Going for It

Giants-Redskins game has now featured not one but two plays where offenses faced fourth and short in opposition territory, elected to try field goals, and then . . . missed the field goal. The Redskins' version of this was especially egregious since it was fourth and one and they were down thirteen points. Attempting longish field goals when you could be going for shortish fourth down conversions really doesn't seem to me to make much sense outside of specialized end-of-game situations; a missed field goal is such a bad outcome in terms of field positions that I'm not even sure this qualifies as playing it safe.