Back To The Future? How The Cowboys May Be Exploiting NFL Trends With The Running Game

[plymkr]

In the playoffs it's the defense that wins you games.

I think both. A QB to keep drives alive and not turn it over. Defense to get turnovers and stop drives. I know that's overly simplistic. A great defense can make a average QB look better and a great QB can make an average defense better. It's all about turnovers who gets them and when.

 

[DandyDon52]

It is a combination of all of them, and coaching too.
I think Denver won the SB not just with the defensive players, but better coaching.
Wade did a masterful job shutting down Carolina, something no other coach could do.
He had good tools, but it was his game plan and play calling etc that won the game.

 

[dreghorn2]

It is a combination of all of them, and coaching too.
I think Denver won the SB not just with the defensive players, but better coaching.
Wade did a masterful job shutting down Carolina, something no other coach could do.
He had good tools, but it was his game plan and play calling etc that won the game.

Don is 100% correct.

Never has coaching played a more important role in the NFL. The margins are slim, rosters are never deep.

Coaches must manipulate rosters and playtime to endure long seasons and individual game plan preparation and game day decision making is more important than ever.

 

[Everson24]

priority number one for the coaches, team, staff.......#cowboyszone

Is to Keep Romo upright. Keep him as healthy as he can be......

So when those LBs and DBs creep closer and closer.....Romo can make them pay......

Let the big boys upfront and the ultra talented RB , win the game....... only put Romo in danger when necessary......that should be a really hard criteria to meet too.....to put him in harms way.

I want to see Romo go untouched........................I know its not realistic....but that should be the goal...


that's how were going to win.

I agree, but all too often when we bring up the linebackers and safeties they just blitz the A gaps and if it is a play action pass, they kill Romo. We really need to develop some blitz beater screen passes or Tony is going to find himself flat on his back again.

The Steelers use the WR screen so effectivly that teams are scared to death to try that defensive strategy on them. We absolutely need to make teams pay for their aggressive blitz strategies that have hurt our QB in the past.

 

[visionary]

This can't be true because according to @AdamJT13 how well you run the ball has little to no effect on winning.

Every single DC and defensive player interviewed says that their first priority is to stop the run. No one stars tfsf they don't care about the run and will try to stop the pass. Wonder why that is? Are they all stupid or uninformed about their own sport or maybe billion dollar franchises that dissect every little detail just don't know the statistics? Hhmmmmmm.....

Or maybe just maybe some stats are not the whole story

 

[Craig]

I agree, but all too often when we bring up the linebackers and safeties they just blitz the A gaps and if it is a play action pass, they kill Romo. We really need to develop some blitz beater screen passes or Tony is going to find himself flat on his back again.

The Steelers use the WR screen so effectivly that teams are scared to death to try that defensive strategy on them. We absolutely need to make teams pay for their aggressive blitz strategies that have hurt our QB in the past.

The steelers are also often feeding the ball to brown who is almost undoubtedly the best wr in the game once the ball is in his hands.

 

[Hoofbite]

This can't be true because according to @AdamJT13 how well you run the ball has little to no effect on winning.

Not that I've searched his every post but his comments are usually along the lines that running correlates very little to winning.

 

[Everson24]

The steelers are also often feeding the ball to brown who is almost undoubtedly the best wr in the game once the ball is in his hands.

The fact is this: We need to be able to beat a blitz consistently or Romo will not last very long again. Jim Hazlett layed out the blueprint that others are following. When teams want to blitz the A gaps against the run or pass we need to beat them on the outside with speed not a Witten 3 yard pass.

 

[percyhoward]

As for Romo, in his 78 wins, he has averaged 18.2 pass attempts in the first half and 25.6 pass attempts through the first three quarters. In his 49 losses, he has averaged 16.6 attempts in the first half and 24.6 attempts through three quarters. Obviously, it's not limiting his passes that leads to winning. It's already being ahead that leads to not having to pass as much in the fourth quarter.

Nice one.

 

[AdamJT13]

No it isn't what you've been saying. Your statements are based solely on stats. As if there is no cause & effect between the two.

You've said countless times how well you run the ball has little to no effect on winning in the NFL.

Let me break this down for you.

I've said all along that how well you run the ball -- your per-play efficiency, such as YPC -- doesn't really affect whether you win or lose the game. It doesn't really matter if you average 2.0 yards per carry or 4.0 yards per carry or 6.0 yards per carry. It barely increases your chance of winning by having a higher YPC. It doesn't really matter if you hold the opponent to 2.0 YPC or allow 6.0 YPC. What DOES matter, and what DOES affect your chance of winning to a much greater degree, is your per-play efficiency when you pass and your pass defense. If you pass more efficiently than your opponent does, you will almost always win the game, no matter how poorly you ran the ball or how poorly you stopped the run. If you don't pass better than your opponent, you will almost always lose, no matter how well you ran or stopped the run.

