Bill Bilichick is being criticized for his decision to go for it on a fourth down in last night’s game against the Indianapolis Colts. I wrote admiringly in Fired Up or Burned Out about Bilichick and Tom Brady’s leadership of the New England Patriots. Neither man is perfect, of course*, but there is much to admire. Steven Levitt’s Freakonomics column in The New York Times provides another reason why Bilichick is among the best coaches when it comes to team performance. Levitt argues in “Bill Bilichick is Great” that statistically the coach made the right decision if his goal was to win even though it would subject him to endless criticism if the decision failed to pay off.
*filming the signals of opposing teams, as the Patriots were caught doing, is one shameful example.
