With 2:32 left in the game, Buffalo Bills head coach Doug Marrone decided to go for it on fourth-and-10 from the 15 with his team trailing by four.
With three timeouts and the two-minute warning remaining, conventional wisdom would be to kick the field goal and hope your defense can force a punt.
In this case, ESPN's win probability model agrees that kicking the field goal was the way to go.
In the past 10 seasons, teams have attempted to convert a fourth down with between 8 and 12 yards to go in the 4th quarter or overtime 559 times and earned a first down on 214 of those plays (38.3 percent). Had the Bills converted the first down (putting them on the 5) and assuming a 10-second run-off, their expected win probability would be 60 percent.
Assuming an incomplete pass and a 5-second run-off (which is what happened), the Bills' expected win probability would drop to 16.7 percent.
So if we use 38.3 percent as the probability of converting the first down, the Bills' expected win probability by going for it was 32.5 percent.
After kicking a field goal, the Bills' expected win probability would be 38.1 percent.
