A regular analysis of strategy, decisions and calls that impacted the week of NFL play. (From Sunday: This "catch" by the New York Giants' Odell Beckham Jr. is among the worst calls of the year.)

The NFL's conservative and risk-averse coaching fraternity has generated an unexpected trend this season, one that appears inspired by bravado as much as analytics but has aroused the same barrier-crushing effect regardless.

On three occasions in 2016, including twice on Sunday, teams trailing by a point late in the fourth quarter have passed on a game-tying extra-point attempt and instead called a two-point play in hopes of taking the lead and a win. That matches the number of similar decisions in the previous seven seasons combined, according to ESPN Stats & Information, and brings the total count of those instances to 10 during the entire 16-season range of our data set.

Doug Pederson, in his first year as the Eagles coach, called for a two-point conversion that failed in a one-point Week 15 loss. Nick Wass/AP Photo

It has worked only once in 2016 -- in the Oakland Raiders' Week 1 victory over the New Orleans Saints -- but has laid the groundwork for new options as bad weather continues and offseason strategy sessions loom.

On Sunday, we saw Tennessee Titans coach Mike Mularkey call for a two-point play after his team cut its deficit against the Kansas City Chiefs to 17-16 with three minutes, 14 seconds remaining. The numbers slightly favored the move, with a win probability of 46 percent if the Titans went for two versus 41 percent if they attempted an extra point. But Mularkey said he made his decision before the possession began because "I wanted to win."

Quarterback Marcus Mariota's pass fell incomplete. Fortunately for the Titans, however, their defense forced a Chiefs punt and they won 19-17 on a 53-yard field goal from Ryan Succop on the game's final play.

"I wanted to win the game right there," Mularkey said, "instead of going into overtime and having to possibly do what we did at the end. I wanted to get us up and make a statement to our team that that's why we came here."

Taking The Risk Going for two when trailing by one point or tied with 5 minutes left or less since 2001. Team Week Opponent Date Result Titans 15 Chiefs 12/18/16 W 19 - 17 Eagles 15 Ravens 12/18/16 L 26 - 27 Raiders 1 Saints 9/11/16 W 35 - 34 Redskins 15 Falcons 12/15/13 L 26 - 27 Texans 17 Titans 1/1/12 L 22 - 23 Redskins 14 Buccaneers 12/12/10 L 16 - 17 Chiefs 10 Chargers 11/9/08 L 19 - 20 Broncos 2 Chargers 9/14/08 W 39 - 38 Buccaneers 10 Redskins 11/13/05 W 36 - 35 Vikings 15 Saints 12/15/02 W 32 - 31 Source: ESPN Stats & Information

Philadelphia Eagles coach Doug Pederson offered a similar explanation for his decision to go for two while trailing the Baltimore Ravens by one point with four seconds remaining. Quarterback Carson Wentz's pass fell incomplete, and the Ravens held on for a 27-26 victory.

"I wanted to win the football game," Pederson said. "And even our chances in overtime were less than 50 percent winning this game. As an underdog going into this game, we were going to win the game in regulation."

The Eagles' decision, like the Titans', can be justified with analytics even if it wasn't data-based. As ESPN senior analytics specialist Brian Burke wrote in an email exchange Sunday night, "good and bad teams are nearly indistinguishable on any single play." That's another way of saying the Eagles -- who are 5-9 after losing their fifth consecutive game -- had a better chance to top the Ravens on one good two-point play than over the course of overtime.

In addition to analytics, all three coaches have no doubt been swayed in part by the 2015 rule change to make extra points more difficult. Since the start of last season, place-kickers are missing 6 percent of their attempts. That lessens the risk disparity between going for one point and two points.

But there is an interesting psychological connection between all three of the 2016 instances that might help explain what's really going on here.

In each case, the decision has come after big second-half comebacks. The Raiders were down 14 points to the Saints in Week 1. The Titans trailed the Chiefs 17-7 in the fourth quarter on Sunday, and the Eagles had a similar 10-point deficit at 27-17 to the Ravens in the fourth quarter. Jack Del Rio, Mularkey and Pederson are among eight head coaches who had substantial NFL playing careers, making them most likely to be attuned to the emotion of a game and react to ethereal feelings of momentum.

Burke referred to it as playing with "house money," culled from the theory that gamblers are more likely to take risks with winnings than with their initial investment. A coach whose team has stormed back from a big deficit, especially on the road as occurred in all three instances this season, might feel extra confident and thus be less risk-averse. That seems even more likely with an ex-NFL player at the helm, one who experienced not only what that confidence feels like on the field but how it can impact performance.

When you combine those factors with the more difficult extra point and the data itself, you can get a better sense for why this mini-trend has occurred. It hasn't always worked out, and the individual decisions can certainly be debated. But generally speaking, they should be welcomed in a league where coaches are "poorly incentivized" to make unconventional choices, as Nate Silver wrote in 2014. Each time an alternative surfaces in a game, and the world fails to collapse as a result, we see an embraceable dent in what has been a mostly impenetrable wall of fear in NFL decision-making.