aaron Glenn worked with Dan Campbell for four seasons. Campbell is known for many different things, but his signature is extreme aggressiveness — manifesting specifically in going for it on fourth down far more than the norm.
Will Glenn attempt to copy his former boss in New York?
Campbell’s choices
Interestingly, what makes Campbell particularly aggressive on fourth down is his willingness to go for it when the win probability models call the situation a toss-up rather than going for it when the model says he should.
According to ESPN’s Ben Baldwin, the Lions went for it the third-most when the go percentage was greater than 1% (per his own win probability model, which shows up as @ben_bot_baldwin on X) and the third-most when the go percentage was between -1% and 1%.
Notice that the Bills were far more aggressive in ambiguous situations, and the Vikings were also significantly ahead. Where Campbell has an advantage is going for it nearly all the time when he “should” and more often than average when the answer is not clear.
Campbell also went for it when he shouldn’t have, particularly on one end-of-game play against the Green Bay Packers. However, in the grand scheme of things, going for it benefited the Lions.
In many ways, Campbell’s aggressiveness can easily be emulated. It’s not as if Detroit was generational in fourth-down conversion rate. Although they ranked fourth in the NFL (68.6%) with a league average of 56%, they were not in the same stratosphere as the Commanders, who led the league at 79%.
Furthermore, it’s not as if Detroit has some unstoppable player who’s a cheat code on fourth down. The Bills went for it consistently on fourth down because they have Josh Allen and finally took advantage of that.
The Lions, meanwhile, were generally mediocre in short-yardage situations on third and fourth down, ranking 17th in DVOA (per FTN Fantasy) at 1.5%, and their EPA per play in the run game on those plays ranked 24th (0.12). Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery had their struggles in short yardage despite generally playing at a high level.
As FTN’s Bryan Knowles explained, the biggest risk in Campbell’s approach is playing with this mindset all the time regardless of game situation. This goes back to Campbell’s decision to go for it twice against the 49ers while leading in the 2023 NFC Championship.
Those decisions were both correct by the models, but given game situation may not have been advisable. It was somewhat unlucky that the Lions failed on both attempts, which ultimately came back to bite them. As Knowles pointed out, in this particular game, it may have been wise for Campbell to play for the points to minimize the possibility of a wild swing — which is what ultimately happened.
Implications for Glenn
It will be interesting to see how much of this Glenn will carry over to the Jets. Having been the defensive coordinator, Glenn had no connection to the decision of whether to go for it on offense or not.
Combining the analytical perspective with a general offensive-leaning mindset, I am a tremendous supporter of Campbell’s aggressiveness. However, I have my doubts that Glenn will bring that over to the Jets, for a few reasons.
For one thing, as I said, Glenn is a defensive coach. As much as he claimed that he would bring a full coaching mindset rather than just a defensive lean to a head coaching job, I still suspect that his defensive mindset will prevail. Remember, Campbell was a tight end in the NFL and coached tight ends before becoming the Lions’ head coach.
Furthermore, I have always suspected that ownership support has something to do with how aggressive a head coach is willing to be. When public criticism pours in, a more conventional ownership group that is sensitive to media perception will undoubtedly take note.
I don’t know much about the Lions’ ownership, but I do know a lot about Woody Johnson. Would any head coach be willing to sacrifice his neck at the altar of analytics while knowing that his owner likely wouldn’t back him up? Perhaps a highly successful coach would, but not a new coach without a track record of winning.
I always look back at the 2022 Super Bowl as evidence that even highly aggressive coaches are attuned to public perception of their decision-making. According to Aaron Schatz’s Aggressiveness Index, measuring how often head coaches went for it on fourth down compared to average, Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni was the most aggressive coach in the NFL that season.
However, down by one with 10:33 remaining in the Super Bowl, Sirianni went the conventional route. The Eagles faced a 4th-and-3 from their own 32-yard line. From a non-analytical mindset, this is a no-brainer punt situation. Multiple fourth-down decision models disagreed, though.
Sirianni punted, and Kadarius Toney returned the punt to the Eagles’ three-yard line, leading to a Chiefs touchdown. While Philadelphia later tied the game, this set up a situation in which Patrick Mahomes had the ball in his hands with a chance to win the game — which he did, on a 12-play, 66-yard, five-minute drive. Philadelphia had only one more desperation play.
After the game, Sirianni doubled down on the decision, stating that every other head coach in the NFL would have made that decision. That unleashed heavy criticism from analytics writers, but did the NFL world in general even remember that decision? Does anyone remember it now (except for me)? He went the conventional route and therefore faced minimal backlash. And that’s the head coach of one of the most analytically-minded franchises in the NFL.
As ESPN’s Brian Burke pointed out, when you have the ball and make a decision that causes opposing fans to cheer, you know you probably didn’t do the right thing. But that’s not going to bring public criticism on the coach, so it’s disregarded.
I strongly suspect Glenn will revert to a more conventional mindset when it comes to fourth-down decision-making. That is his incentive structure right now.
Fourth-down philosophy
Jets fans desperately wanted an offensive-minded head coach. Part of being offensive-minded, in my opinion, is keeping the ball in the offense’s hands as much as possible. That means going for it on fourth down.
Furthermore, I have always followed these principles:
- If you are the underdog, lean heavily aggressive on fourth down.
- If you are playing a great offense, no matter how good your defense is, lean heavily aggressive on fourth down.
I think this makes sense intuitively. If you’re the worse team, going for it on fourth down could be the great equalizer. If you’re playing against a great offense, you want to keep them off the field as much as possible — which means keeping the ball in your offense’s hands.
Ben Baldwin made the second point when discussing Sirianni’s fourth down decision in the Super Bowl.
Baldwin took this a step further, which I think dovetails with my first point.
Not punting on fourth and three or less when trailing in a game is similar to going for it when you’re the underdog. When you need to tilt the scales in your favor, fourth-down aggressiveness is the way to do it.
But, but…
Many NFL coaches and fans will point to outside factors that models can’t take into account, such as weather, injuries, and matchups, that could influence fourth-down decision-making.
However, as ESPN’s Seth Walder wrote, “However, it’s important that if coaches want to deviate from base rates to make their decisions, they do so in both directions.” That means that as often as coaches use outside factors to justify being more conservative than models, those outside factors should also be used to justify being more aggressive than the models.
To an extent, that’s what Dan Campbell does. He goes for it aggressively because he feels his offense is better than his defense. My principles above follow the same logic: situations like being an underdog or facing a great offense should tilt the scales towards aggressiveness.
Instead, you still hear “feel” or other outside factors cited to justify conservative decisions far more than aggressive ones.
Decisions, decisions
There is a whole branch of study at the intersection of economics, psychology, and sociology to explain why people make the decisions they do. Many researchers, including Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky in the book Thinking Fast and Slow, stress that our intuitive understanding of decisions is often heavily flawed and made based on mental shortcuts not rooted in numerical fact.
This applies very clearly to fourth-down decision-making. Outside factors, conventional wisdom, and conservative thinking lead to fourth-down decisions far more than the hard math. Yes, there are factors that models can’t take into account — but the teams that follow the models largely find an advantage in doing so.
In his first stint as a head coach, whether Aaron Glenn can overcome the inertia and establish a Jets identity could be critical to the rest of his tenure with the team.
