During the 2024-25 NFL regular season, no team was more successful on fourth down than the Washington Commanders.

Head coach Dan Quinn made this abundantly clear during Sunday night’s Wild Card game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and make no mistake: it worked.

The commanders in 4th place tried it four times in the FG range

They failed twice

They succeeded twice

14 points > 12 points

— Josh Norris (@JoshNorris) January 13, 2025

Similar to another coach named Dan (who the Commanders will face next week), Quinn’s philosophy here is simple: Seven is a bigger number than three. A successful fourth-down conversion that ultimately results in a touchdown makes up for more points than a team loses on two unsuccessful conversions.

The purists may not approve of these frightening, novel analyzes that are shaping today’s game, but numbers don’t lie. Because of Quinn’s aggressive strategy, the Commanders scored 14 points from two touchdowns and two failed conversions, compared to the 12 they would have scored otherwise – and that was assuming Zane Gonzalez made all four field goals.

This discrepancy was extremely significant considering the game came down to literal inches. If the score had been 20:18 for Tampa Bay before Gonzalez’s attempt at the end of regular time and if this attempt had been only slightly off the mark, the Commanders would have lost.

Instead, it was a tie, and even if Gonzalez had missed, Washington would have been in overtime and had a chance to get revenge. Plus, it’s just more fun to watch a team try anything – what’s the fun in shooting a field goal every time you can keep the drive alive? You play to win the game.

Score another hit for the analytics nerds.