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# The NFL Called Pass on Just 33.5% of Third-and-Shorts in 2025
- URL: https://www.statsdigest.com/nfl-3rd-and-short-pass-rate-2025-low/
- Published: 2026-09-06T17:20:54.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-06T17:20:54.000Z
- Description: Offenses passed on only 33.5% of 3rd-and-short plays in 2025, the lowest rate in 16 years of data.
- Author: Bill Seifert
- Tags: NFL analytics, EPA, third down, play calling, 2025 NFL, passing offense

The 2020s are supposed to be the decade the passing game finally ate the sport. Offenses spread the field, defenses answered with light boxes, coordinators leaned on shotgun on early downs, and by 2021 the league's pass-rate-over-expected charts were saturated with red. That story is real most places. It is not real on 3rd-and-1 or 3rd-and-2.

In that specific pocket of the game — one of the highest-leverage down-and-distance buckets there is — offenses have quietly done the opposite. They are running more, passing less, and, when they do pass, converting at the lowest rate in at least 16 years.

## Pass rate on 3rd-and-short is at a 16-year low

Every regular-season 3rd-and-1 or 3rd-and-2 since 2010, filtered to designed pass or run:

| Season   | Plays     | Pass rate | Pass conv. | Run conv. |
| -------- | --------- | --------- | ---------- | --------- |
| 2010     | 1,297     | 43.6%     | 54.8%      | 66.1%     |
| 2013     | 1,286     | 46.7%     | 49.8%      | 68.5%     |
| 2016     | 1,285     | 46.6%     | 57.3%      | 66.9%     |
| 2019     | 1,232     | 44.7%     | 57.7%      | 69.2%     |
| 2020     | 1,368     | 39.9%     | 58.1%      | 70.8%     |
| 2021     | 1,459     | 40.4%     | 59.8%      | 70.3%     |
| 2022     | 1,490     | 37.0%     | 53.9%      | 71.1%     |
| 2023     | 1,421     | 39.1%     | 55.1%      | 68.8%     |
| 2024     | 1,401     | 38.4%     | 53.4%      | 70.5%     |
| **2025** | **1,430** | **33.5%** | **49.7%**  | **69.8%** |

Two things are happening at once, and both point the same way.

First, play-callers have pulled back from the throw. Pass rate on 3rd-and-short peaked at 46.7% in 2013 and sat in the mid-40s through 2019\. From 2020 on it drops every couple of seasons, and 2025's 33.5% is the lowest figure in the sample — a 13-point swing off the 2013 high and a 7-point drop just from 2021.

Second, the pass hasn't been carrying its weight when it's been called. The 49.7% conversion rate on 3rd-and-short passes in 2025 is the worst in the 16-season window. Runs converted at 69.8%, right in their normal band (66-71% every year). That is a **20-point** gap between the two play calls in the same situation — and it is exactly the kind of gap that pushes coordinators toward more handoffs the following Sunday.

## 3rd-and-1, specifically, has collapsed as a passing down

Zoom in one click further, to just 3rd-and-1:

| Season | Pass rate | Pass conv. | Run conv. |
| ------ | --------- | ---------- | --------- |
| 2016   | 28.9%     | 58.2%      | 71.8%     |
| 2021   | 24.5%     | 65.9%      | 73.4%     |
| 2024   | 23.3%     | 56.6%      | 73.6%     |
| 2025   | 21.7%     | **47.6%**  | 72.8%     |

On 3rd-and-1 in 2021, the pass actually converted at 65.9% — below the 73.4% run number, but not by an embarrassing amount. Four years later the pass converts on 47.6% of attempts. The run rate is unchanged. A 3rd-and-1 pass call in 2025 was, in outcome terms, a coin flip against a defense that had every incentive to sit on the sticks.

## EPA followed the conversion rate down

Expected points added on 3rd-and-short tells the same story with a different unit:

| Season | Pass EPA/play | Run EPA/play |
| ------ | ------------- | ------------ |
| 2020   | +0.06         | +0.10        |
| 2021   | +0.08         | +0.09        |
| 2022   | −0.05         | +0.08        |
| 2023   | −0.03         | +0.02        |
| 2024   | −0.14         | +0.07        |
| 2025   | **−0.18**     | +0.06        |

Run EPA has bounced around a normal band. Pass EPA on 3rd-and-short has gotten monotonically worse for four straight years and finished 2025 at −0.18 per play — the equivalent of throwing away roughly a fifth of a point every time you drop back in that spot.

## Every throw depth got worse at once

The cleanest way to see *why* the pass has cratered is to bucket 3rd-and-short attempts by air yards and compare the 2020–21 window (when the pass was still working) to 2024–25.

| Depth          | 2020-21 comp% | 2024-25 comp% | 2020-21 EPA | 2024-25 EPA |
| -------------- | ------------- | ------------- | ----------- | ----------- |
| Behind LOS     | 80.4%         | 76.0%         | −0.23       | −0.37       |
| Short (0-5 AY) | 68.7%         | 66.9%         | +0.14       | +0.11       |
| Mid (6-15 AY)  | 64.6%         | 53.7%         | +0.39       | +0.08       |
| Deep (16+ AY)  | 46.7%         | 37.1%         | +0.42       | −0.10       |

Note what this is *not*: a single-bucket collapse. Deep balls in this spot went from a genuine weapon (46.7% completion, +0.42 EPA) to a losing proposition (37.1%, −0.10). The mid-range throw — the classic dig or corner-in past the sticks — fell from 64.6% completion to 53.7% and gave back most of its EPA. Even the behind-the-line screen and swing, once a reliable way to pop a chunk against soft coverage, now converts on 49.0% of attempts (down from 59.8%), because defenses have stopped honoring the vertical stretch on 3rd-and-2.

Defenses appear to have simply learned the down. They are staying on top of the intermediate zones, taking away the layup screens, and daring the pass game to beat them underneath — which, mechanically, cannot convert a 3rd-and-2 unless the receiver breaks a tackle.

## The pressure story is real too

Sack numbers back the coverage read. On 3rd-and-short pass attempts:

- **2020:** 24 sacks on 546 dropbacks (4.4%)
- **2024:** 44 sacks on 538 dropbacks (8.2%)
- **2025:** 30 sacks on 479 dropbacks (6.3%)

The 2024 sack rate on this specific split was nearly double 2020's. If receivers can't get open quickly against coverage that's protecting the sticks, the quarterback holds it, and the rush gets home. That is a self-reinforcing loop that pushes call sheets away from the pass.

## What to make of it

A few things I'd take from this, cautiously:

- **The 20-point conversion gap between run (69.8%) and pass (49.7%) in 2025 is enormous** for a bucket this big — 1,430 plays. If it holds, expected-value math alone should keep 3rd-and-short pass rate falling in 2026.
- **The problem isn't a shot-play problem or a screen problem — it's both, plus the middle.** That points at defensive scheme (matching coverage to down, sitting on route depths at the sticks) more than at any one offensive quirk.
- **The pass-happy 2020s framing hides this segment.** Overall league pass rates and passing yardage stay high because early downs and 2nd-and-long still tilt heavily toward the throw. But on 3rd-and-1 and 3rd-and-2 specifically, the sport has quietly rediscovered the fullback dive — and the numbers say that is the correct call.

The football-aesthetic complaint about "everybody just runs it up the middle on 3rd-and-1" gets a lot of eye-rolls. In 2025 it was, by conversion rate and by EPA, unambiguously the right answer.