Rushing Leads to Winning?

[Reignman]

Context? I got your stinking context right here. Clueless flat-rushers.

I looked at the top 20 single RB rushing performances this year. The teams went a combined 20-0 in these games. ZOMG!!! Muh evidence! Well hold onto your panties.

On average, none of these teams trailed past the 20 second mark of the 1st quarter. Meaning with 20 seconds to go in the 1st quarter, these teams on average had the lead for good. To put it another way, they led the final 45:40 of the game. They had no reason to be pass happy.

Only 1 of these teams ever trailed at any point in the 2nd half and they trailed for a grand total of 2:17 and it was by 1 point, and it was Dallas. The teams led for a combined 588:09 out of a possible 600 2nd half minutes. Trailed for 2:17, and were tied the other 9:44.

The average closest margin at any point in the 2nd half was 7.35, so they always led by more than a TD. And they had average lead of 13.65 entering the 4th quarter. The average final margin of victory was 13.25. Because all they cared about was running out the clock. I actually expected the final margin to be a bit lower than the score entering the 4th. It makes sense.

How many freaking teams are going to still be passing when they lead by 2 freaking TD's in the 4th quarter? Not to mention how you can also afford to run more when you lead in the 2nd half period. There's no need to become 1 dimensional. Which means you're going to continue racking up more rushing yards than the team that trails. Because the other team is busy throwing the ball to catch up. Why is this so difficult to understand?

I mean holy eff, why on earth would teams throw the ball to catch up? Didn't they get the memo that these geniuses have sent out? It's like there are certain advantages when it comes to throwing the ball. Like the clock stopping when it's incomplete, and the fact that you can pick up more yards per play. Could that have anything to do with any of this? Nah, all these coaches are just stupid. Everyone of them.

And all I can do is SMFH at Dungy. Wow, never knew he was such a moron. Flat-rushers, not the sharpest bunch in the pundit world. Don't be a flat-rusher.

[Oracle Bone Diviner]

But what if a team gets ahead by 2 TDs, the defense figures their passing game out and they have a poor rushing attack from the get-go? Then they are going to be turning the ball over on downs fairly quickly giving the other team's offense plenty of time to come back. So while the rushing may not be why they are winning by a margin, without it they may be at higher risk for losing.

[diehardtwinsfan]

Jan 8, 2019 9:17:28 GMT -6 Oracle Bone Diviner said:

But what if a team gets ahead by 2 TDs, the defense figures their passing game out and they have a poor rushing attack from the get-go? Then they are going to be turning the ball over on downs fairly quickly giving the other team's offense plenty of time to come back. So while the rushing may not be why they are winning by a margin, without it they may be at higher risk for losing.

You mean like the Vikings?

[diehardtwinsfan]

Jan 7, 2019 23:43:03 GMT -6 Reignman said:

Jan 4, 2019 8:14:28 GMT -6 Funkytown said:

Do you think there might be some context you're missing there Rick, or not giving us? Here's a hint: Do teams continue to throw the ball all over the field when they're leading in the 2nd half, or are they more inclined to run? I mean it's not like the score and time of game dictate to a team if they should be passing or running more often. If you're the coach Rick and your team is down by 2 TD's in the 4th quarter, are you going to run more or pass? According to your own research here Rick, it sounds like you should run when you trail. I'm guessing not even you're that stupid Rick, and yet here you are, essentially saying that's what teams should do. Or are you just not aware that the league actually counts rushing/passing yards in garbage time?

Jan 4, 2019 8:14:28 GMT -6 Funkytown said:

Teams run more when they're leading and pass more when they're trailing. Do you think the networks who are looking for new analysts know that? I doubt it.

Jan 4, 2019 8:14:28 GMT -6 Funkytown said:

Weird, we led from start to finish vs ARZ and MIA and both had bad run defenses. Now I wonder what was different about LAR, PHI, NOS, and GRBx2? Could it be we trailed for large parts of most of those games? Except for maybe PHI where we led from start to finish. I mean it's not like they had one of the leagues best run defenses and were a little more suspect in the secondary or anything. Context? Who has time for context when your football IQ is potato?

It's almost like football pundits don't understand the difference between a leading and lagging indicator. 

[Purple Pain]

Best all-around RB & QB performances of the last 20 years

[Purple Pain]

Just for Reignman:

[OC] Somebody Please Stop Me: I Compiled and Ranked Every Professional Football Rushing Offense over 125 Yards Per Game by gyman122233

There is truly no justification for doing what I’ve done over the last year or so.

It has always been a little absurd to me that we have all this data for team and individual statistics throughout time, and yet there is no comprehensive databases where all of this information exists together.

So, since I’m a moron, a grade-A waste of time, I decided to try and correct that. Starting with compiling every rushing offense in the history of the National Football League (and it’s pre-merger competitors in the American Football League and All-American Football Conference) that has averaged over 125 yards per game (2000 yards over the course of 16 games, my threshold for what would be a reasonably formidable rushing offense). All 825 seasons.

