Looking into QB Sneaks

This past season, the Buffalo Bills punted a total of 80 times. Thirteen of those punts came from 50 or fewer yards from the end zone. The average distance from the goal line was 64.8 yards. Eighteen punts (22.5%) occurred when the Bills needed three or fewer yards for the first down. Of those eighteen punting plays, two were inside the opponents’ 45 yard line. Below is a distribution of the Bills’ punts and their distances from the goal line.

In the 500 punts that occurred in the 2012 season, the average distance from the goal line was 66.3 yards. 88 of those punts (17.6%) came from fifty or fewer yards from the goal line. A total of 127 punts (25.4%) occurred when the offense needed three or fewer yards to earn a first down. Twenty-three punts occurred when the offense needed three or fewer yards AND were fifty or fewer yards away from the goal line!

The Bills had a total of 76 plays where they faced third or fourth down with three or fewer yards to go. In these instances, they faced an average of 1.97 yards to go (meaning they had more situations when they needed one yard to go than they needed three), and were 49 yards away from the goal line on average. A breakdown of the play selection compared to the league average is below.

Team	Plays	Avg To Go	Avg Yds from EZ	FG	Punt	Pass	Rush	Avg Yds Gained	1st Down %
BUF	76	1.97	49	10.5%	23.7%	40.8%	25.0%	2.51	35.5%
NFL	2908	1.86	44.6	8.8%	19.7%	39.4%	32.2%	3.01	40.4%

On fourth down alone, NFL teams punted 53.8% of the time when needing three or fewer yards. The average yardage needed in those situations was 1.88 yards.  The average distance from the goal line was just 41.234 yards in those cases. There were 95 punts this past season less than 50 yards from the end zone with fewer than three yards needed for a first down!

Clearly, NFL teams and their coaches are afraid to go for it. That fear is completely unfounded and unnecessary.

Enter the quarterback sneak. The Bills most memorably used the play on the Jacksonville goal line for the first score of the game. It looked too easy. It seems fail proof. The defense doesn’t have any time to react before the short yardage is gained. Why don’t teams run the QB sneak more often?

From 2002 to 2011, there were 2,569 quarterback sneaks. (Plus or minus a few, box scores don’t always say “QB sneak,” so I had to comb through all of the rushing plays over this period of time that were “up the middle,” run by a quarterback, and three or fewer yards to go. I omitted all plays that started in a shotgun formation because that is not a true quarterback sneak, and I also removed any scrambles, if noted. This data set may include some quarterback draws, undocumented scrambles, and broken plays. If I added the 2012 season, the butt-fumble would be included.)

The average gain per sneak (based on my definition, which I believe to be mostly accurate) over that ten season span was 1.93, while the median (middle of the distribution in numerical order) and the mode (value with the greatest frequency) were both 2. The three values indicate that a team could realistically expect to gain roughly two yards most of the time. In fact, the sneak gained between one and three yards 75.9% of the time. The next likely outcome is no gain, which occurred 14.5% of the time. What’s the risk of “going for it” and trying a QB sneak?

Below is a table of the success rates based on yards to go and the data I compiled. Because the success rate is so high when just one yard is needed, the total success rate is skewed a bit to 80.7%. The success rates up to three yards to go are still all above 60%. Go for it!

To Go Success %
Yards	Total	Successes	Success %
1	1147	953	83.1%
2	112	77	68.8%
3	69	42	60.9%

Teams should attempt a quarterback sneak every time their probability of success outweighs their opponent’s probability of scoring if the attempt fails. Based on this table found at nflstatsblog a team should attempt a sneak as far back as their own fifteen yard line when needing only one yard. The limit for two yards to go is their own 30 yard line, and the limit for three yards to go is their own 38 yard line.

Imagine a world with so much less punting! Go for it!!

Because I find it interesting, below is a table of the top QB sneakers from 2002 to 2011. Are the results surprising?

Rank	Player	Count
1	T. Brady	98
2	D. Garrard	52
3	R. Johnson	51
4	D. Brees	42
5	D. McNabb	42
6	D. Culpepper	40
7	B. Roethlisberger	36
8	P. Rivers	32
9	M. Vick	31
10	J. Flacco	28
11	C. Palmer	27
12	C. Pennington	27
13	S. McNair	26
14	A. Brooks	25
15	R. Fitzpatrick	23
16	J. Garcia	23
17	M. Schaub	23
18	K. Boller	21
19	M. Ryan	21
20	J. Freeman	21

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