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

[CowboyRoy]

Garrett is the epitome of "privilege" over qualifications and results. He may (eventually) succeed, but his time and room for error has decreased time and room for success for players like Romo and Witten.

It took him 8 years to figure out we need a top run game to team with Romo. How many years do you figure its going to take him to figure out about the defense?

 

[SultanOfSix]

It took him 8 years to figure out we need a top run game to team with Romo. How many years do you figure its going to take him to figure out about the defense?

I don't know but I'm sure there will be a lot of clapping in that time frame.

 

[KJJ]

It was a subject of much debate before the draft and continues to be so. Why spend a fourth-round pick on Ezekiel Elliott when the running back position is so devalued in the pass-addicted NFL? Since the Dallas Cowboys were able to mount a successful running game with Darren McFadden, whose skill set is not a good fit for what the team prefers to do, couldn't they have gotten a good running back later in the draft and better spent the draft capital elsewhere? Why would they buck the trend and go against the flow of the league?

While of course the staff of the Cowboys don't share all the innermost details of their strategy, all this does raise another question: What if going in the opposite direction of the league is the whole idea?


Some of these thoughts have been circulating around sort of half-formed for a time (at least in my often chaotic brain), but they were really crystallized by an article on offensive linemen and the challenges they face in today's NFL written by Pete Prisco at CBSSports.com. (Hat tip to Landon McCool who saw this first and drew my attention to it with a tweet.) It was a missing piece of the puzzle that speaks to some significant differences in the way the Cowboys are doing things as opposed to what seems to be happening with many other teams.

The basic logic is something that is common in business: Find something that no one else is doing and exploit it. It also has a military counterpart: Figure out where a significant weakness is and hit it as hard as you can.

link/http://www.bloggingtheboys.com/2016...iting-nfl-trends-running-game-ezekiel-elliott

I'm sure you've been corrected but it was the 4th overall pick pick we spent on Zeke not a 4th rounder and we did it because running the football efficiently is how the Cowboys have had their success through the years and under Romo. Although the NFL is a pass happy league there hasn't been a team yet that's won a SB by ignoring the run and passing all day. Even the Greatest Show on Turf featured a 1300+ yard rusher who put up 25 rushing TD's in 99 and 2000. When Tom Brady and Peyton Manning set the NFL's TD pass record both QBs lost the SB. Manning set several league passing records in 2013 but his Broncos got blown out in the SB. Every championship team the Cowboys have had featured elite backs who could run the ball efficiently and could score TD's. The best team under Romo featured the leagues leading rusher who took a lot of pressure off Romo which led to the most efficient season of his career.

It appears the RB is coming back because teams that are winning championships aren't airing it out every week. They have a balanced offensive attack and play solid defense. Too much passing and not enough running puts a lot of pressure on your QB and it usually catches up with them in the playoffs and SB. Some of the greatest passing seasons we've seen including Dan Marino in 1984 led to a blowout loss in the SB. SF had a balanced attack with over 300 yards passing and over 200 yards rushing while Marino was airing it out with no help from his running game.

 

[BourbonBalz]

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.

You seem to be omitting the fact that when teams stopped our running game in the 90's, they had to commit more defensive personnel to do so. That's what opened up the passing game. If we didn't have a VERY effective running game, defenses would not have had to commit additional resources/players to stop it and could have tightened up their pass defense. You or anyone can pull up all the stats you want, but my 53 years have proven to me that the best way to win in the NFL is to have great balance on offense and a good defense. Balanced offenses are much harder to game plan to stop and allow the offense to adjust to what defenses are trying to take away. That's the bottom line! A great running game wears defenses down too. There were many games in the 90's went Emmitt was shut down in the first half, but we kept feeding him the ball. It almost always paid off in the second half. It demoralizes defenses. I've seen it too many times when defenses essentially give up after getting pounded all day.

 

[cowboys2233]

The correlation between ice cream consumption and road rage could be easily proved or disproved as a causal relationship. The fact that both occur at the same time is irrelevant unless the people who engaged in road rage had eaten ice cream before that. So you'd have to look at people who ate ice cream and THEIR occurrences of road rage (did it go up?), as well as whether people who engaged in road rage had eaten ice cream at a rate higher than people who didn't.

