After Sean Payton's Broncos went for it and failed Sunday, there is a renewed debate about 4th-down decisions.
The go-for-it revolution in the NFL can probably be traced back to Doug Pederson, when he was head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles.
For years fourth downs were for punting, unless it was late in the game and a team had little choice. Fourth-down rates remained about the same for many years. About once per game, on average, a team would go for it on fourth down.
Pederson got the Eagles job in 2016 and that started to change. The Eagles won a Super Bowl at the end of the 2017 season going for it far more often than teams had in the past, and that led to a major shift in strategy around the NFL.
In 2015, teams went for it on fourth down 476 times, or 0.93 times per team per game. This past season teams went for it 886 times on fourth down, or 1.63 times per team per game. That’s an increase of 75.3% from just a decade ago. Through the decade of the 1980s it was way more conservative; teams went for it on fourth down 0.57 times per game on average. It has nearly tripled in the 35 years since.
That’s a massive spike, and it has changed the way the NFL is played. The idea is simple: Possession of the ball is paramount, and going for it on fourth-and-short instead of punting or trying a field-goal typically increases a team’s win expectancy. It’s not a revolutionary concept, it’s just one that hadn’t been followed too often until the past decade.
On Sunday, with two spots in Super Bowl LX on the line, each losing coach got aggressive on fourth down. Each one got criticized for it, too.
Did Sean Payton make a mistake?
Broncos coach Sean Payton and Rams coach Sean McVay are two of the NFL’s best, but they each caught some heat for being too aggressive and not taking the points in their conference championship games.
Payton got far more criticism. In the second quarter, the Broncos passed on a short field goal attempt when they led 7-0, and their fourth-and-1 play resulted in an incompletion. Bad weather invaded Denver for the second half, and the Broncos didn’t score again in a 10-7 loss. Payton said he wanted to be aggressive, but when speaking later he laid out what would have been a reasonable argument for taking the points.
[Get more Broncos news: Denver team feed]
“You don’t know that it’s going to be like this three-point game, but it became apparent with each possession that a field goal, that type of thing, was going to be really important,” Payton said after the game.
The Rams’ situation was much different. It was fourth-and-4 at Seattle’s 6-yard line with just under five minutes to go in the game. The Rams trailed 31-27. A field goal would have brought the Rams within one point, needing a stop and a field goal in the final minutes to win. McVay went for it, Matthew Stafford threw incomplete and the Rams didn’t get the ball back until 25 seconds left. They ended up losing by four points.
“I’ll have to go back and look at it,” McVay said of his decisions during the game. “But there was other opportunities we could have converted on.”
[Get more Rams news: Los Angeles team feed]
The chorus, with the help of hindsight, was that at least Payton should have taken the points. It was reminiscent of the NFC championship game two years ago, when Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell — annually one of the NFL’s most aggressive coaches when it comes to fourth-down decisions — went for it on fourth down against the San Francisco 49ers when a field goal would have put the Lions ahead 17 points in the third quarter. The 49ers came back to win. Those fourth-down decisions will always look bad and be second-guessed when they don’t work out. The ones that do work out are more quickly forgotten.
Fans who grew up hearing that going for it on fourth downs was a massive gamble cringe when coaches don’t take the points on short field goals. They’ll complain that analytics have ruined the game. But will the trend ever change back to kicking more often?
4th down attempts have spiked
Throughout the entire decade of the 1980s, the team that went for it on fourth down the most the most was the 1984 Atlanta Falcons, who went for it 30 times according to Stathead. This past season, 11 of 32 teams went for it on fourth down at least 30 times.
The increase started in the 1990s, but it really started to shift in 2018, the season after Pederson’s Eagles won the Super Bowl. The instances of going for it on fourth down went from 485 in 2017 to 539 the season after. That was up to 886 times this regular season, and even accounting for the added 17th game since then, that’s a remarkable increase. Here is the average of teams going for it on fourth down per game per team through the years:
1980s: 0.57
1995: 1.03
2005: 0.91
2015: 0.93
2018-2025: 1.36
2025: 1.63
Perhaps it’s due to practice, but teams are better on fourth downs. Here’s the fourth down conversion rate through the years:
1980s: 49.2%
1995: 53.8%
2005: 48%
2015: 48.9%
2025: 55.2%
That contributes to the math that you’ll hear so often about, even on television broadcasts. Win expectancy percentages, with teams leaning into analytics, help dictate fourth-down decisions. Coaches can also add in their feel for the game. Payton said his feel for the momentum of the game, how his defense played and the ability of the Patriots’ offense all played into him going for it on Sunday.
“It’s also a call you make based on the team you’re playing and what you’re watching on the other side of the ball,” Payton said.
Teams are going for it more than ever, they are improving at the success rate on fourth down, and it seems unlikely the trend completely reverts with more young coaches who have grown up on analytics rising to head coaching jobs. However, games like the Broncos’ loss to the Patriots could lead to a change in philosophy, however slight.
And no matter how many times teams who go for it cash in with touchdowns, whenever a team like Payton’s Broncos fail in that situation, you’re bound to hear that they should have taken the points instead.
Category: General Sports
