Interesting playoff rushing stat

[Brooksey]

You don't need he other team's offense off the field if your own offense scores more points than theirs does each time it has the ball. All you need to do is throw it more effectively than they do. That's it.

The running game is for short yardage conversions, for getting you into effective downs and distances to keep converting, and for keeping you from passing ineffectively once you've got he lead. Anybody choosing to believe anything else is simply not watching games closely enough or misinterpreting completely what it is that wins them.

Oh were watching. Running the football with balance is extremely important. What in the world are you watching?

 

[Idgit]

I understand what you are saying but you have to agree we could and should get better, look at our 3rd down % for example, we have to be more balanced, that doesn't mean we have to be running it more than passing it, of course not, but it seems we are throwing it all day long.

I actually crossed my threads. I was alluding to the argument from the Is It Playcalling Or Players thread.

No doubt there are areas offensively where we can improve. That's always the case.

 

[Eddie]

What are you talking about? Almost getting in the playoffs means nothing, actually getting in does.

Sarcasm.

 

[Idgit]

Oh were watching. Running the football with balance is extremely important. What in the world are you watching?

A game where "balance" simply doesn't matter. A game where teams do what's effective in order to win, not what would be "balanced" for some unsupportable reason.

 

[tantrix1969]

Sarcasm.

my bad

 

[Roadtrip635]

You really think a running play is the correct call on that situation? Yes it could work but you can't be that conservative, specially if you don't have a great Defense, Seattle does, Dallas doesn't.
But I do agree that we should be running the ball more.

Part of that was the weather conditions, strong wind and rain and sometimes you have to make that conservative call. I read an interview with Wilson after the game and he said the conditions made it extremely difficult to throw and just had to run the ball. He said at one point the Saints had 11 men in the box, but they had to keep chipping away because it would help open some of those passing lanes. Lynch was only averaging 3yds a carry before he busted that big run. I realize Seattle is built as a running team and have the defense to back that up, but the basic idea is sound. You have to have more balance and make the defense defend against the run even if there is an extra man in the box, maybe not 11 like yesterday. If the RB can break a tackle or two, then he has an open field behind them. I think our offense can improve with better balance and better utilization of the RB's in the passing game.

 

[Picksix]

Better than everybody? On offense we were 16th in the league, yes we were 5th in scoring but we were also around 10th or so in total takeaways, so that helped a lot in terms of putting points on the scoreboard.
We can get a lot better on Offense imo, and in no way am I saying the offense gets more blame than the defense, I know that's where our deepest problems are.

People keep bringing up the turnovers we caused, and those helped. But our average scoring drive was 56 yards, which was right in the middle of the league, so if the premise is that we were put in so many advantageous positions by the defense and special teams, it's really not true, at least no more so than most teams. The majority of teams scored on average drives between 52-59 yards.

So we had average scoring drive lengths, yet were near the top in points per drive. Offense could always be better, but the other team is playing defense, too. We look at a team like Denver, and say "if we had a good offense, we could just exert our will like they do," but they still punted 65 times, and turned it over about as often as we did. We punted 77 times.

We could use better offense, but we REALLY need better defense. Look at Seattle. They haven't shown a great offense but for a handful of times this season, yet they're 14-3 right now. And Bevell is no better of a play caller than Garrett. They win with their defense - something we can rarely say. They won yesterday, not because they ran. They ran because they were winning, and because the weather absolutely awful.

 

[Coy]

People keep bringing up the turnovers we caused, and those helped. But our average scoring drive was 56 yards, which was right in the middle of the league, so if the premise is that we were put in so many advantageous positions by the defense and special teams, it's really not true, at least no more so than most teams. The majority of teams scored on average drives between 52-59 yards.

So we had average scoring drive lengths, yet were near the top in points per drive. Offense could always be better, but the other team is playing defense, too. We look at a team like Denver, and say "if we had a good offense, we could just exert our will like they do," but they still punted 65 times, and turned it over about as often as we did. We punted 77 times.

We could use better offense, but we REALLY need better defense. Look at Seattle. They haven't shown a great offense but for a handful of times this season, yet they're 14-3 right now. And Bevell is no better of a play caller than Garrett. They win with their defense - something we can rarely say. They won yesterday, not because they ran. They ran because they were winning, and because the weather absolutely awful.

I agree, we have to get much better on Defense, we could win with this offense, all I'm saying is there's a couple of areas that we should get better, we have the potential to be a great offense not just a good offense.
As for Seattle, it's just awsome to watch them play defense.

 

[DFWJC]

We totally blew that GB game.
Not that winning that game would have made a difference. We still would have had to win the Philly game.
The Washington game ended up being win or go home though. Then the next week, we did just that.

 

[bayeslife]

What does make you win?

I would start with maybe not having a dead last ranked defense.

 

[bayeslife]

Yes it is but not as productive as it could and should be, they can be much better.

Agreed. But that's not what's losing us games.

 

[fanfromvirginia]

The problem with the offense is that it greatly underperforms due, IMO, to Garrett bringing nothing to the table. In baseball terms, he's a 'replacement level' coach.

With a franchise QB, a HoF TE with something left in the tank, a good RB, a potentially superstar WR, the best or 2nd best OL we've had in about 15 years, and very few injuries relative to the rest of the league, this offense should have been a juggernaut. Instead it was good enough to win games.

Edit: So once you accept that the offense should have been a lot better, it makes sense to ask why. Since we have an extremely unbalanced attack and have blown enormous leads multiple times under Garrett while abandoning the run it seems silly to dismiss these complaints out of hand.

 

[xwalker]

And that's because it doesn't make you win.

Our offense is productive.

