First of all, I want to credit u/NBC7x for coming up with the name. I made a post last week about this concept, but I’m reintroducing it here from a different point of view.
Have you ever watched a game where a team seems to purposefully run a “bad” play on 3rd down that leaves them just short of getting a 1st down? Well sometimes, it’s simply poor play calling or poor execution. But more often now than ever, teams call 3rd down like they do 2nd down, knowing they’ll go for it on 4th if they are close enough.
So what I came up with is called the Drive Continuation Rate (DCR). I’ve just added a team’s successful 4th down conversions to their 3rd down conversions, the divided by their 3rd down attempts. Here’s where every team ranks:
Rank | Team | 3DAtt | 3DConv | 4DConv | DCR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Philadelphia Eagles | 137 | 66 | 13 | 57.7% |
2 | Buffalo Bills | 133 | 64 | 6 | 52.6% |
3 | Dallas Cowboys | 141 | 66 | 7 | 51.8% |
4 | Detroit Lions | 137 | 58 | 12 | 51.1% |
5 | Green Bay Packers | 138 | 60 | 10 | 50.7% |
6 | Minnesota Vikings | 150 | 62 | 14 | 50.7% |
7 | Los Angeles Chargers | 139 | 60 | 10 | 50.4% |
8 | Kansas City Chiefs | 129 | 59 | 5 | 49.6% |
9 | Chicago Bears | 146 | 63 | 9 | 49.3% |
10 | San Francisco 49ers | 106 | 47 | 4 | 48.1% |
11 | Houston Texans | 137 | 60 | 5 | 47.4% |
12 | Baltimore Ravens | 139 | 62 | 3 | 46.8% |
13 | Carolina Panthers | 145 | 54 | 13 | 46.2% |
14 | Los Angeles Rams | 135 | 55 | 7 | 45.9% |
15 | Atlanta Falcons | 140 | 58 | 6 | 45.7% |
16 | Tampa Bay Buccaneers | 138 | 56 | 7 | 45.7% |
17 | Indianapolis Colts | 143 | 56 | 8 | 44.8% |
18 | Miami Dolphins | 107 | 41 | 5 | 43.0% |
19 | Washington Commanders | 142 | 53 | 8 | 43.0% |
20 | New Orleans Saints | 148 | 54 | 8 | 41.9% |
21 | Denver Broncos | 123 | 47 | 4 | 41.5% |
22 | Jacksonville Jaguars | 131 | 46 | 7 | 40.5% |
23 | Las Vegas Raiders | 132 | 43 | 10 | 40.2% |
24 | Arizona Cardinals | 136 | 48 | 6 | 39.7% |
25 | Cincinnati Bengals | 129 | 46 | 5 | 39.5% |
26 | Tennessee Titans | 121 | 40 | 6 | 38.0% |
27 | New England Patriots | 132 | 45 | 5 | 37.9% |
28 | New York Giants | 165 | 51 | 11 | 37.6% |
29 | Pittsburgh Steelers | 136 | 47 | 4 | 37.5% |
30 | Cleveland Browns | 153 | 50 | 7 | 37.3% |
31 | Seattle Seahawks | 123 | 39 | 6 | 36.6% |
32 | New York Jets | 131 | 30 | 10 | 30.5% |
So if a team failed on 3rd down, but then was successful on 4th, I’m counting that as a successful drive continuation attempt. However, if a team failed on 3rd down, then failed on their 4th down attempt (or didn’t go for it all), I’m counting that as a failed drive continuation attempt.
I know this doesn’t account for every situation. For example, a team down 1 point with 20 seconds left and the ball on their opponents 10 yard line will likely “fail” on 3rd down by simply running to the preferred hashmark of their kicker and then make a game winning kick as time expires. In this specific scenario, I’ve counted that as a failed drive continuation attempt for a team that executed a game winning play.
For the most part though, this gives you a good overall look at how good/bad teams are at keeping drives alive on the final play of a set of downs where they plan on turning the ball over to the other team if their play is not successful.
Looks like a mix between Series Conversion Rate that I think Timo Riske makes, and regular old 3rd Down %, still fun stuff!
finally, something we’re not the worst at!
Solid OC, thanks for this. Any chance we could get this by quarter? I would be interested in which teams come out with a good game plan that slowly decreases as the game goes on. Or even who is only good with their backs against the wall down by a couple scores.
So I guess kneeldowns to end the first half or to end games count as unsuccessful if they get to 3rd down?
Eagles and their tush push keeps a lot of drives going where other teams can’t do that.
:(
We have the highest punt % in the nfl so I feel like we should be lower
Isn’t this kind of just Success Rate with less information?
so… the rate at which teams get first downs? but excluding first and second down conversions?
Damn, feel like Dobbs accounts for like 50% of the 3rd downs himself lol
How difficult would this be for defenses? I ask because I’ve noticed the Packers have a tendency to give up 1 or 2 less yards than teams need on 3rd down leaving 4th and manageable that teams easily convert and I’m wondering if this is more often than normal or just feels that way due to my bias of watching the Packers more
How are we 6-4 lol
49ers and Dolphins: what’s a third down?
NFCS mid af, everyone between 13 and 20 and division average is exactly 16th out of 32 lol
Meanwhile, the entire NFCN is top 10 somehow
Surprised Seattle is that low.
Any way to break this down further to qb pass success rate? Long (>8 yards) vs. medium (3-7 yards) vs. short (<2 yards) success rate?