Garrett and running the football...

[Idgit]

Question: how would you reconcile this statement with the fact that in 2012 six of the eight division winners finished in the top half of the league in rushing yds, and 7 of 8 were in the top half for rushing atts?

Wash - 1st (3rd in atts)
San Fran - 4th (7th)
NE - 7th (2nd)
Hou - 8th (4th)
Balt - 11th (12th)
Den - 16th (9th)
GB - 20th (16th)
Atl - 29th (27th)

He's probably going to tell you the attempted to run the ball so much because they all had effective passing games and ended up playing with leads as a result.

 

[coogrfan]

He's probably going to tell you the attempted to run the ball so much because they all had effective passing games and ended up playing with leads as a result.

Chicken? Egg?

 

[ABQCOWBOY]

The League is about changes and the team that sets the market is the one who will have success. The teams that follow behind are the ones who will fail because the League also adjusts. It's a copy cat league, always has been. It's been a passing League for a long time now. I do believe that we are going to see more emphasis on running the ball because I believe the pendulum is starting to swing back towards the other direction. It will never be the same league was saw in the 80s and before but I do think we will see more running in the NFL. We would be wise to get in front of this but I am not at all sure that we will.

Guess we'll see what happens.

 

[coogrfan]

Question: how would you reconcile this statement with the fact that in 2012 six of the eight division winners finished in the top half of the league in rushing yds, and 7 of 8 were in the top half for rushing atts?

Wash - 1st (3rd in atts) 20th (30th)
San Fran - 4th (7th) 23rd (31st)
NE - 7th (2nd) 4th (4th)
Hou - 8th (4th) 11th (18th)
Balt - 11th (12th) 15th (15th)
Den - 16th (9th) 5th (10th)
GB - 20th (16th) 9th (16th)
Atl - 29th (27th) 6th (8th)

I have added passing yads and atts to my earlier post:

Rushing yds (Rushing atts) Passing yds (Passing atts).

Imo this would seem to indicate that balance remains an important component in building a successful offense. Thoughts?

 

[Idgit]

Chicken? Egg?

I know. We've seen this debate before, huh?

It's an interesting one, at least.

 

[KDM256]

Would love to see Dallas run the ball more this year. I just hope our backfield can stay healthy throughout the season.

Our Rushing Ranking last year was a joke but at the end of the day you gotta have the horses to pull the cart..

 

[xwalker]

I think most people here know how much I am into the metrics of the game and it is a game where the team that passes the ball most effectively will win it 80% of the time.

The simple statistic "passes the ball most effectively" is not sufficient proof of the importance of the passing game relative to the running game. Also, a single simple statistic does not prove cause vs effect. Does "passing effectively" cause winning or does winning cause the statistic "passing effectively" to be good?

Example: Teams normally run the ball more in the 4th quarter when they are way ahead on the scoreboard. If you look at the simple statistic of run attempts in the 4th quarter, you might think that a high number results in a large blow-out win. Obviously, winning caused the large number of running attempts in the 4th quarter. A large number of running attempts in the 4th quarter did not cause the wins.