BALTIMORE — The most courageous fourth-down decision of the young NFL season was, in reality, a no-brainer.
The man who made it, John Harbaugh, never doubted it. His Ravens faced a fourth-and-1 in their own territory, with a one-point lead and one minute remaining, and “we were going for it at that point,” Harbaugh said.
Analytics didn’t doubt it either. In fact, a source familiar with the Ravens' staff told Yahoo Sports that Harbaugh "absolutely" knew what the numbers said. Two prominent models, similar to the one the Ravens employ, estimated that going for it upped the Ravens’ win probability by around 17 percentage points.