Analyzing Vic Fangio’s decisions on 4th down

For better or worse, the head coach is the one who gets the credit or blame for choosing when and where to go for it on 4th down. Very few NFL coaches buck the traditional wisdom that says you punt if you aren’t in range to kick a field goal. But what about the late in the half or late in the game situations when the clock changes the calculus?

Vic Fangio has received much criticism over the past two seasons for his decisions on 4th down. The hope here is to determine whether or not that criticism has been warranted. As always, I’m gonna bring the data and attempt to draw some conclusions from it.

In this work we’ll dive into how Fangio has done and how that compares to other NFL head coaches. Now, Fangio may not have the final call on what to do on 4th down, but I would guess that he does, much like most, if not all NFL head coaches do. Over the course of his two seasons as head coach, Fangio has had to make a decision on 241 4th downs. We are going to use expected points, EP, to evaluate how “good” or “bad” the outcome of his decisions was over the past two seasons.

For a long discussion of EP follow this link. What it essentially is is how many points you would be expected to score from any point on the field on a given play based upon every play run from that point on the field in NFL history. I will focus on the difference between EPB (expected points before the play) and EPA (expected points after). This is a relatively simple analytical method to determine if the “right” decision was made - based on the outcome.

For example the expected points on any play run from your own one yard line is pretty close to six since the number of plays that have scored a touchdown from the one yard is significantly higher than the number of plays that have scored a touchdown from the plus 45.

If you sum the difference over all of the 241 4th downs where Fangio has had to make the decision, you come up with a total value of 119.6. That’s useless without context though. So how does this compare to other franchises over the past two seasons? See the table below.

So overall the Broncos, and Fangio, are 8th in terms of summed EP difference on 4th down during the past two seasons. That’s interesting, but there are some other tidbits that can be pulled from this data set.

We also have to adjust this for a per play basis. The table with summed EP DIF/play is shown below.

Using EP difference per 4th down play, Fangio drops to twelfth. The Ravens clearly show up as an outlier here with a gap of 0.13 expected points per play between them and the Seahawks over the past two seasons. The Jets, Chargers and Rams are all clustered together at the bottom of the heap.

At first glance it might seem simple to determine whether the decision to go for it on fourth down was the “correct” one (if you convert), but what about situations like 4th and 1 from just outside of field goal range. How do you evaluate the choice to punt their? Expected points tries to answer that, but I’m going to use a more nuanced (less objective) method to answer this, particularly in regards to the instances where Fangio has had to make that decision.

The 241 total fourth down situations over the past two seasons means that the Broncos have had the seventh most 4th downs over the past two years. The Bengals have had the most with 261 while the Chiefs have had the fewest with 184. Not surprisingly the Ravens are a close second at 189.

The Ravens have also been the best team in the league when they actually run a play on 4th down over the past two years (only looking at regular season - I did not bring playoff 4th downs into the study). The table below just looks at passing and rushing plays on 4th down over the past two seasons - it removes the times when a coach chose to punt or try a FG.

Below is the instances over the past two season where teams have gone for it on 4th down.

I have included turning it over on downs as a turnover (which the NFL still does not count as a turnover by the offense for some strange reason). That is the “Real TO%” column. You can see that Denver is in the middle of the pack in terms of Real TO% and first down (and TD) percentage. I did not look deeply into these interceptions to see how many were on end-of-game or end-of-half Hail-Mary passes. I am one of those stat folks who think that those interceptions should not be counted for QBs since are huge percentage of those passes are picked off.

You’ll note that Denver is on the low end in terms of conversions on 4th down, but we are also on the low end in terms of times that we have gone for it on 4th down during the past two years - 29 attempts. The Broncos are tied for the eighth fewest 4th down attempts and have exactly half the number of the Eagles who had the most over the past two seasons.

With only 29 plays we can look at them all and look for trends. Is Fangio too conservative? Would you have made the same decision(s)? How many of those were “no-brainer” decisions with the team down late in the game?

