How often do NFL teams go for it on fourth down?

NFL offenses went for it on 23.3% of fourth downs in the 2025 regular season, nearly twice as often as from 1999 to 2017, when it was 11% to 14% every season. The rest were punts and field goal tries. Fake punts and fake field goals count as going for it; plays wiped out by a penalty are not counted. The chart starts in 1999, the first season in nflverse's data.

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Key facts

Measure: Fourth downs where the offense went for it (%). Written from the data below.

  • The latest figure, for 2025, is 23.3%.
  • That is up 11.4 percentage points from 11.9% in 1999.
  • It is the highest in the data, which go back to 1999.
  • The lowest was 11.1% in 2011.

Source and date

Source
nflverse, NFL play-by-play (nflverse-data)
License
CC BY 4.0 (nflverse)
Data as of
Published

Citation

Chartly. “How often do NFL teams go for it on fourth down?” Chart. Data: nflverse, NFL play-by-play (nflverse-data), https://github.com/nflverse/nflverse-data/releases/tag/pbp (data as of January 4, 2026). https://chart.ly/charts/nfl-fourth-down-decisions (accessed October 15, 2026).

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The data

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The file has the numbers in this table, with the source, license and date. Please credit the source and Chartly.

Season Fourth downs where the offense went for it (%)
1999 11.9
2000 12
2001 12.3
2002 12.9
2003 12.8
2004 12
2005 12
2006 12.1
2007 14.1
2008 13.2
2009 14.4
2010 12.5
2011 11.1
2012 11.6
2013 11.9
2014 12
2015 12.4
2016 12.8
2017 12.4
2018 14.8
2019 16.2
2020 19.1
2021 20.9
2022 18.8
2023 19.6
2024 20
2025 23.3

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