WAY more at the link:

https://www.reddit.com/r/nfl/comments/ap3m24/oc_somebody_please_stop_me_i_compiled_and_ranked/

[Reignman]

While many will argue the typical "Well duh, teams that rush more often are leading more often", I can assure you that this surely isn't a typical clip.

Ahhh ok, well he passes the sanity test at least. That was the first thing I was looking for and he didn't mention it until the very end xD.

Here's the problem with his little project. Impressive as it is, like with passing stats, you just can't compare rushing stats from era to era. He sorta alludes to that throughout too. Football started off as a running game. Rushing was still pretty important well into the 90's, but as passing got better, higher TD/INT ratios, rushing became less important. Throw in all the recent rule changes that have made passing even easier, well you're just a fool if you want to have a run first offense. Back in the day you could dominate a game by rushing, and that can still happen today like in the Rams/Cowboys playoff game, but 90% of the time if a team has 125 YPG it's because they had the lead and were trying to run out the clock. Back then it was probably the opposite, 90% of 125 yard games were because the other team couldn't stop you.

But yeah I think the biggest thing overlooked, is rule changes. Like the play clock. The NFL had a 30 second play clock up until 1988 when it changed to a 45 second play clock. Could help explain why the 90's had fewer 125 YPG's. There was also a period of time when you could only throw 1 forward pass per series of downs. Illegal contact came into play in 1978, before that you could chuck receivers all over the field. I imagine that encouraged teams to throw more often.

[Funkytown]

Another piece for my dude, Reignman:

Why Do Teams Run The Ball, Part III by Chase Stuart

So here is the league-wide average efficiency rates for both rushing and passing since 1950. For most of the ’50s, rushing was the better way to move the ball, and while passing was more effective than rushing in the ’60s, the trend reversed in the ’70s. In 1977, teams averaged 6.01 adjusted yards per carry and 5.74 adjusted yards per pass play. Of course now things are much different: over the last 5 years, teams are averaging about 6.5 adjusted yards per rush and 8.7 yards per pass play.



I love that graph because it shows exactly how things have changed over 7 decades of NFL history. But in some ways, the next graph – which shows the same data — is even more useful. This next graph shows the pass efficiency each year divided by the sum of both rush efficiency and pass efficiency. So, for example, if the passing average was 4.0 and the rushing average was 5.0, then you would get 4/9 or 44.4%. If we keep the rushing average at 5.0, but raise the passing average to 5.0, you would get 50%; raise the passing average to 7.5, and you get 60%. If you are wondering why we are plotting it this way, you’ll see why in a moment, but here’s the graph:



So in 2018, the average passing efficiency was 8.90 per play and the rushing efficiency was 6.95 yards per play; that means the passing efficiency divided by the sum of the rushing and passing efficiency was 56%. In 1994, when rushing efficiency was really poor, the ratio was actually 57%: teams averaged 7.83 adjusted passing yards per play and 5.97 adjusted rushing yards per play.

So now we have our hands around the quality of rushing and passing, what about the quantity?

More at the link: www.footballperspective.com/why-do-teams-run-the-ball-part-iii/

[Funkytown]

[Purple Pain]

[Purple Pain]

Bigger:

[Funkytown]

Zimmer and his defense, though!

[Funkytown]

How Often Does A Passing Game Flip The Outcome? by Chase Stuart

Passing is king in football, and you won’t be surprised to learn that in lots of games, the passing game is the reason a team wins. Even in games where a player throws a pick six — say, this Chargers/49ers game from September — strong passing the rest of the way can make up the difference. In this game, Los Angeles won by 1 point and finished with +2.2 points of passing EPA, as Philip Rivers still finished with 6.43 ANY/A.

In total, there were 113 games last year where a team won and their passing EPA was larger than the margin of victory. This is in stark contrast to yesterday, where there 23 games where the team that won had a rushing EPA larger than the margin of victory. This means that in 44% of games, the team that won would “have lost” if they had an average passing attack.

That’s pretty significant, coming in nearly 5 times as large as the rushing data. That’s obviously an important finding, but it’s also probably not too surprising to most people.

More at link:

www.footballperspective.com/how-often-does-a-passing-game-flip-the-outcome/

Just for you, Reign!

[Reignman]

May 19, 2019 19:51:00 GMT -6 Funkytown said:

Just for you, Reign!

Yeah I don't understand a lot of these numbers, like EPA and what goes into calculating it, so I tend not to trust such numbers, but I do understand the correlation between rushing and score, or passing and score. It should be pretty easy to understand for anyone who watches football every Sunday, or for anyone who has watched the game evolve the past 20 years. Some people still seem to be stuck in the old mindset that rushing is still as important as passing when it's clearly not. I'm not saying teams should completely abandon the run, John DeFlipper, but you're putting your team behind the 8-ball if you have a run first mentality on offense in the current era.

You're a freaking dinosaur! Unless you have a RB like Peterson and a QB like Ponder obviously. But we all saw how effective that was. The best running attack imaginable, almost record setting, which is beyond fantastic in the current era, and it was only good enough for a 10-6 record because we were lacking in the pass department. Meanwhile teams can go 15-1 on an awesome passing game alone.

[Funkytown]