Ravens head coach John Harbaugh went for two after three of the team’s four touchdowns in Sunday’s 33-28 loss to the Chiefs and the team’s failure to convert any of those tries led to questions about his approach after the game was over.
Harbaugh said the team made “clear analytical decisions” to both go for two and go for it on four fourth downs over the course of the game. They converted three of them, but the one failure left the Chiefs with the ball in Ravens territory.
Harbaugh said “absolutely not” if he second guessed any of those calls.
“I could just tell you analytically, like if you look at the numbers, it’s not even close,” Harbaugh said, via ESPN.com. “So you understand in terms of the percentage of chances to win the game. I’m just telling you. That’s what the analytics say. That’s what it says. That’s how it works. But it wouldn’t even matter. We believe in our offense, and we’re going to try and get as many first downs as we can. I think it led to a touchdown the very first time, did it not? We’ll keep doing it whenever it suits us, whatever makes the most sense. We’re not going into it blind. We got the numbers. We know what we’re doing. That was the plan.”
The Ravens couldn’t put up enough points to get a win in Kansas City, but it doesn’t sound like the outcome is going to shake Harbaugh’s belief in his process.