Six weeks into the NFL season, we’re propelling toward another record-breaking year in terms of fourth-down conversion attempts. This is nothing necessarily new, as numbers have been on the rise every year since 2014. Adding an extra week to the season will shatter many records, but this is true on a per-game basis as well.
For some added context, here are the year-by-year totals since 2010, along with attempts per team per game, which accounts for the fact that four teams had byes last week.
The reasons for this are twofold. The first is that it’s obviously good business.