Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer had a big decision to make late in Sunday night’s game against the Seahawks.
His team was up five at the two minute warning and faced a fourth-and-one from Seattle’s 6-yard-line. A first down would have all but decided the game while a field goal would have ensured the Seahawks couldn’t win the game in regulation.
Zimmer chose going for it, but Alexander Mattison was stopped short and the Seahawks won when Russell Wilson hit DK Metcalf for a touchdown with seconds to play. On Monday, Zimmer said the outcome didn’t change his view of the right way to handle the situation.
“You’ve got to make decisions quick,” Zimmer said, via Courtney Cronin of ESPN.com. “You don’t have time to ask analytics guys what to do. In that situation, I’m always going for the win. I don’t care. We’ve done that many times and we’ll continue to do it. We had a half a yard to go and we’d been running the ball really well. I felt like their defense was tired and we had hit two other fourth downs earlier in the ballgame. So I’ll do it again the next time it comes up. If we’ve got a chance to win the game, you’ve got to go for it.”
Zimmer didn’t consult analytics, but they would have backed up the choice as going for it left the Vikings with a slightly higher probability of winning. In either case, things still had to play out on the field and thatt didn’t work out for the Vikings this time.