I noted that we went 20-1 in our 21 games with our LOWEST YPC from 1992-95. That is an indisputable fact. Averaging less than 3.0 yards per carry did not stop us from winning. And our opponents' ability to stuff our running game did not help them win.

In other words, exactly what I have been saying is exactly what happened. That's not surprising, though, because it's almost always what happens in the NFL -- every week, every season, for every team, for the past 30-plus years.

 

[percyhoward]

But I guess the way Emmitt played had NOTHING to do with making it easier for that QB to achieve that top RATED passer status?

The effect of the running game is such that the all-time rushing leader -- and as far as I'm concerned, the best to ever play the position -- wasn't good enough in nine seasons to help his team to even one postseason victory without a top 12 passer.

These four QB played a combined 47 seasons, and their teams had 18 championship seasons and 47 postseason wins.

1950s: Otto Graham
1960s: Bart Starr
1970s: Roger Staubach
1980s: Joe Montana

Now take the same four decades and look at the best RB of each decade.
1950s: Joe Perry
1960s: Jim Brown
1970s: O.J. Simpson
1980s: Eric Dickerson

These four RB also played a combined 47 seasons. Their teams had one championship season and 4 postseason wins.

No amount of excitement over a draft pick is going to make the RB position any more important than it is. Just maybe it's possible to welcome Zeke with open arms, but without closing our eyes to what's always been true.

 

[waldoputty]

The effect of the running game is such that the all-time rushing leader -- and as far as I'm concerned, the best to ever play the position -- wasn't good enough in nine seasons to help his team to even one postseason victory without a top 12 passer.

These four QB played a combined 47 seasons, and their teams had 18 championship seasons and 47 postseason wins.

1950s: Otto Graham
1960s: Bart Starr
1970s: Roger Staubach
1980s: Joe Montana

Now take the same four decades and look at the best RB of each decade.
1950s: Joe Perry
1960s: Jim Brown
1970s: O.J. Simpson
1980s: Eric Dickerson

These four RB also played a combined 47 seasons. Their teams had one championship season and 4 postseason wins.

No amount of excitement over a draft pick is going to make the RB position any more important than it is. Just maybe it's possible to welcome Zeke with open arms, but without closing our eyes to what's always been true.

I think our model could be like terrell davis denver superbowl mvp as well as john riggins/hogs also superbowl mvp

 

[bsheeern]

Not that I've searched his every post but his comments are usually along the lines that running correlates very little to winning.

What I posted are his exact words

 

[percyhoward]

I think our model could be like terrell davis denver superbowl mvp as well as john riggins/hogs also superbowl mvp

Sure, as long as Romo is healthy and the defense plays over its head.

When Davis helped the Broncos win their two Super Bowls, those defenses ranked 6th and 8th, and Elway ranked 7th and 5th in passer rating.

When Riggins was SBMVP, the Skins had the league's #1 defense and Theisman was the #3-rated passer.

 

[AdamJT13]

Lol, well if don't have a GOOD & EFRECTIVE running game you won't be able to Close those games out now will you? Which CAUSES you to lose or give up the lead.

No, what would cause you to give up the lead is almost always the inability to stop the opponent from passing well. If you stop the opponent from passing well, you're unlikely to give up the lead.

And the idea that a great running game is just going to be able to "run out the clock" every time is a pipe dream. It almost never happens in the NFL. At some point, you're going to have to pass successfully if you want to pick up a first down and keep the clock running. In all of 2014, with that vaunted running game, we had only one possession that lasted more than four plays without having to pass when we led in the fourth quarter -- and on that possession, we STILL had to punt because we ran on third-and-5 (we had a 16-point lead against one of the worst teams in the league, so it didn't hurt us). We never had another possession without passing that lasted more than four plays or took more than 2:28 off the clock.

 

[Verdict]

And The way Defenses GAMEPLANNED to stop Emmitt have a direct EFFECT on our passing game. No matter how many yards you gain.

You think every team GAMEPLANNED the same?

You are wasting your breath having this discussion with him. He can't see the forest for all of the trees.

 

[Verdict]

No, what would cause you to give up the lead is almost always the inability to stop the opponent from passing well. If you stop the opponent from passing well, you're unlikely to give up the lead.

