Controversial MNF Call Sparks Troy Aikman, Analytics Debate

Ben Johnson going for it didn’t take anyone by surprise, but Monday Night Football color commentator and NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman did voice his displeasure, saying that in this situation, the Bears should kick the field goal and take three easy points instead of chasing the touchdown they didn’t get.

He said that he thought it was the wrong decision and didn’t understand why the Bears would go for it. That statement set the Twitter analytics people off on Monday night.

Analytics Crowd Comes After Troy Aikman

Right when the play happened, Aikman said, ¨Don’t understand it, Joe (Buck),¨referring to thefourth down decision. Aikman was really bothered by the play call, and let the audience know about it.

¨Well they should should be up 10-0, but they are lucky they’re not tied up 7-7 because Quinyon Mitchell, that would have been his first regular season interception, that would have been a house call,¨Aikman said after ESPN came back from their television break.

And that’s when the analytics nerds jumped in.

¨Bears do the analytically correct thing that has continued to be proven correct even after the entire NFL changed to making the correct decision in that situation,¨said an account named NFL Philosophy. ¨Aikman: ‘I don’t get it.’ Yeah, bud. And ya never will. Go to bed grandpa.”

Malter Analytics, which offers AI-powered betting insights, also took Aikman to task while also throwing in a plug for their platform.

¨Troy Aikman disagrees, but Ben Johnson must be using Malter Analytics because our 4th down calculator said for the Bears to go for it on 4th and goal from the PHI 3 yard line.

But the most smug response certainly came from Anthony Dabbundo of The Ringer.

While mocking his ¨don’t understand it, Joe¨ comment, Dabbundo took Aikman to task for being out of touch with the hip, new analytics movement. ¨The year is 2026 and the color commentator for the Monday Night Football game doesn’t understand why Chicago is correctly going for it on 4th down from the 3 yard line.¨

He took his criticism even further. ¨At a certain point you’re just not doing your job as the color commentator to be obtuse about this.”

Outcomes Don’t Matter for Analytics Crowd

For a group that endlessly talks about probabilities, outcomes seem to matter little to the folks who watch the game through an analytics-first lens.

The analytics say that even if you don’t get the touchdown in that situation, the probability that the Eagles score, stuck deep in the shadow of their own end zone, is so low that the risk is worth it.

The Eagles proceeded to drive 95 yards down the field on their ensuing possession. The only reason they didn’t score a touchdown was because quarterback Jalen Hurts was injured, forcing backup Andy Dalton into the game. Dalton threw an interception in the end zone that ended the threat.

The analytics-driven decision was saved by the football equivalent of hitting a straight on the river card, but none of the analytics nerds even acknowledged this. They doubled down on their hate for Aikman and anyone else who doesn’t bow at the altar of analytics.

Those that don’t bow don’t understand just how amazing analytics are, in their eyes. No, we just see its limitations and don’t consider them to be the manual for how a coach should call plays in a dynamic and fluid situation.

Ben Johnson rises above analytics

I didn’t have as much of a problem with Johnson’s decision because that’s who he is.

Going for the touchdown in that situation is part of his philosophy. It had nothing to do with the analytics, it had everything to do with him. Same thing for Dan Campbell in Detroit. He often goes for it on fourth down when the analytics tell him not to, because that is the type of coach he is.

A lot of good comes from having that aggressive type of philosophy. But so too does a lot of bad, and there have been numerous examples of that coaching philosophy coming back to bite both Johnson and Campbell in the backside when it doesn’t work in critical situations.

But you have to take the good with the bad and live with the outcomes when you run your team that way.

No matter how much they try, football will never fit neatly into the industry’s analytics equations. It’s too dynamic of a sport with too many variables to account for.

Field condition, momentum, strength of opponent’s defense, strength of the offense, injuries, play clock, game clock, weather conditions, time of day… all of these variables play a factor (and those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head, there are countless others) in making a 4th and goal decisions like that, and the probabilities can’t account for most of them, because most of them aren’t quantifiable.

People who have played the game, like Aikman and Johnson, know this. People who just theorize about the game, seemingly don’t.

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