Fourth-and-Wrong?

Seahawks can't distract themselves with fourth down until they get better at third

Fourth down attempts have increased in three ways:

• The number of attempts is up (from 451 times in 2014 to 766 times in 2024)

• The conversion rate is way up (from 46% to 57%)

• And fans are just as responsible for the increase in fourth downs as analytics is because fourth down attempts are more exciting (more to lose than the first three downs) and we usually prefer to have the ball than to be on defense

But when we boil down conversion rates and attempts in 2024 to the essence of what helps a team reach the Super Bowl, then in a way NOTHING has changed:

Converting a fourth down is cool.

Converting a THIRD down is important.

Third Down Conversions

Something interesting happens when you sort playoff teams by third down conversions and fourth down attempts. Here is a chart sorted by the most third down conversions in 2024.

The highlighted teams made the playoffs:

11 of the top 12 teams in third down conversions made the playoffs, with the lone exception being the Bengals, a team that finished 9-8 (the Seahawks were the only other team with a winning record to miss the postseason).

There are three outliers who made the playoffs but converted 80 or fewer third downs:

• 14-3 Vikings (80 conversions)

• 11-6 Packers (75)

• 10-7 Rams (74)

The Seahawks converted 79 third downs, ranking just below Minnesota.

Third Down Rate

Now when you sort these teams by third down conversion rate, every playoff team ranked in the top-20 with the exception of the Rams (36.8%).

There aren’t many surprises in there. The Seahawks converted 37.6% of their third down attempts under one-time offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb and former quarterback Geno Smith.

• In 2022, Smith completed 63% of his third down pass attempts with 10 TD, 1 INT, a 104.6 passer rating, and 6.6 yards per attempt, plus nine first down runs.

• In 2023, Smith’s completion rate on third down fell to 57% with 5 TD, 5 INT, 72.7 passer rating, 6.3 Y/A, and seven first down runs

• And in 2024, Smith’s third down completion percentage went back up to 62%, but this time he had 5 TD/7 INT, a passer rating of 75, and only four first down runs

Seattle is obviously banking on a number of changes to improve their third down numbers, not exclusive to making a change at quarterback and offensive coordinator, but also protecting the passer better with an upgrade at left guard and offensive line coaching.

In Sam Darnold’s lone season as the Vikings starter, his third down numbers were decent but also stand to improve:

• 55.7% completions

• 9 TD/3 INT

• 89 passer rating

• 9 first down runs

These are far more important numbers to work on than fourth down, which if the Seahawks are as good as they hope to be this season will only happen about once per game. Despite the overall increase in fourth down attempts and the amount of attention that the Eagles and Lions have placed on these situations, good offenses still manage to mostly AVOID fourth down.

Fourth Down Conversion Rate

It’s true: 10 of the top-11 teams in fourth down conversion rate made the playoffs in 2024.

Dan Quinn’s Moons sit atop the rankings under offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury, an aggressive tactic that players loved:

"Fourth down is something DQ [Dan Quinn] has been aggressive with all season," Washington Commanders receiver Terry McLaurin said after a playoff win in Tampa last season. "For a good part of the season, we were 100 percent conversions. We know if it's fourth and manageable, DQ's going to give us a chance to execute. When we needed to make the play the most, we did, and that gives us confidence going forward."

The result was making the NFC Championship game and Kingsbury getting some attention as a potential second-chance candidate for head coaching jobs.

But note the number of attempts: 23

That’s only the 17th-most fourth down attempts in the NFL and about half the number of times that the league-leading Cleveland Browns went for it on fourth down: 44 times!

Teams like the Browns, the Bears (38), and the Giants (37) went for it on fourth down so often because they failed to convert on third down so many times (Cleveland was the only team under 30% on third down) and because they were usually playing from behind.

The only team high in the rankings that had a good season was the Lions (33 attempts) but a microcosm of their season was the way it ended:

The Lions trailed Quinn’s Moons in the final minutes of the wild card game and converted two fourth downs on their last drive. But on third-and-10, Jared Goff was intercepted and lost the game.

You’d rather not see fourth down that convert fourth down.

Of the 10 teams that had the fewest fourth down attempts in the NFL last season (13 by the Vikings was the fewest, 18 by the Steelers, Texans, and Cardinals was tied for the eighth-fewest), eight of them made the playoffs and were among the league leaders in third down percentage.

These teams weren’t being “not-aggressive”, they just didn’t have a huge need to attempt or convert fourth downs.

The Eagles (19-of-27 on fourth down) and Chiefs both ranked in the top-four for fourth down conversion rate (both over 70%) and made the Super Bowl, but Kansas City only had 17 attempts on the entire season. Just one per game. Philadelphia quite famously only goes for it that often because of their unique ability to get 1-3 yards pretty much whenever they want it.

The Tush Push helped them convert 41.7% of third downs and because Nick Sirianni knows that it is in his back pocket, he plays first/second/third down differently than any other head coach does. The Eagles could be the first team to really play like everything is four down territory…

And good for them but the Seahawks, like most teams, have to crawl over third down before they can walk through fourth down.

Grubb’s Seahawks went 10-of-19 on fourth down (same as the Bengals), while Klint Kubiak’s Saints went 15-of-27 (55.6%) on fourth and 76-of-216 (35.2%) on third. But I have a hard time reading too much into that due to their injury problems at quarterback and almost everywhere else last season.

Seattle hasn’t converted 40% or more of their third downs since 2020. Maybe with a new quarterback and coaching staff this is the year they’ll go boom.

Seaside Joe 2314