We find that of the 29 4th down plays only eight were not in the fourth quarter of the game. Of those eight, the Broncos were only leading or tied in three of those attempts.

This link allows you to see every 4th down pass or rush over the past two seasons that occurred in the first, second, or third quarter of the game. You’ll note that with only eight, Denver has the second fewest “risky” decisions to go for it on 4th down. Only the Lions with seven have fewer. More of this later.

Chronologically the first of our 29 attempts was in 2019 against the Vikings. Leading 10-0 the Broncos had the ball on the MIN 7 at the beginning of the second quarter facing a 4th and 1. The Broncos would convert on an end-around to Courtland Sutton. The gamble paid off as the Broncos would score a touchdown to go up 17-0. The seventeen point lead would be stretched to 20 and that would be the second largest lead that the Broncos have had at any point during Fangio’s tenure as head coach. The Broncos would go into halftime with a 20 point lead. We will not discuss what happened in the second half of that game. It’s hard to lead a game by more than 20 when your offense averages less than 20 points per game.

The second attempt was another 4th and 1 situation, this time in the 3rd quarter against the Dolphins leading 13-10 with 9:30 left in the quarter in 2020. This would be another situation where the Broncos had the ball deep in the opponent’s territory (MIA 14) and chose to go for it instead of taking the almost automatic field goal (McManus is 50/53 from 30-39 during his career). This time the Broncos would run Melvin Gordon up the middle and he would be stopped for no gain. Hindsight says that this was a bad choice, but the Broncos running game was working really well for most of the game so Fangio made the right call here - expecting his offense to be able to gain one yard on 4th and 1. The Broncos would finish this game with 189 yards rushing.

More coaches are going for it on 4th and 1 since the analytics tell you that’s the “right” choice at almost any point on the field. In 2020 teams converted on 66 percent of their regular season tries on 4th and 1. Unfortunately, the Broncos were the only team in 2020 to NOT convert a 4th and 1 situation. We had seven 4th and 1’s in 2020 and went for it on four of them (punting on three). Those four plays (three passes and one run) resulted in no conversions and one interception. Two teams, Atlanta and Tennessee did not punt on 4th and 1 at all in 2020. The Falcons and Dolphins were the most successful team on 4th and 1 in 2020 converting on all of their attempts while the Raiders went for it the most on 4th and 1 - 16 times - converting on 13 of those.

The third attempt was in the final game of the 2020 season against the Raiders. It was another 4th and 1. This time in the second quarter tied at 10 with 6:23 left to play and from the Raider 38 yard line. This would have been a 53-yard FG attempt, but rather than attempts a long-ish FG, Fangio chose to let the offense try and gain one yard. This would fail as Drew Lock would throw incomplete to Tyrie Cleveland.

If you look at all of our 4th down attempts that were not in the fourth quarter, you find that all but one were on 4th and 1. That lone attempt with more yards needed was against the Chiefs last season down 27-9 on 4th and 5 from the KC 45. This was too long for a FG attempt, but a FG attempt doesn’t help much when you are down by 18 in the 3rd quarter against the best offense in the league. This play would also fail after Lock would complete a pass to KJ Hamler that would gain only three yards before two KC defenders would strip the ball which would be fumbled out of bounds.

The Broncos have also chosen to punt twelve times on 4th and 1 over the past two seasons with three of those punts coming from midfield and one coming in plus territory (punting on 4th and 1 from the Jacksonville 39 with 11 minutes left in the first quarter of a scoreless game).

There have been 459 punts on 4th and 1 over the past two seasons and the Broncos have the second most in the league with twelve. Only the Steelers have more with sixteen. For comparison, the Titans have only punted twice on 4th and 1 and the Chiefs, Panthers, Packers and Eagles have only punted three times on 4th and 1. Of those punts only 43 happened at midfield (team 47 or to opponent 47 is what I call “midfield”) or in plus territory. The Broncos have the most of any team with 4 and only three other teams have more than one - the Seahawks (3), the Steelers and Saints (2).

