The problem here is that conventional wisdom is in direct conflict with statistical analysis. That’s a fairly new development, something that came in through Sabermetrics in baseball in the late 1970s. Good football coaches would always punt in those situations because it looks and feels right. It’s not until you do detailed analysis that you discover the actual value of a punt vs attempting a 4th down play.
If teams start going for it on 4th down more often as a result of these statistics I’m sure the statistics will start favoring punting before long. Going for it on 4th currently is rare enough that the statistics may not be meaningful. It is mostly done because the situation favors it, so it will seem to be highly successful. When it becomes the conventional wisdom coaches will do it more often than makes sense just like punting on 4th down now.
Coaches don’t coach to win; they coach not to get fired.
Wouldn’t this only be true if the teams that are currently going for it are more successful at converting than the teams that don’t go for it would be? I’m not sure why that would be the case, other than perhaps they practice more plays for that situation.
I actually could see it working a bit in the other direction. If it becomes conventional wisdom that in large parts of the field you will use all 4 downs to convert, teams will likely start running different plays on 2nd and especially 3rd down with long yardage to go. These plays will likely be more successful at making positive yardage (but short of the line to gain) which could make 4th down conversions even more likely.
Of course I think the stats already take into account yards to gain, so maybe that is a wash. Either way teams being more aggressive with their possessions will very likely increase scoring.
Here are conversion attempts for last season: 2023 NFL Offense Downs Team Stat Leaders - ESPN
You can see some trends here: https://twitter.com/StatsbyLopez/status/1313574544687484928/photo/1
Teams now go for it on 4th and 1 something like 70% of the time, and their success rate has not dropped as teams are doing it much more often.
Yes, if this is integrated into a more complex and well thought out plan that you suggest than you should be correct. Instead of being blindly applied, brand new strategies emerge and may be more successful overall.
But if they are being selective and only going for it when the situation is favorable which is what happens now, then you’ll see a high rate of success when going for it on 4th down. If coaches start doing this blindly, just as they blindly punt on 4th down now, the success will go down.
Remember, success rate here is not simple. The idea is not that you will convert on 4th down, but that you are still more likely to score eventually if you attempt to convert on 4th down. It’s not going to be easy to pick that apart.
I like it when Sheldon says “Bazinga!”. That’s good stuff.
Oh, so you mean if just start always going for it without looking at the stats? I wasn’t considering that but I guess it’s true.
The way the math normally works is that down, yards to go, time remaining, score, and sometimes team-specific factors give you a go/don’t-go number that is expressed as a change in expected win percentage. Coaches are getting better about making the obvious calls (which they tended to get wrong before). It’s highly unusual for a coach to be more aggressive than the model indicates, but I guess it could happen some day.
4th and 1 is an interesting case but in a very large number of situations it’s better to go for it than punt at almost any game state (score and time remaining). Which is why NFL teams are now going for it almost 70% of the time in those situations. And they are still converting at almost exactly the same rate they have for the last decade.
Yeah. I cleaned up my post above. You’d be right in some circumstances. Just depends on how the coaches use this info.
Wait, the offense and defense are different people?
What is “convert”?
“drop back 10 and punt”, or “just punt it to…” is some times used in business as a way of saying, “let’s take a pause and regroup” on an issue; or “toss the problem onto someone else’s desk”.
generally what to do on a 4th down is decided by many factors. field position, the kicking strength of the punter, the ability of the opposing teams receivers, and just how good is your field goal kicker.
Yes. Ocasionally in high school football the same person may play an offensive and defensive position, but it’s extremely rare to nonexistent for it to happen in the pros.
To convert is to get points from a play. So, if you ‘go for it’ on 4th down and it results in points, you converted. Or if the defense catches a thrown ball by the other team’s quarterback, called an interception, and that results in points you converted on the interception.
yes, offense and defence are different people.
generally you want very big people on defence and quick fast people on offense. there is some overlap on the offensive line.
a conversion is when you run the football into the endzone after a touchdown. it gives you 2 points rather than 1 when you kick the ball after a touchdown.
6 point touchdown, run the football after possible 2 points for 8 points total, 6 point touchdown, kick the ball after for possible 1 point for 7 points total.
2 point conversions usually happen in high school and college games.
Yes, American football is highly specialized. Less so in High School, perhaps, but players focus on specific skills. This is possible because each play is a set piece, the game is paused while players take position, and paused when possession changes, so complete changes in squads is the norm when switching from offense to defense.
As relates to the OP, ‘convert’ means a successful play on 4th down that lets the team keep the ball and continue on offense. Failing to convert means the other team takes possession of the ball and now they are the offense.
Football is a complicated game. Real football that is. That other sport mistakenly called football is extremely simple in comparison. It’s the difference between tic-tac-toe and chess.
I thought to ‘convert’ only meant a successful play that results in points, but I guess it can mean any successful play, whether it ultimately results in points or not, such as going for it on 4th down and getting a new set of downs.
Points after a touchdown are done through a ‘conversion’, a specific term for that purpose. ‘Convert’ is used for 4th down plays, just meaning to be successful. I don’t know if it has any official meaning. A football announcer might use ‘convert’ for all sorts of purposes, I imagine in the old days of Monday Night Football the announcer known as Dandy Don probably talked about ‘converting’ some nachos during halftime.
Ah. That explains what people say about my son. He’s gotten to be a very big guy. He starts high school next fall, and people have been saying he should audition for football. They used to say basketball when he was just tall, but he’s filled out rather alarmingly in the last couple of years. He’ll probably be 5’10 by the time school starts, and he’s a freshman, and he’ll also be about 220lbs.
I said there’s no way he could play football because he can’t catch anything but a cold, and he can trip over his own feet when he runs. I get a weird kind of look, then “He’ll go for defense,” or some comment like that.
I didn’t think you could do anything after a touchdown. I thought the ball was sort of “out of play” after that.
they could be thinking about your son for defencive line or offensive line. they mostly block other players from moving. very basically, the offensive line stops the defence from getting to the quarterback, receivers, or running backs. the defence line tries to stop the quarterback, receivers, or running backs.
after a successful touchdown (6) points you get to kick for the extra point (1) or take the ball to the endzone for 2 points. the kickoff happens after the extra point play. there are times the extra point is unsuccesful.
“Try out” not audition. 
I say this respectfully: please be careful not to tell him who he is. It’s really easy to pigeonhole kids, and then that becomes their internal language. “I’m clumsy,” and “I’m no good at sports”.
No, you have the opportunity to kick the ball between the uprights for one more point, or run a 2 point conversion play for 2 more points. A touchdown is worth 6 points. Most are followed by a kick for a Point After Touchdown, so most touchdowns result in a total of 7 points. But with a 2 point conversion you could end up with 8 points total.
I don’t know if high schools use 2 point conversions now, or 20 years ago. The NFL added the 2 point conversion in 1994.