Regarding passing, running and winning, all of this has been thoroughly studied. It is not merely coincidental -- by and large, teams get a lead by passing more efficiently than their opponent, they maintain the lead by preventing the opponent from passing more efficiently than they do, and they win when they pass more efficiently than their opponent over the course of the game. On the other hand, running well and stopping the run does not correlate to winning on the scoreboard at any point in the game. For example, if there was cause-and-effect, the relationship between passing well and winning -- and the lack thereof between rushing well and winning -- should exist if one looked only at the halftime stats and score, before teams change their strategy and get either desperate or overly conservative, depending on the score. Those studies have been done, and the same results have been found -- winning the pass efficiency battle in the first half correlates highly with being ahead at halftime, while losing the rushing efficiency battle in the first half doesn't correlate with being ahead at halftime.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but there is nothing coincidental about passing better than your opponent and winning.

Oh, that's okay. Because I could easily point out that people who engaged in road rage had eaten ice cream before that (why wouldn't they, they're dealing with the same hot weather as everyone else). And that those who had road rage (potentially because of a greater sensitivity to heat) did in fact eat ice cream at a higher rate than those who didn't. In other words, their greater sensitivity to hot weather (or possibly, greater exposure to hot weather) caused higher incidences of both ice cream consumption and road rage. Under this scenario, every point you made above has been addressed. And guess what? We're no closer to proving or disproving a causal relationship between ice cream consumption and road rage. Go figure.

 

[AdamJT13]

So what facts arent straight? That he led the league with 123 and not 124?

Still not even close. No wonder you can't comprehend simple facts.

IM talking about the Dallas Cowboys buddy, not the entire NFL.

So was I. Every game we played in 2014 was won by the team that passed better -- as have 37 of our past 38 games. The team that has run better went 9-9 in 2-14 and 19-19 over the past 38 games. That us. With a healthy Romo and a "dominant" running game. We win by passing better than our opponent, not by running better than our opponent. It doesn't matter if our running game gets shut down or runs wild -- we still win or lose depending on whether we pass better or our opponent passes better.

A running game is essential to US. And again, in case you didnt notice its pretty much exactly what the brass said about why they took Zeke. In case you were watching er listening to anything lately.

It doesn't matter what the Cowboys' "brass" thinks or says. It doesn't change the facts. Or maybe you think the Cowboys' "brass" has never been wrong?

 

[AdamJT13]

The run opens up the pass and the pass opens up the run. Its a mutual relationship.

Except that it's not. Maybe it is on plays here and there, but for the most part, they are independent -- so much so that there is very little correlation over the course of a game, let alone the entire season.

 

[AdamJT13]

You seem to be omitting the fact that when teams stopped our running game in the 90's, they had to commit more defensive personnel to do so. That's what opened up the passing game.

A few points --

-- Did only those 21 teams commit more defensive personnel to stopping the run? Or did other teams try and fail? And were there teams that did not try to stop our running game?

-- If having our running game shut down "opened up the passing game," why was our ANYPA in 10 of those 21 games worse than our average ANYPA from 1992-95? That's not very correlative at all. And our average ANYPA in those 21 games was only 3.5 percent more than our overall average -- a difference equal to less than 6.6 yards per game. I'd say our passing game was about the game as it always was. On the other hand, our pass defense in those 21 games was 19.9 percent better than our average, which is a significant reason why we went 20-1 in those games. Maybe now you can explain how the opponent committing to stopping our running game somehow made our pass defense almost 20 percent more effective.

-- If the opponent committed extra guys to stop the run and succeeded, and it didn't help them stop the pass, but rather "opened up the passing game" for us, then why would anyone ever commit extra guys to stopping the run? And I thought committing to stopping the run and succeeding was supposed to "make the offense one-dimensional" and "make it easier to stop the run" because "it's a mutual relationship"?

Which is it? Does stopping the run make it easier for the offense to pass or more difficult to pass? It certainly can't be both.

