by Chase Stuart
on February 26, 2018
How has the NFL evolved when it comes to third down passing? Using the PFR Play Index, I looked at all passes on third downs in each season from 1997 to 2017 that met the following criteria:
- The play came during the regular season.
- The pass happened in the first three quarters of the game to minimize the effects of game situation, as 4th quarter passes may be different than passes earlier in the game (although that’s worth investigating, too!).
- The team on offense was down by no more than 14 points or up by no more than 14 points, to again minimize the effects of game situation.
- The distance was between 5 and 10 yards to go, to isolate obvious passing situations but not hopeless ones.
What were the results? What do you *think* the results would be? [continue reading…]
Tagged as:
Third Downs
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by Chase Stuart
on July 23, 2013
Scott Kacsmar recently wrote about Robert Griffin III’s struggles on third downs last season. Despite Griffin’s otherworldly rate stats, that was one area where he really struggled in 2012. I thought it would be interesting to take a look at how all quarterbacks fared on “third downs” last season. I put that in quotes because I’m including fourth down data, but don’t want to write third and fourth down throughout this post. Regular readers may recall I did something similar last November, but now we can work with full 2012 season numbers.
To grade third down performance, I included sacks but threw out all rushing data (not for any moral reason, just in the interest of time). The first step in evaluating third down performance is to calculate the league average conversion rate on third downs for each distance. Next, I came up with a best-fit smoothed line based on the data, which is based off the following formula:
Conversion Rate = -0.0001 * Distance^2 – 0.0224 * Distance + 0.5301
Take a look at the table below. For example, there were 309 passes (i.e., pass attempts or sacks — scrambles are not included) and the league-wide conversion rate was 51.1%. Using the best-fit formula, the smoothed rate is 50.8%. There is nothing groundbreaking here — the conversion rates drop as the “to go” number increases, but it helps to quantify what we already know.
| To Go | Passes | First Downs | Rate | Smoothed Rate |
| 1 | 309 | 158 | 51.1% | 50.8% |
| 2 | 415 | 208 | 50.1% | 48.5% |
| 3 | 487 | 207 | 42.5% | 46.2% |
| 4 | 512 | 227 | 44.3% | 43.9% |
| 5 | 559 | 226 | 40.4% | 41.6% |
| 6 | 541 | 228 | 42.1% | 39.2% |
| 7 | 521 | 181 | 34.7% | 36.8% |
| 8 | 426 | 143 | 33.6% | 34.5% |
| 9 | 365 | 116 | 31.8% | 32% |
| 10 | 728 | 220 | 30.2% | 29.6% |
| 11 | 213 | 71 | 33.3% | 27.2% |
| 12 | 153 | 39 | 25.5% | 24.7% |
| 13 | 135 | 24 | 17.8% | 22.2% |
| 14 | 107 | 22 | 20.6% | 19.7% |
| 15 | 143 | 22 | 15.4% | 17.2% |
| 16 | 62 | 5 | 8.1% | 14.6% |
| 17 | 68 | 12 | 17.6% | 12% |
| 18 | 50 | 3 | 6% | 9.5% |
| 19 | 53 | 3 | 5.7% | 6.8% |
| 20 | 48 | 3 | 6.3% | 5% |
[continue reading…]
Tagged as:
Andrew Luck,
Redskins,
Robert Griffin III,
RPO 2013,
Third Downs
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