Go for It, by 22.6%

In 2021 the NFL introduced the Next Gen Stats Decision Guide, first shown on NBC. On fourth down, it gives a team’s win probability if it goes for it, attempts a field goal, or punts. A recommendation can read: “Go for it, by 22.6%.”

Coaches are now “going for it on fourth down, when the numbers say they should, at a higher rate than ever before.” In the first nine weeks of the 2021 season, teams went for it in 147 of 268 situations where the model favored it by two or more percentage points. That rate of 55% was a six-year high.

The Value of a Statistical Life

When the U.S. Department of Transportation decides whether a safety rule is worth its cost, it uses a figure called the value of a statistical life. For analyses with a 2025 base year, the figure is $14.2 million.

The department explains how it works. If a person “is willing to pay $1,000 to reduce the annual risk of death by one in 10,000,” that person “is said to have a VSL of $10 million.” It adds: “What is involved is not the valuation of life as such, but the valuation of reductions in risks.”

B Less Than PL

In 1947 a federal appeals court decided a case about a barge, the Anna C., that broke loose in New York harbor while its bargee was ashore. Judge Learned Hand wrote that the owner’s duty to guard against such accidents “is a function of three variables”: the probability that the barge will break away, the gravity of the injury if it does, and the burden of adequate precautions.

He then wrote it as algebra. “If the probability be called P; the injury, L; and the burden, B; liability depends upon whether B is less than L multiplied by P.” It became known as the Hand formula.

Tried in the Minors First

In 2022 Major League Baseball tried new rules in the minor leagues: a pitch clock, limits on defensive shifts and larger bases. The tests were run “ahead of possible big league use in 2023.”

The pitch clock worked. The average minor league game fell from 3 hours 3 minutes in 2021 to 2 hours 38 minutes in 2022. In September 2022, MLB’s competition committee voted to bring the changes to the major leagues in 2023.

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