 

[AdamJT13]

Oh, that's okay. Because I could easily point out that people who engaged in road rage had eaten ice cream before that (why wouldn't they, they're dealing with the same hot weather as everyone else). And that those who had road rage (potentially because of a greater sensitivity to heat) did in fact eat ice cream at a higher rate than those who didn't. In other words, their greater sensitivity to hot weather (or possibly, greater exposure to hot weather) caused higher incidences of both ice cream consumption and road rage. Under this scenario, every point you made above has been addressed. And guess what? We're no closer to proving or disproving a causal relationship between ice cream consumption and road rage. Go figure.

Except you didn't address whether those who had road rage did so at a higher rate under the same conditions when they ate ice cream compared with when they didn't.

 

[waldoputty]

Except that it's not. Maybe it is on plays here and there, but for the most part, they are independent -- so much so that there is very little correlation over the course of a game, let alone the entire season.

I think it is senseless to try to figure out some statistics that proves some fact when you are talking about such a macro-issue - does pass set up the run or does the run set up the pass. Everyone of these statistics and statistical tests require controls and keeping everything else equal - that is simply impossible across different eras, different teams, etc.

Instead, I think we all recognize that football is about matchups. Offense does something. Defense makes adjustments. Offense needs new readjustment etc.

How many of us have complained that adjustments were not made in half-time? I suspect most here have complained about this.

So the simple question is this: If the running is so good that the defense needs to put more players near LOS to stop it. Certainly, one can argue it will at least open up the deep pass since less deep safeties are available? Is there some statistic to show that - may be difficult... NFL coaches don't call plays so you can control all the other conditions so you can prove a point. They coach to win. Now does putting more players near LOS help all passing- may be not. Short slants may be hurt because more defenders near LOS? Or perhaps not.

So to try to use some football statistics as involved as ANYA to make a point like this is very difficult. What is the definition of ANYA?
Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt - ANY/A = (Passing Yards + 20 * Passing Touchdowns – 45 * Interceptions – Sack Yards Lost)/(Pass Attempts plus Sacks)

Does that sound really scientific or really statistically vigorous to you?
I don't think so. Looks at best like some type of extreme curve fit...
Definitely not an analytic equation.

The simple minded straight-forward analysis may be the only available method.
If the run or the pass is so good that it requires dedicating more defenders to counter, then it makes sense that reduced resources will result in more opportunities for the other attacks.
As stated above, there may be side-effects that also affect some plays - such as more defenders near LOS may hurt short slants.
Also blitzing the quarterback may also serve to stop the run etc.

 

[BourbonBalz]

Those who rely solely on statistics are idiots. There are statistics, damn statistics, and lies. They can be used to prove or disprove ANYTHING. Since Adam thinks he's so damn football savvy, I'm shocked an NFL team hasn't been employing him for years. I know what my eyes tell me and I know what every NFL mind has stated for years. You have to run the football and stop the run. It's not AS important today as it once was, but it's still damn important. The run and pass game have a symbiotic relationship, stats be damned. They rely on each other. You don't believe it, I don't care.

 

[AdamJT13]

So to try to use some football statistics as involved as ANYA to make a point like this is very difficult. What is the definition of ANYA?
Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt - ANY/A = (Passing Yards + 20 * Passing Touchdowns – 45 * Interceptions – Sack Yards Lost)/(Pass Attempts plus Sacks)

That's not the formula I use. But that one is still highly correlative to winning.

If the run or the pass is so good that it requires dedicating more defenders to counter, then it makes sense that reduced resources will result in more opportunities for the other attacks.

Theoretically, maybe. But some people would also argue that stopping the run makes the offense one-dimensional, which makes it easier to stop the pass.

And what's the point of dedicating more defenders to stopping the run if it means you'll be worse against the pass and be more likely to lose the game?

 

[AdamJT13]

Those who rely solely on statistics are ****. There are statistics, **** statistics, and lies. They can be used to prove or disprove ANYTHING. Since Adam thinks he's so **** football savvy, I'm shocked an NFL team hasn't been employing him for years. I know what my eyes tell me and I know what every NFL mind has stated for years. You have to run the football and stop the run. It's not AS important today as it once was, but it's still ***** important. The run and pass game have a symbiotic relationship, stats be *****. They rely on each other. You don't believe it, I don't care.

