The Packers are insanely bad on 4th down

The Green Bay Packers’ offense is insanely bad on 4^th down.

They are, in fact, much worse than you probably think. They are so bad at fourth downs, that they’ve actually broken DVOA, at least a bit. They’ve really broken “numbers” as we know them. They’re weird and bizarre, and almost unfathomable, and so let’s get into it.

1. They SUCK

Let’s get the obvious out of the way first. No team is worse at converting on 4^th down in 2022 than the Packers. It’s not really even close. Green Bay has converted just 2 of 11 opportunities (18.2%). The 2nd-worst team is the Bengals, which is not surprising given their offensive line. They’ve converted 22.2%, but from there it jumps up to San Francisco and Indy at 28.6%. That’s atrocious. And by the way, the Packers’ success number here is OVERSTATED, which we will get to in a minute.

Compounding this issue, the Packers are VERY smart about going for it when they should so for it, which happens a lot.

And indeed, I think every single attempt on 4^th down this year was correct. They were either desperate for a TD, just out of field goal range, or trying to punch it in from the 1. Those are ideal situations to go for it, and that speaks well of their coaching staff. But, as we can see from the chart, those other teams down at the bottom of success rate with Green Bay barely ever go on 4^th down. The 49ers never do. The Colts barely ever do. The Bengals go a bit more, but no one goes for it as much as Green Bay while failing as often. Overall, the Packers are tied for the 10th-most 4th down attempts. It’s a terrible combination of intelligence and ineptitude that has cost them several games this year.

2. Before they fail, they move the ball.

It’s important to remember that there is some selection bias built into what I am about to share. Most teams go for it more frequently between the 50 yard line and the edge of field goal range (call it the 35) on the opposing side of the field. Generally speaking, most teams will have to move the ball at least 25 yards to get into “go for it” range. You will obviously get some 4^th-and-1 calls outside of this range, but you will also get quite a few down by the opposing goal line, and so those drives will be even longer.

Still, upon crunching the numbers, I was shocked to find that the average Packer drive that fails on 4^th down travels 44.7 yards. That’s a lot of yards! They actually have four drives of at least 49 or more yards that died on a 4^th down!

The average Packer drive is 31.3 yards, by the way.

The Packers have gained, as an offense, 2,719 yards so far this year in total. 403 of those yards came on drives which ended in a failed 4^th down. That’s 15% (or 1/6) of their total yards. Yards are supposed to be the currency of points, but more often than not for Green Bay, yards are more like the cryptocurrency of points.

3. That 18.8% number is high.

I said we’d get back to this, and here we are. The Packers have officially converted 2 of 11 4^th down tries, but in reality, it’s more like 1 of 10. That’s because one of those conversions, a 3-yard run by Aaron Jones off right guard on 4^th-and-1 against the Jets in a desperate attempt at a late comeback, was part of a drive that would eventually end on a failed 4^th and 14. On that play, Rodgers threw incomplete over the middle to Robert Tonyan. Even their 4^th down conversions end in 4^th down failures. Oh, by the way…

4. Both conversions were runs by Aaron Jones.

That’s right, Aaron Jones’ 17-yard run against the Patriots on 4^th and 1 and the aforementioned 3-yard gain against the Jets are their only conversions of the season, meaning that Aaron Rodgers has yet to complete a single 4^th down pass. Not one. He’s missed Big Bob twice, Allen Lazard twice, and Romeo Doubs three times in going 0-6 (Jordan Love is 0-1 to round out the passing). AJ Dillon has also been stuffed once and even Aaron Jones was stoned for a one-yard loss last week against the Bills, but at least the run game has worked half the time.

And it’s not as if they’ve needed to pass this much! Outside of that desperation 4^th and 14 against the Jets, the next longest 4^th down attempt was a mere 4^th and 3 (also against the Jets). 10 of their 11 4^th down attempts have been for 3 yards or fewer. Maybe run more?

Fumbles

Let’s talk a bit about fumbles too. Fumbles, and especially fumble recoveries, are mostly random, and the Packers have had their fair share of them, fumbling 16 times so far this season and losing 6. Losing only 6 isn’t too bad in the grand scheme of things, but it is once again shocking how late in drives these things tend to happen. The average length of a drive that ends on a lost Green Bay fumble is 35.4 yards! There is one drive, on an aborted snap against the Jets, that was less than 25 yards, but every over drive was quite substantial before being snuffed out by a fumble.

I mentions this because between failed fourth downs and lost fumbles/lost aborted snaps. The Packers have gained 580 yards on drives resulting in no points, which is 21% of their total offensive yards.

On almost all of these, better execution or better ball security would have led directly to points. I don’t expect the Packers to be perfect, and no one should, but “average” would be a nice start. We’ve talked before about the offense’s predictability, and this is where they take the absolute biggest hit.

DVOA v. EPA

On Reporting as Eligible this week we received a question wondering about the difference between the Packers’ offensive DVOA and offensive EPA/Play, which prompted me to look into all of this. Green Bay’s offense is a terrible -.024 EPA per play, which ranks 23^rd and is quite a bit worse than the 22^nd ranked team (NE at -.011 per play). However, flipping over to Football Outsiders and DVOA, the team is a healthy 8^th overall at 10.5% better than average. They are 12^th in passing DVOA (16.1%) and 9^th in rushing (8.5%). That’s pretty good, and there’s really no good way to square the two results.

Part of the discrepancy can probably be explained by the “Defense-Adjusted” part of DVOA. While the Packers have faced some poor defenses (Chicago is 26^th, the Giants are 28^th, and the Vikings are 21^st), they’ve balanced that out with some true juggernauts (Tampa is 5^th, New England is 6^th, the Jets are 8^th, and the Bills just fell to 4^th from 1^st). But more than that, I think the discrepancy is caused by the extreme number of yards the Packers have gained without capping off the drive.

It’s not that DVOA doesn’t punish you at all for this kind of failure, and per the glossary at Football Outsiders, DVOA is quite similar to the EPA model at this point. All of that said, it looks to me like DVOA rewards yards more than EPA (which is based on points) does, on the theory that yards should turn into points at a fairly reliable rate. DVOA also punishes 4^th down decisions slightly less. It also scales the punishment for fumbles based on a few factors that may mitigate their impact, especially considering two of the Packers’ lost fumbles were aborted snaps.

In Conclusion

A lot of things have gone wrong for the Packers this year, but their 4th down failures, which are incredibly high leverage plays by their nature, are a huge part of the equation. Most importantly, those struggles aren’t just luck, likely to regress to the mean. The Packers play-calling and execution in these scenarios, their poor RPO work, and their reliance on a lackluster passing game over an efficient running game, have all been poor. It may be too late to right the ship, but in the second half, if they can take a critical look at their short-yardage repertoire and make some adjustments, they can drastically improve their fortunes going forward.

Also, hang onto the damned ball.