[OC] Introducing Drive Continuation Rate

First of all, I want to credit u/NBC7x for coming up with the name. I made a post last week about this concept, but I’m reintroducing it here from a different point of view.

Have you ever watched a game where a team seems to purposefully run a “bad” play on 3rd down that leaves them just short of getting a 1st down? Well sometimes, it’s simply poor play calling or poor execution. But more often now than ever, teams call 3rd down like they do 2nd down, knowing they’ll go for it on 4th if they are close enough.

So what I came up with is called the Drive Continuation Rate (DCR). I’ve just added a team’s successful 4th down conversions to their 3rd down conversions, the divided by their 3rd down attempts. Here’s where every team ranks:

Rank	Team	3DAtt	3DConv	4DConv	DCR
1	Philadelphia Eagles	137	66	13	57.7%
2	Buffalo Bills	133	64	6	52.6%
3	Dallas Cowboys	141	66	7	51.8%
4	Detroit Lions	137	58	12	51.1%
5	Green Bay Packers	138	60	10	50.7%
6	Minnesota Vikings	150	62	14	50.7%
7	Los Angeles Chargers	139	60	10	50.4%
8	Kansas City Chiefs	129	59	5	49.6%
9	Chicago Bears	146	63	9	49.3%
10	San Francisco 49ers	106	47	4	48.1%
11	Houston Texans	137	60	5	47.4%
12	Baltimore Ravens	139	62	3	46.8%
13	Carolina Panthers	145	54	13	46.2%
14	Los Angeles Rams	135	55	7	45.9%
15	Atlanta Falcons	140	58	6	45.7%
16	Tampa Bay Buccaneers	138	56	7	45.7%
17	Indianapolis Colts	143	56	8	44.8%
18	Miami Dolphins	107	41	5	43.0%
19	Washington Commanders	142	53	8	43.0%
20	New Orleans Saints	148	54	8	41.9%
21	Denver Broncos	123	47	4	41.5%
22	Jacksonville Jaguars	131	46	7	40.5%
23	Las Vegas Raiders	132	43	10	40.2%
24	Arizona Cardinals	136	48	6	39.7%
25	Cincinnati Bengals	129	46	5	39.5%
26	Tennessee Titans	121	40	6	38.0%
27	New England Patriots	132	45	5	37.9%
28	New York Giants	165	51	11	37.6%
29	Pittsburgh Steelers	136	47	4	37.5%
30	Cleveland Browns	153	50	7	37.3%
31	Seattle Seahawks	123	39	6	36.6%
32	New York Jets	131	30	10	30.5%

So if a team failed on 3rd down, but then was successful on 4th, I’m counting that as a successful drive continuation attempt. However, if a team failed on 3rd down, then failed on their 4th down attempt (or didn’t go for it all), I’m counting that as a failed drive continuation attempt.

I know this doesn’t account for every situation. For example, a team down 1 point with 20 seconds left and the ball on their opponents 10 yard line will likely “fail” on 3rd down by simply running to the preferred hashmark of their kicker and then make a game winning kick as time expires. In this specific scenario, I’ve counted that as a failed drive continuation attempt for a team that executed a game winning play.

For the most part though, this gives you a good overall look at how good/bad teams are at keeping drives alive on the final play of a set of downs where they plan on turning the ball over to the other team if their play is not successful.