Defense blowing 4th quarter leads

I posted this quote somewhere on this forum after the Bengals game:

The Truth Monday: this Seahawks defense has never excelled at holding fourth quarter leads. There have been seventeen games since 2012, including the playoffs, where the Seahawks have surrendered a fourth quarter lead.

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source

Add one more to that list after the Panthers game this past week and it's now 18 games where they blew a 4th quarter lead since 2012.

(includes postseason)
2012 = 18 total games
2013 = 19 total games
2014 = 19 total games
2015 = 6 games so far
TOTAL = 62 Games

So that's 18 times in 62 games that the D blew the lead in the 4th, which translates to once in every 3.44 games. This isn't a new problem.

I think the problem this year compared to the other 3 is, the offense never comes back to reclaim the lead.

This has some validity, especially since Wilson is near the top of the league in 4th quarter come backs in the NFL.

If the defense never surrendered the lead, Wilson wouldn't be getting any credit for come back victories.

Well to be fair:

13 blown leads in 56 games = 23.2% of the time (2012-2014)
04 blown leads in 06 games = 66.7% of the time (2015)

It's a bigger problem this year. Three times bigger.

But as the OP says, offense and special teams factor into these meltdowns as well. Football is a momentum game and the offense did nothing to recapture momentum. And Wilson has yet to lead a come from behind 4th quarter or OT drive this season.

Basically, the 4th quarter of games have been a nightmare scenario so far in 2015.

I think there is something to be said that we were the ones making the other team blow their fourth quarter leads the past 3 years. Stopping good NFL offenses with nothing to lose and 4 downs is pretty tough.

It would be interesting to see what the league average has been over the same period of time.

The more valuable statistic is the effectiveness per drive in the 4th.

I get ultimately giving up a score is what matters but it does impact things if you tend to give up a score every other drive, or every 5th drive.

The other key is the average starting position of the opposing offense. Clearly getting the ball at the 20 and allowing 80-90 yard drives (as they have done) matters more than giving up a score when the opponent gets the ball at the 50 and drives 15-20 yds for a FG.

It would be nice if there was an API with stats for each drive available so we could see the effectiveness in the 4th quarter. Does such a thing exist?