The Laws › Situations and play calling
Situations and play calling
Fourth and one is a yes
Fourth and one is not a toss-up. Teams that go for it pick up the yard about two times in three, and that has been true every single season for over 25 years. The scariest-looking decision on the sheet is actually one of the safest plays in football.
What the record says
Each bar is one season. Green bars point the same way as the overall result, pink bars point against it. Recent seasons count for more in the typical size, which is measured on the scale of the check behind this rule, so compare it across the seasons here rather than across different rules.
How we know
One yard is shorter than the defense can afford to defend. The offense knows the snap count, can win with a sneak, a wedge run, or a quick throw, and needs only 36 inches; the defense must honor every gap and the play fake. That structural edge holds regardless of era or scheme.
We check this the same way every time: run the claim against every season from 1999 to 2025 in the play-by-play record, one season at a time, and grade it on how often the seasons agree. This one came back the same way in 27 of 27 seasons.
The claim, stated precisely
Fourth-and-1 go attempts (pass or run, kneels and spikes excluded) gained the line to gain 66.4 percent of the time across 1999-2025 REG play (n=5,662), clearing the 50 percent line in all 27 seasons: as a decision-table entry, fourth-and-1 is a two-in-three proposition, not a guess.
Related laws
- RefinesEvery yard costs conversion chancesHolds up
- Agrees withCoaches still kick when they should goHolds up
- Cuts against thisDesperation pays worse returnsHolds up
- Refines thisKeep it on the ground on fourth and shortHolds up
Read the essay
- Go For It: The Fourth-Down LadderFourth-and-1 converts two times in three and has beaten a coin flip in every season since 1999. The steepest price on the ladder is the second yard, the worst call on the board is a midfield punt, and one taboo still stands untouched.
FanIQ carries this rule into the app, where it lands on the actual players, teams, and games you are looking at.
Get FanIQ freeOpen in FanIQSources
- Romer, Journal of Political Economy (Do Firms Maximize? Evidence from Professional Football)
- Checked by FanIQ against 25 seasons of play-by-play, game, roster, and box-score records.