The Pittsburgh Steelers had a 4th and goal at the 1 yard line early in Super Bowl XLIII. Instead of going for the touchdown, Coach Mike Tomlin played it safe and went for the "sure" III. He left IV points on the table, which almost blew the game. The end game strategy would have been very different if the Steelers had been up 24-23 at the 2 minute warning rather than down 23-20.
I hate to sound like a Republican by making far fetched football analogies, but this is one aspect of the the game which teaches us a lesson about politics. We learned that the safe choice is not always the safe choice. We also learned that the opponents, no matter how weak they may seem, are never irrelevant. The Arizona Cardinals were like the Democrats of a few years ago: supposedly irrelevant. They supposedly had no chance. But they came very close to winning: they lost only because the Steelers took them seriously and found a way to score more points than them.
If the Steelers had lost, they would have accepted their loss (just like the Patriots had to a year ago.) They wouldn't have had Rush Limbaugh claiming that they were the real champions.
To get back to the Super Bowl, the calculus of the field goal reminds me a little of the bailout. Coach Tomlin didn't want to risk going away from the first drive without a score. So, he went for the sure field goal--- which was not a perfectly sure thing. It was equivalent to an extra point, and about 5% of extra points are missed, so really the "sure" field goal was only worth 2.85 points on average. If the Steelers had missed the field goal, the Cardinals would have gotten the ball on the 20. That is much better for the Cardinals than getting the ball on the 1, which is what would have happened if the 4th down play had failed. The 4th down play probably would have succeeded: the Steelers had about a 60% chance of scoring a touchdown. So the risky play was worth 4.20 points on average: 1.35 points more than the safe play.
And if the risky play had failed, the Steelers would have had a good shot at scoring anyway. Later in the game, the Steelers were in the same position the Cardinals would have been in had the Steelers' early 4th and goal play failed: i.e., the Steelers had the ball on their own 1. And the Steelers gave up some points to the Cardinals as a direct result: Pittsburgh's offense gave up a safety thanks to a holding call in the end zone. (The defense also gave up a touchdown to the Cardinals just after the post-safety punt.)
The biggest political lesson here is: don't play it safe. Go for the play with the largest upside potential, not the one with the seemingly lowest downside. Luckily for the Steelers, their play-it-safe policy ended after the field goal. They won because of two high-risk plays which paid off: an audacious 100 yard interception by James Harrison and a daring pass from Ben Rothlisberger to Santonio Holmes.
The second-biggest political lesson is: even the mediocre opponents need to be taken seriously and can and will kick your butt when they get the chance.