Back in the day, the AI for opponents was often fairly stupid. Rather than spreading out intelligently to prevent an opponent from reaching the goal line, they would just sprint towards your current location at all times. So if you run in a bit of a loop from where it makes sense for you to actually go, you can get the opponents to chase you in a long line. Not hard to dodge them almost indefinitely in this case, allowing you to take an arbitrary amount of time off the clock. Real players won't behave like this.
> I don’t think it’s the social expectations that are at play here.
I agree, mostly, but there could be a slight effect here. It's widely known that coaches choose to punt rather than go for it on fourth down (in American football, failing to take the ball past a "first down" marker in five downs results in a turnover) much more often than they should if motivated purely to win the most games. It's speculated that coaches are disincentivized to make high-risk, high-reward choices like going for it, when trying and failing it will result in embarrassment versus taking the safe option.