First of all, you have no idea what I do for a living or what I have ever done for a living (and I'm not going to tell). Secondly, you're wrong. But thanks for polluting the board with your profanity and insults.

 

[Nightman]

Those who rely solely on statistics are idiots. There are statistics, damn statistics, and lies. They can be used to prove or disprove ANYTHING. Since Adam thinks he's so damn football savvy, I'm shocked an NFL team hasn't been employing him for years. I know what my eyes tell me and I know what every NFL mind has stated for years. You have to run the football and stop the run. It's not AS important today as it once was, but it's still damn important. The run and pass game have a symbiotic relationship, stats be damned. They rely on each other. You don't believe it, I don't care.

Especially when the formula is more like a recipe of football truths

Pass Well
+ limit Turnovers and Sacks
+ good pass Defense
+ Defensive INTs
+ Defensive Sacks
80% chance of winning..............Duh

You might as well say that teams that lead in the 4th quarter win 80% of the time, so you should try to get the lead by scoring points and limiting your opponent from scoring points

 

[waldoputty]

That's not the formula I use. But that one is still highly correlative to winning.




Theoretically, maybe. But some people would also argue that stopping the run makes the offense one-dimensional, which makes it easier to stop the pass.

And what's the point of dedicating more defenders to stopping the run if it means you'll be worse against the pass and be more likely to lose the game?

Regarding the formula, it is not e=mc^2 or f=ma or faraday's law etc.
It seems like some type of trial and error fitted formula.
As you are be aware, why should you use 40, why not 50 or 51.758 etc.
I am not saying analytics have no place.
I think analytics have become critical in many sports, but I think they may be testing very specific narrow qualities.
What analytics do they use?
I have no idea.

I am no coach.
Just watch the games and love the Cowboys since 76.
If you cannot stop the run, the conventional wisdom is that the other team will just keep running till you can.
Is it true?
Well I think it is probably as true as some trial and error fitted formula like ANYA.

Why stopping the run is more critical over the years - probably because the running play has less execution risk.
Snap the ball, hand off the ball, block you, beat you up and run you over.

With the pass, there is more execution risk (stopping yourself) because the pass may be off-course, it may be too windy, the pass may get tipped, the receiver may drop the ball, the ball may be wet, it may be too cold for receiver hands... etc.
Lots more things to go wrong.
That is true even with a great QB, WR corp etc.

To me, that is the revolution with the west coast offense and shorter passes that focus on RAC.
Shortening the pass makes it more of an extended handoff.
That reduces the uncertainty of the pass.
At the same time, 'extending the range of the handoff' increases the space that the defense must focus on. (When you shoot the same number of missiles at a larger 'kill zone', the target's survival chances are significantly increased.)
By reducing the execution risk of the pass, that makes it more like a run.
Then you can more easily use the pass to set up the run etc.

Essentially, to an amateur like me, the west coast offense trades off execution risk for the chance that the play will go for more yardage. E.g. accepting additional execution risk of 25% is ok if we increase the average play yield by 3 yards if the play is executed correctly.

Must stop the run is a conventional wisdom in football, and conventional wisdoms normally have something to them that is hard to quantify.
Revolutions happen like the west coast offense.
But sometimes, the more things change, the more they stay the same...

 

[waldoputty]

First of all, you have no idea what I do for a living or what I have ever done for a living (and I'm not going to tell). Secondly, you're wrong. But thanks for polluting the board with your profanity and insults.

Adam, I remember reading a lot of your cap wisdom over the years.
I may disagree with you on this particular topic.
But I certainly appreciate your knowledge over the years.
Particularly on cap related matters.
Though I do not know whether you still post on salary cap matters since I recently joined this board.

Did you see my post on 'dynasty building'?
Long post, but not many really agreed or disagreed with it.
It is probably on page 2 or 3 of the Fan Zone.