There have only been nineteen total punts on 4th and 1 in plus territory over the past two seasons and the Broncos are the only team with two. Those two punts were the one from the JAX 39 that I mentioned earlier and a punt from the CHI 49 with a 3-0 lead and 6:10 left to play in the first quarter. Many NFL coaches are now going for it on 4th and 1 in plus territory in some cases even when they are in field goal range. More on this later.

The rest of the times that the Broncos have gone for it on 4th down over the past two seasons were “no-brainer” choices with the team down either by large sums in the 4th or by one score with very little time left in the game. In either case almost all coaches go for it in those situations.

My summation is that Vic Fangio has been very risk averse when choosing to go for it on fourth down. However, he has had good reason to be risk averse given how poorly our offense has fared during his tenure.

For comparison let’s look at the Chiefs, Ravens, Eagles and Browns offenses over the same time frame. The Chiefs and Ravens have been really good on fourth down, but the Ravens have gone for it almost twice as much as the Chiefs. The Eagles and Browns have both not been very good and both have gone for it much more often than the Broncos or Chiefs.

The Chiefs have gone for it fifteen times in the first, second and third quarters over the past two seasons (remember Denver had eight) but the Chiefs have only gone for it 24 times in total, so the majority of their their fourth down attempts have been not in the fourth quarter. Interestingly, all but one of those 4th down attempts that occurred not in the fourth quarter were on fourth and one. The other was on fourth and two. This tells me that Andy Reid has the utmost confidence in his offense’ ability to gain one yard on fourth down, but not two yards. Of those fifteen attempts all but three occurred in plus territory with the those three happening at the KC 34, the KC 47 and the KC 49. Only the attempt from the 34 would be considered “risky”. So Andy Reid has been fairly risk averse like Vic Fangio.

The Ravens have gone for it a staggering 20 times in the first, second, and third quarter, but unlike the Chiefs some of these attempts were on longer situations and/or deeper in their own territory. Of those twenty attempts that didn’t happen in the fourth quarter, only seven were on fourth and one. The other thirteen occurred on two, three, four and six needed to gain. But all of the attempts where two or more yards were needed occurred in plus territory or at midfield. The most interesting of these thirteen is the decision to go for it on fourth and six from the CIN 46 leading 17-0 with 7:56 to play in the second quarter last season. Most head coaches in that situation are going to punt. Your team is up by three scores and you need to gain six yards for the first down.

The Eagles have gone for it the most over the past two years, but the have not been very successful when they have don so. Similar to the Chiefs and the Ravens, they do have a good number of attempts that happened in the first, second, and third quarters of the their games (25 of 58). Thirteen of those 25 happened when they needed more than one yard. So the Eagles were similar to Ravens in that they seemed to be less risk averse. Six of those thirteen happened when they needed four or more yards for a first down. All six of those happened in plus territory with two of them coming on 4th and goal from the four. Doug Pederson appears to have taken some risks which may be one reason he is no longer the head coach of the Eagles despite leading them to a Super Bowl victory in 2017.

The Browns had twenty-one of their forty fourth down attempts happen in the first, second or third quarter with nine of those happening on fourth and one. The majority of their second quarter fourth down attempts were near the end of the half with three coming on passing attempts from their own territory with five seconds or fewer left on the clock.

Almost all of the Browns attempts came in plus territory or at midfield (other than the near half-time plays). The one exception was a run on 4th and one from their own 29 against the Steelers in 2020 with 5:59 left to play in the third and a 24-7 lead. It tends to be easier to take risks when you have a three score lead.

Looking at the whole league in terms of fourth down attempts in the first three quarters of the game, Denver’s eight are the second fewest in the league over the last two seasons. Compare that to the Cardinals who have had twenty-seven attempts in the first three quarters of the came.

From my analysis, Vic Fangio has been the least aggressive had coach in the NFL in terms of going for it on fourth down. What do you think?