And the idea that a great running game is just going to be able to "run out the clock" every time is a pipe dream. It almost never happens in the NFL. At some point, you're going to have to pass successfully if you want to pick up a first down and keep the clock running. In all of 2014, with that vaunted running game, we had only one possession that lasted more than four plays without having to pass when we led in the fourth quarter -- and on that possession, we STILL had to punt because we ran on third-and-5 (we had a 16-point lead against one of the worst teams in the league, so it didn't hurt us). We never had another possession without passing that lasted more than four plays or took more than 2:28 off the clock.

If you don't think that teams feared Emmitt Smith and committed to stopping the run, which dramatically impacted the passing game, I have to assume that you are young enough that you never actually watched our Super Bowl teams in the 90's. If you actually watched the 90's teams, and don't believe that the running game impacted our passing game, then perhaps you should get checked for Altzheimer's disease. I'm not being facetious, I am being quite serious.

 

[AdamJT13]

If you don't think that teams feared Emmitt Smith and committed to stopping the run, which dramatically impacted the passing game, I have to assume that you are young enough that you never actually watched our Super Bowl teams in the 90's. If you actually watched the 90's teams, and don't believe that the running game impacted our passing game, then perhaps you should get checked for Altzheimer's disease. I'm not being facetious, I am being quite serious.

Ignorant and unfounded personal attacks don't change the facts. And you are completely missing the point.

Yes, opponents committed to stopping the run in the early 1990s (and yes, I watched and charted every game back then, just like I do now). Sometimes they did shut down our running game -- and they still LOST, usually because we passed better than they did. Remember -- how well you run or stop the run has almost no effect on whether you win the game. That's exactly what happened -- we ran poorly and won, and they stopped the run and lost. And what about games when the opponent didn't stop the run at all, or was only mediocre at stopping the run? Did that make our pass offense any better or worse, and did it change our chances of winning? Nope and nope. Whether we won or lost still almost always depended on whether we passed better than the opponent, and our passing efficiency didn't correlate at all with our rushing efficiency.

As far as this "dramatic impact" that you assume happened on the passing game because we were good at running the ball, it doesn't happen nearly to the extent that most people think it does. It does on some plays, but not enough to have a significant effect on overall efficiency. That's why there is a low correlation between how well you rush and how well you pass. That's not as assumption or a theory, it's just a fact. One reason is because many pass plays -- and probably the most important pass plays -- are times when the opponent KNOWS you're going to pass. And THOSE are the plays that make a difference between winning and losing. Can you convert on third-and-long? Can you pass your way down the field in the two-minute offense? And JUST AS IMPORTANTLY, can your defense stop the opponent in those same situations? If you succeed in THOSE situations, when you have to pass or your defense has to defend the pass, that's often what makes the difference between winning and losing.

 

[LocimusPrime]

This was my argument before the draft as to why we should value the RB position if all other teams are devaluing it. If the position is being devalued, so then is defensive strategies to stop the running game.

When you consider that the Cowboy O-line is built to maximize the running game then it becomes a matchup nightmare.

It's one thing to feature an elite RB in your offense. And it another to build an elite offensive line.

But when you have accomplished both? In an NFL environment built to feature and defend the passing game?

You know all those quick smaller DE's that harrass quarterbacks and make things difficult for big OT's?

They are going to have very uncomfortable Sundays against the Cowboys.

Do you suppose that these Cowboy O-linemen have built up just a little resentment, having to get into a defensive mode to protect the quarterback against all kinds of blitz packages?

.....I hope these defensive players like pancakes.

I just checked the Seahawks, Giants, and eagles defensive end heights and weights. Man those guys are jacked they avg around 6-3 270 lbs for first team 4-3 defensive ends. They have actually gotten bigger through this new passing age. The Cowboys defensive ends are actually on the light/ small size ( esp Gregory and Lawrence). 3-4 pass rushers are about 10-15 lb lighter than 4-3 DEs

 

[jnday]

Stats or no stats, the running game plays a big part in having a good offense. If I had the motivation to look it up, I am 100% certain that stats will reflect that the running game is crucial to setting up the passing game. I don't think any of us needs stats to see that the Cowboys don't do well when Romo passes too much and the percentage tilts too much in either direction from being balanced. If the stats was so cut and dried that the running game was not a factor in winning, the modern NFL teams would have totally phased out the RB position. They have not done so, and it is clear evidence that the running game is still important in modern offenses. I think Adam has done a good job of cherry picking stats to support his opinion. If I knew or cared enough to look stats up, I am sure that there are stats to confirm the role the running game has in the offense. You guys can argue about this forever and still have good points.