Albert Einstein thought data was overrated.

I always think of Einstein when an NFL coach makes a controversial decision on fourth down.

Tampa Bay HC Todd Bowls made one last Thursday against Dallas. With his Buccaneers seeking their first win of the season, leading 24-10 with 8:36 to play in Q4, and facing 4DN and goal at the Cowboys’ one-yard line, Bowles eschewed a 18-yeard field goal attempt. Dallas stoned RB Sean Tucker. Dak Prescott took his team 99 yards to trim the lead to 24-16. Bowles has to sweat it out to the end.

A few people online noted that data supported Bowles’ decision.

A physicist would not.

In 2011, physicist Brian Skinner published “Scoring Strategies for the Underdog: A General Quantitative Method for Determining Optimal Sports Strategies.”

Skinner’s bottom line was pretty simple: A favorite should be willing to sacrifice from its expected final score in order to reduce variance. An underdog should be willing to sacrifice from its expected final score in order to increase variance.

Translation: Bowles should have attempted the field goal.

Einstein love mathematics because he could visualize equations as physical pictures, rather than using math merely to crunch numerical numbers, according to his biographer, Walter Isaacson. This is essentially what NFL play designers, except their variables are limited to X and O.

He believed, again according to Isaacson, that observations and data are meaningless until one has a conceptual theoretical framework to explain them.

“It is the theory that decides what we can observe,” Einstein said.

Bowles, like just about every other NFL HC, clearly lacked a “conceptual framework” or “theory” when he decided to send Tucker into the line rather than send his kicker Chase McLaughlin onto the field.

He got away with it this time.

After all, even a good conceptual theoretical framework is more like a guideline.