My best sense of it is he wanted to win or tie at absolute worst. Playing not to lose & willing lower chances of winning to raise chances of a tie/lower the chance of losing.
The problem is, his decision significantly lowered win chances while barely affecting tie/loss chances.
The only possible way is if he's counting on multiple automatic first down penalties without scoring.
And he basically is admitting that he either STILL doesn't understand OT rules (ie, a touchdown there ends the game anyway) or he was playing for the tie