The area of the field just prior to the red zone presents many opportunities for an offense. For many teams this is four down territory, which opens up the playbook a bit because it’s too close to punt, but also not quite field goal range.

The potential of using all four downs allows a conservative approach to be very effective at moving into scoring position. This is because only 2.5 yards per down are needed to keep the chains moving.

One way to use a conservative approach is to call a first down play that you believe will pick up half the needed yardage for a new set of downs. On second down, take a shot at the end zone.

On third down, try to pick up the remaining yardage needed, or at least half of it. Then utilize fourth down to get the remaining distance, which should be very short if your accomplished your goals on earlier downs.  

Andrew Coverdale taught me this method. For example, he runs a normal first down play, takes a shot on second down, then treats third down as his second down, and fourth down as his third down when choosing plays.

Essentially, you can take a shot on any one of the first three downs. The fourth down play should be selected from the third down section of your playbook to ensure you pick up the needed yardage.

In the offseason, from a quality control perspective, it is always valuable to examine the approach you used when faced with these situations during the season. Certainly, your decisions were dependent on various factors, like the score as well as the time remaining in the game.

However, while trying to identify best practices, it is important to determine your play-calling tendencies. Which plays worked best on which down? What down did you more often take a shot? Which down was most successful at taking a shot? Did your play-calling tendencies follow a pattern?

While examining your play calling tendencies, make sure to note the formation and personnel groups that you used. This information is helpful to understanding what the defense did in response. More specifically, you want to identify where and why a defense deviated from its base philosophy. Was it the area of the field, the personnel group, the formation, etc.?

While on offense, you want to know what triggers a defense to change from its preferred methods. For example, it may change its normal defensive strategy and increase the up-field pressure after an offense crosses the +30 and is within field goal territory.

 The opposing coach may have a philosophy of ratcheting up pressure to try to push teams out of field goal range. Maybe an opposing coach adopts that mentality sooner because they want to prevent you from even reaching four-down territory. 

If you can identify patterns, then you can exploit them.

Examining your play-calling is a critical aspect of any effective head coach, because it will help you to recognize and break your play-calling tendencies and identify any tendencies that opposing coaches may display.