I hope you're not referring to the concept floated around by some internet wannabe statistical analysts. The concept that because they cannot use their simplistic "correlation" statistics to show the importance of the running game to winning, that it must not be important. They don't seem to consider the concept that they are not really statistical analysts and are in reality only statisticians with a spreadsheet.

In reality the running game and passing game are interdependent, not independent, yet people try to analyze them as independent variables.

You can't determine from rushing and passing statistics whether the defense was playing 8-in-the-box against a legit rushing threat or if they were playing 7-in-the-box against a weak rushing threat.

You could have 2 offenses with identical rushing and passing statistics, yet be completely different in terms of their actual rush vs pass ability.

Offense A: Adrian Peterson is the RB. The WRs are Cole Beasley and Dwayne Harris. The defense plays 9-in-the-box and the offense ends up with 300 yards passing, 50 yards rushing and scores 30 points.

Offense B: The RB is Phillip Tanner. The WRs are all Calvin Johnson clones and the TEs are all Jason Witten is his prime clones. The defense plays as-if there is no running back in the game and only plays coverage. They replace all LBs with DBs. The offense ends up with 300 yards passing, 50 yards rushing and scores 30 points.

Passing and rushing statistics can't differentiate the 2 scenarios.

 

[TheCount]

You got it half right, anyway. You gotta stop the other guys' passing, too. Hence the losing.

Ah, you mean to tell me that it's not as simple as running "doesn't make you win"?

The truth of the matter is there are a myriad of ways to win a game, and running can be one of them. So pretending it's not important and that there aren't games that are won on the ground isn't particularly truthful.

 

[Idgit]

Ah, you mean to tell me that it's not as simple as running "doesn't make you win"?

The truth of the matter is there are a myriad of ways to win a game, and running can be one of them. So pretending it's not important and that there aren't games that are won on the ground isn't particularly truthful.

We're talking about winning consistently, and that's done through passing effectiveness differential right now.

And running the ball is important. Nobody ever said otherwise. It's balance and running effectiveness outside of short yardage that don't really matter.

 

[TheCount]

We're talking about winning consistently, and that's done through passing effectiveness differential right now.

And running the ball is important. Nobody ever said otherwise. It's balance and running effectiveness outside of short yardage that don't really matter.

Perhaps but I think we're talking about how teams were winning in the playoffs. It's no secret the Saints got to the playoffs passing the ball but they beat the Eagles running and lost to the Seahawks getting ran on.

 

[wileedog]

It's why Phillips tried to hire Dan Reeves..

You know, as a horrible side note to this thread, I truly believe that if Reeves gets hired in 2010 maybe the team doesn't spiral out of control that year, and more importantly I think Garrett could have learned a ton from him.

I firmly believe it was Garrett that sabotaged that deal with Jerry coming up with the 'timeclock' excuse. He saw it as a threat to his ascendancy to HC. But he would be such a better coach today if he had spent a few years working with Reeves, who is one of the best to ever walk the sidelines.

Another lost opportunity for this circus.

 

[Hoofbite]

People keep bringing up the turnovers we caused, and those helped. But our average scoring drive was 56 yards, which was right in the middle of the league, so if the premise is that we were put in so many advantageous positions by the defense and special teams, it's really not true, at least no more so than most teams. The majority of teams scored on average drives between 52-59 yards.

So we had average scoring drive lengths, yet were near the top in points per drive. Offense could always be better, but the other team is playing defense, too. We look at a team like Denver, and say "if we had a good offense, we could just exert our will like they do," but they still punted 65 times, and turned it over about as often as we did. We punted 77 times.

We could use better offense, but we REALLY need better defense. Look at Seattle. They haven't shown a great offense but for a handful of times this season, yet they're 14-3 right now. And Bevell is no better of a play caller than Garrett. They win with their defense - something we can rarely say. They won yesterday, not because they ran. They ran because they were winning, and because the weather absolutely awful.

Dallas had 4 drives start inside the opponents 5 yard line. 2 teams had 3 such possession and 2 teams had 2 such possession. A handful had 1 and many others had none.

The team had 9 drives start inside the opponents redzone. 2 more than any other team.

The team was helped out greatly by the defense and special teams.

 

[Gaede]

The one thing that can improve our running game, besides actually using it through the whole game, is a speedy back.

This offense would actually have some potential if we a) started using one of our best players and b) had a speedy back to complement him.

Of course, even if we do get a speedy back, I don't trust our coaches to actually use him

 

[BrAinPaiNt]

Part of stopping the other guy is BALL CONTROL OFFENSE and keeping the other guys offense off the field.

But no no no we can not do that. What we do is pass pass pass knowing our defense sucks and keeping the defense on the field longer instead of ball control offense and keeping them OFF the field longer.

But in the mean time we will have people continue to defend the offense and this idiotic coaching staff who calls the plays.

If you had a decent defense then you could continue to pass pass pass knowing you could stop the other guys offense. But since we have the worst defense we have ever had we continue to be idiotic and not use ball control offense. The worst part of it is they KNOW that going into some games and start running the ball and using ball control offense only to panic and completely abandon it later in the game.

This idea that the offense is A-OK and we just need to worry about the defense it VERY short sighted. Again if your Defense sucks than your offense needs to account for that and help it out. Just like teams that have crappy offenses and good defenses where the defense needs to help out (old Tampa Bay and old Baltimore).

I don't know how some continue to completely ignore it and act like things are all hunky dory ok with the offense and game planning and then have the nerve to be condescending to any other people who actually see it for what it is.

The notion that you only need to score more on offense to win is true...but part of scoring more on offense is having a defense that can stop the other guy from scoring and at this time that is not the case because we can not stop the other team from scoring and the offense (as good as some think it is) is still not good enough to score enough to off set the defenses woes.