Todd Bowles Decided Against Buccaneers Going For Two Against Chiefs Because The Field Was Wet
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers could have attempted to take a late lead over the Kansas City Chiefs with a two-point conversion on Monday night, but ultimately kicked the extra point before going into overtime and losing 30-24.
Hindsight is always 20/20, especially when talking about what would have been a risky two-point attempt, but the explanation Tampa Bay head coach Todd Bowles shared as to why he opted not to go for two was certainly a head-scratcher.
According to him, it wasn't worth going for two because the field was wet. He actually said that.
"We wanted to get into overtime with the wet conditions on the field, we thought we had to go into overtime instead of going for two. We had our shots. We lost the game," Bowles explained.
The Bucs' decision to kick the extra point for the tie came with 27 seconds left in regulation. Even if the Bucs went for two and converted, giving Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City offense nearly 30 seconds to operate and try to get into field goal range to win the game in regulation had to be in the back of Bowles' mind.
The Chiefs ultimately won the coin toss and marched right down the field to win the game with 4:08 left in overtime.
When it comes to the analytics, Bowles not telling his team to go for two appears to have been the ‘correct’ call in the moment, sort of.
According to ESPN, four teams that scored touchdowns in the last two minutes of regulation decided to kick extra points to tie their games in Week 9. The model agreed with the decision to kick the PAT in all four of those cases, yet all four of those teams went on to lose their games.