Would appreciate your input, particularly salary cap input.
I was going on and on about the rapidly rising cap and the cowboys OL investment may enable our next dynasty.
That is because the OL may provide a long-term cap savings (10 years or so) that allows us to fill key QB, DE and other positions for a dynasty.
The market inefficiency is limited 1st round OL that makes it, while cowboys cornered the market with 3-4 probowlers.
Also (knock on wood), OL tend to have longevity so 10 year good-value contracts are possible.
You certainly cannot do that with WR, RB or LB corps.

Thanks

 

[rpntex]

I know it is college but I remember watching Nebraska not lose for almost 2 decades by only running the ball.

In all honesty, Nebraska won by allowing less than 10 ppg during Tom Osborne's tenure as head coach. The black shirts on defense also would hold the opposing passer to 50% completion pct. (or less) and forced mistakes.

On offense, they only threw the ball between 6-10 times per game, but they completed 70-75% for about 100-120 yards each game. Even if they ran the ball for 300 yards, they still passed far more efficiently than the opposition.

Some of you guys still don't get it. It's not about how well you pass vs. how well you run. It's how well you pass vs. how well the opposition passes.

 

[CowboyRoy]

Still not even close. No wonder you can't comprehend simple facts.



So was I. Every game we played in 2014 was won by the team that passed better -- as have 37 of our past 38 games. The team that has run better went 9-9 in 2-14 and 19-19 over the past 38 games. That us. With a healthy Romo and a "dominant" running game. We win by passing better than our opponent, not by running better than our opponent. It doesn't matter if our running game gets shut down or runs wild -- we still win or lose depending on whether we pass better or our opponent passes better.




It doesn't matter what the Cowboys' "brass" thinks or says. It doesn't change the facts. Or maybe you think the Cowboys' "brass" has never been wrong?

LOL..........thanks for playing!!! Stick your foot in your mouth much?

Different ratings are used by the NFL and NCAA.

Minimum 1500 pass attempts to qualify as career leader, minimum 150 pass attempts Passer Rating1.Tony Romo* · DAL113.22.Aaron Rodgers*+ · GNB112.23.Ben Roethlisberger* · PIT103.34.Peyton Manning* · DEN101.55.Tom Brady* · NWE97.46.Drew Brees* · NOR97.07.Andrew Luck* · IND96.58.Carson Palmer · ARI95.69.Ryan Fitzpatrick · HOU95.310.Russell Wilson · SEA95.0

 

[CowboyRoy]

Except that it's not. Maybe it is on plays here and there, but for the most part, they are independent -- so much so that there is very little correlation over the course of a game, let alone the entire season.

Plays here and there, but then its not? Yah, ok buddy. They have nothing to do with one another.

 

[dallasdave]

It was a subject of much debate before the draft and continues to be so. Why spend a fourth-round pick on Ezekiel Elliott when the running back position is so devalued in the pass-addicted NFL? Since the Dallas Cowboys were able to mount a successful running game with Darren McFadden, whose skill set is not a good fit for what the team prefers to do, couldn't they have gotten a good running back later in the draft and better spent the draft capital elsewhere? Why would they buck the trend and go against the flow of the league?

While of course the staff of the Cowboys don't share all the innermost details of their strategy, all this does raise another question: What if going in the opposite direction of the league is the whole idea?


Some of these thoughts have been circulating around sort of half-formed for a time (at least in my often chaotic brain), but they were really crystallized by an article on offensive linemen and the challenges they face in today's NFL written by Pete Prisco at CBSSports.com. (Hat tip to Landon McCool who saw this first and drew my attention to it with a tweet.) It was a missing piece of the puzzle that speaks to some significant differences in the way the Cowboys are doing things as opposed to what seems to be happening with many other teams.

The basic logic is something that is common in business: Find something that no one else is doing and exploit it. It also has a military counterpart: Figure out where a significant weakness is and hit it as hard as you can.

link/http://www.bloggingtheboys.com/2016...iting-nfl-trends-running-game-ezekiel-elliott

Great point !! Dallas controls the ball and starts a new NFL trend !!!