NFL teams go for it twice as often as they used to

The fourth-down decision is the clearest case in sport of everyone knowing the right answer and doing the other thing anyway — for decades.

The flat years

From 2006 through 2017, NFL teams went for it on fourth down roughly ten percent of the time. Twelve seasons, essentially unchanged, through an era when passing exploded and scoring climbed. The analysis saying teams should go for it more was already public and already right.

Punting was never the optimal play. It was the safe one to explain.

The turn

The league-wide rate climbed from 11.4% in 2012 to a peak of 20.6% in 2021, with the sharpest shift starting around 2018 to 2020. The detail that shows the change best is fourth-and-one in opponent territory: teams went for it 70% of the time in 2014, and 88% of the time in 2024 — converting 72%.

Why it took so long

Nothing about the mathematics changed. What changed was the professional cost of being wrong. A failed fourth down is a visible, replayable decision a coach owns personally. A punt that quietly loses the game is nobody's fault.

Once enough teams went for it, the risk inverted: the coach who punts on fourth-and-one at midfield now has to explain that instead. The analytics did not win the argument so much as move the burden of proof.