On Nov. 15, 2009, former New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick made perhaps the most controversial tactical decision of his career when he decided to go for it on 4th-and-2 in his own territory in the final minutes of a primetime game against the Indianapolis Colts. The team failed to convert, Peyton Manning took advantage of the short field to score the winning touchdown, and Belichick was widely derided for his “gamble.”
In the 15 years since, NFL organizations have embraced analytics, and one of the major results has been a more aggressive approach league-wide on fourth downs. In the first 12 weeks of 2009, teams only went for it 20% of the time on 4th-and-2. This season, that number is all the way up to 42%, according to data shared by Michael Lopez, the league’s senior director of football data and analytics.
For the first half-century of the Super Bowl era, teams were simply miscalculating the risk versus reward of going for it. In the several years after the Belichick incident, in fact, coaches became more conservative on fourth down. As recently as 2017, teams sent their offenses onto the field on fourth down just 41%, 14% and 13% of the time with one, two and three yards to gain, respectively.
In 2024, teams are going for it 71% of the time on 4th-and-1, 42% of the time on 4th-and-2 and 30% of the time on 4th-and-3. All three of those percentages are all-time highs, by significant margins.
The pandemic-riddled season of 2020 saw the biggest spike in 4th-and-1 attempts, with the go-for-it rate jumping from 54% the prior season to 67%. Aggressiveness with more distance to gain was a lagging trend, with head coaches finally getting over the hump in 2024 on 4th-and-2 and 4th-and-3 situations.
The financial implications of this shift are likely correlation rather than causation, but it’s noteworthy that the average contract value for the 10 highest-paid punters, whose duties are now more limited, has not moved at all since 2021 despite the NFL salary cap rising more than 20%. On the flip side, the average salary of the top 10 highest-paid head coaches has increased 30% in the past three seasons.
Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell, who earns $11 million annually, has led the charge in fourth-down boldness. Campbell famously established a courageous tone in his introductory press conference and then backed it up on the field, going for it on 118 fourth downs between 2021 and 2023, 14 more attempts than any other team during that span.
Campbell eschewed the punt or kick on about 29% of all fourth downs in his first three seasons, while the league average was below 20%. According to a fourth-down aggressiveness metric from Pro Football Focus that considers other factors such as field position, score margin and time remaining, Campbell got a rating of 0.86 and a label of “DARING” in 2023. Only two other coaches had a mark above 0.50.
The Lions’ approach was put to the test in the 2024 NFC Championship Game against the San Francisco 49ers, when Campbell decided to go for it on two fourth downs in the second half. The team turned it over on downs both times, contributing to a 49ers comeback win, and Campbell was the topic of much debate the following morning.
The conversation, though, was not one as one-sided as it had been with Belichick years ago. Most statistical models actually confirmed that Campbell’s choices were correct. “I don’t regret those decisions, and that’s hard,” Campbell said after the game. “But I understand the scrutiny.”
This season, the Lions haven’t been in many positions to make risky go-for-it decisions, as they’ve cruised to a 10-1 record, with six of those wins by double-digits.