NFL's fourth-down revolution and new rules lead to record-low punts in 2025

There were three times in the first 59 years of the Super Bowl era that a team went back-to-back regular-season games without punting once.

That total has been matched during the 2025 season as part of a growing trend that has led to punts becoming more and more rare.

The new kickoff rule, the K-balls that have contributed to more long field goals and an increase in fourth-down aggressiveness by coaches have conspired to take the punt out of the game.

With one week remaining, the NFL is poised to set a record for fewest punts per game in any season in league history with the average of 3.54 punts per game for each team the lowest on record.

There are several reasons for the drop in punts, with the main causes being the rule changes on special teams and aggressiveness from coaches.

The average starting field position after kickoffs has increased more than 5 yards from two years ago before the rule changes first implemented in 2024 and tweaked this season led to more returns and moved the touchback spot.

That puts teams closer to scoring position on more possessions which, combined with more big-legged kickers and the K-ball, has flipped punts to field goals.

The fourth-down revolution that began heating up in 2017 when aggressiveness helped Philadelphia win a Super Bowl has taken off even more. The use of analytics has contributed to teams taking more chances on fourth down than in the past, when conservative coaches often opted for the safer option of a punt.

The 837 attempts on fourth down are already the most in any season in NFL history and the record 462 successful conversions are more than double the total of 223 from the 2017 season.

The 25 times when a team hasn't punted once in a game the past two seasons is one more than the total from the first 18 seasons after the 1970 AFL-NFL merger, including Indianapolis, San Francisco and Green Bay all doing it in back-to-back games.

While not needing to punt is usually a positive sign, the Packers have done it the past two weeks in losses, as well as in a Week 9 loss to Carolina. They are the first team ever to lose three games in a season without punting. Only two teams did it twice: Cincinnati last season and the Chargers in 2021.

Seventh seed

The Packers will be the seventh seed in the NFC for the third straight season after losing 41-24 to Baltimore on Saturday night, earning a spot that wasn't available until the NFL added an extra playoff team in each conference in 2020.

So instead of missing the playoffs for a fourth straight season, Green Bay will be playing in the postseason once again. The only other team that has earned the seventh seed more than once is Pittsburgh, which did it in 2021 and 2023.

The seventh seed is 1-9 in the wild-card round, with the Packers the only team to win when they beat Dallas in the 2023 playoffs.

Top seeds stay home

The two top seeds from the 2024 postseason will be sitting at home during the playoffs this season.

That hasn't been as rare in recent years, with six of the seven times occuring in the last 25 seasons after it happened only once in the first 27 years of seeding — when Chicago and Cincinnati both missed the 1989 playoffs.

The last time it happened before this season was 2022 when Tennessee and Green Bay missed out, with the other years coming in 2016 (Denver and Carolina), 2009 (New York Giants and Tennessee), 2008 (Dallas and New England) and 2001 (the Giants and Tennessee).

Turnaround teams

Three weeks into the season, Indianapolis was sitting pretty at the top of the AFC South standings with a 3-0 record, while Houston was still searching for its first win.

Now headed into the season finale with the two teams playing in Indianapolis, the Texans are preparing for the postseason and the Colts are getting ready to head home in a remarkable two-way turnaround.

The Texans are the seventh team overall to make the playoffs after starting 0-3. The only other time it has happened in the last 27 seasons came when Houston also did it in 2018.

The Colts made it to 8-2 before collapsing with six straight losses, becoming the sixth team since the merger to miss the playoffs following such a start. The last to do it was the 1995 Raiders.

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