The obvious answer to the title is that 3rd down conversion rate should only look at what a team actually did on 3rd down. But nobody actually cares about a team’s 3rd down conversion rate. What people are really talking about when looking at that stat is how often can an offense keep the drive alive for another set of downs.
Below is my attempt at ranking every team by their adjusted 3rd down conversion rate. All I did was simply add a team’s 4th down conversions to their 3rd down conversions, then recalculated their 3rd down conversion rate.
| Team | 3D% | 3D% Rank | Adj3D% | Adj3D% Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Philadelphia Eagles | 50.0% | 1 | 60.3% | 1 |
| Buffalo Bills | 49.2% | 2 | 53.3% | 2 |
| Dallas Cowboys | 47.2% | 3 | 52.8% | 3 |
| Green Bay Packers | 42.7% | 8 | 50.8% | 4 |
| Los Angeles Chargers | 42.4% | 9 | 50.4% | 5 |
| Minnesota Vikings | 41.5% | 11 | 49.6% | 6 |
| Detroit Lions | 39.7% | 15 | 49.2% | 7 |
| San Francisco 49ers | 44.8% | 5 | 49.0% | 8 |
| Chicago Bears | 43.6% | 7 | 48.9% | 9 |
| Kansas City Chiefs | 45.5% | 4 | 48.2% | 10 |
| Los Angeles Rams | 42.1% | 10 | 47.6% | 11 |
| Baltimore Ravens | 44.1% | 6 | 46.5% | 12 |
| Atlanta Falcons | 41.4% | 12 | 45.7% | 13 |
| Carolina Panthers | 37.7% | 19 | 45.4% | 14 |
| Houston Texans | 41.1% | 13 | 45.2% | 15 |
| Miami Dolphins | 39.6% | 16 | 44.8% | 16 |
| Indianapolis Colts | 39.2% | 18 | 44.8% | 17 |
| Tampa Bay Buccaneers | 39.5% | 17 | 44.4% | 18 |
| Denver Broncos | 40.5% | 14 | 43.2% | 19 |
| Washington Commanders | 37.2% | 21 | 42.6% | 20 |
| New Orleans Saints | 36.5% | 22 | 41.9% | 21 |
| Las Vegas Raiders | 33.1% | 29 | 41.5% | 22 |
| Cincinnati Bengals | 37.3% | 20 | 40.7% | 23 |
| Arizona Cardinals | 35.7% | 24 | 39.7% | 24 |
| Jacksonville Jaguars | 35.3% | 25 | 38.7% | 25 |
| Pittsburgh Steelers | 36.1% | 23 | 38.5% | 26 |
| Cleveland Browns | 33.8% | 27 | 38.2% | 27 |
| New England Patriots | 34.1% | 26 | 37.9% | 28 |
| New York Giants | 30.5% | 31 | 37.7% | 29 |
| Tennessee Titans | 33.3% | 28 | 37.7% | 30 |
| Seattle Seahawks | 31.5% | 30 | 35.2% | 31 |
| New York Jets | 25.0% | 32 | 30.0% | 32 |
Not too big of a surprise at the top and bottom. The Eagles, Bills, and Cowboys are great at getting a fresh set of downs and the Jets are awful at doing so.
But there are some interesting results in the middle. The Lions for example are only 15th in 3rd down conversion rate, but when you account for how many times they are then able to convert on 4th down, they are 7th in keeping drives alive.
The Chiefs on the other hand are 4th in pure 3rd down conversions, but have only converted 3 4th down attempts all season dropping them to 10th in adjusted 3rd down rate.
I’ll tell you why we don’t do this and why it is flawed, using my Team. The Chiefs have only gone for 7 4th downs all year I believe, being 3/7. 4 of those were desperation 4th downs in the broncos/lions game when we were down multiple scores, so it doesn’t really give a good representation. Two of them I remember were 4th and 25 or more.
Maybe you could Weight this as there’s a lot more 3rd down attempts than 4th down, or take out desperation 4th downs in the 4th quarter when losing over like 5-10 yards. I dunno.
Also I’m really annoyed how conservative Andy is being this year with the offense. They only have 3 4th down attempts this season that weren’t because they’re losing in the 4th and have to. This is part of why the offense looks worse, is we’ve punted or kicked field goals on about 20 4th and shorts this season, a lot of them inside the 10.
three 4th down attempts in 9 games with the best QB in the NFL, just dumb. (that’s all my complaining, we’re awesome)