As their first official episode, Kinjal and Patrick explore a topic that fans shout every single Sunday in the fall, “Why do teams keep running the ball up the middle?” With the help of some obscure statistics and references to old school examples, they dive into why the running the ball is still important, the chess-match theory behind running up the middle for a short gain, and why ‘establishing the run’ is kind of a dumb saying.

Along the way, Kinjal and Pat describe a few statistics that might seem confusing when you first listen to them. We will use the episode post to add this information that you may visualize it. It also gives us a way to credit the awesome people who have taken the time to collect and share these statistics.

This will definitely not be the last time that we will post supplementary information on our site, so always be sure to check it out after you listen. Or not… we really just hope you guys continue to listen to us.

 

Establishing the run

In this episode, we argue that the old mantra of “you need to establish the run in order to win the game” is kind of a nonsense. One aspect of our argument is that it’s easy to say that a team won the game when their RB had x amount of rushes/yards, however if you look at the data you’ll find that teams are not winning because their RB is getting a lot of touches, but it is in fact that the RB is getting a lot of touches BECAUSE the team is winning.

Via Jon Bales from Rotogrinders.com

This graph shows the difference in how many times teams rush when leading at any point in the game vs when losing at any point in the game. You can see that teams naturally run more often in the 4th quarter when winning. The term “running out the clock” is actually a thing, you guys.

But you still need to be able to run…

Finally, we will leave you with the highlight reel of the greatest comeback in NFL history. Greatest may just be the opinion of Bills fans like Pat, but in terms of actual numbers… it actually is the greatest. At the time of the 1993 playoffs, the Houston Oilers ran what was known as “The Run and Shoot Offense” with QB Warren Moon at the helm. In the Wildcard game, they ran up the score 28-3 against the defending AFC Champion Bills, but were unable to run the ball in the second half of the game. The Bills staged an incredible comeback and pulled off the win in overtime.

Spoiler Alert: The Bills would not go on to win a Super Bowl.

I won’t say that Chris Berman hasn’t aged a day but he looks like he only aged a couple of weeks, or something.

“Rumblin’ Stumblin’ Bumblin.'”

 

Importance of play-action

Sure, this information is covered before the former topics in the actual podcast, but throwing this huge chart at the top of the page wasn’t that aesthetically pleasing… so deal with it.

There is a lot of information here, but really just scroll down to the bottom to see the league averages. The guys at Football Outsiders put this chart together based off of 2013 data.

OffensePA PctRkwith PA (Pass/Scram)with PA (Passes only)No PADifferenceYds/PlayDVOAYds/PassDVOARkYds/PlayDVOARkYds/PlayDVOARkSEA34%18.959.2%8.751.6%46.519.4%92.539.8%4PHI31%28.448.6%8.648.5%67.130.0%51.418.6%11MIN29%36.9-5.8%7.0-4.3%245.7-5.0%241.2-0.8%22CAR29%46.120.7%6.120.5%156.217.9%11-0.12.7%21SF28%57.756.8%7.755.3%36.528.6%61.228.1%7WAS27%66.6-13.0%6.5-16.9%305.5-8.2%251.1-4.8%24OAK26%77.75.6%7.3-1.6%235.6-18.8%302.024.4%10NE25%88.839.9%8.839.9%75.525.4%83.214.4%14DEN25%911.189.7%11.290.1%16.953.4%14.236.3%5KC25%106.211.4%6.210.0%205.913.2%140.3-1.8%23JAC25%116.2-11.4%6.2-13.3%295.1-25.2%321.013.9%15NO24%127.328.3%7.327.7%117.140.8%30.2-12.5%27GB24%138.123.1%8.321.6%146.812.7%151.310.3%19DET23%148.426.2%8.426.0%126.48.6%192.017.6%12STL22%158.2-5.6%8.3-5.6%265.31.9%202.9-7.5%25NYJ21%165.1-20.9%5.1-21.9%316.1-3.7%23-1.0-17.2%30OffensePA PctRkwith PA (Pass/Scram)with PA (Passes only)No PADifferenceYds/PlayDVOAYds/PassDVOARkYds/PlayDVOARkYds/PlayDVOARkCHI20%177.312.1%7.412.9%197.136.4%40.2-24.3%32CLE20%187.325.6%7.325.0%135.2-15.0%282.140.6%3TB19%197.616.3%7.616.6%174.7-0.8%212.817.1%13HOU19%207.2-8.8%7.2-8.8%285.4-19.6%311.710.8%17CIN19%218.335.8%8.434.7%96.59.8%181.926.0%8IND19%227.222.1%7.319.2%166.311.7%161.010.4%18BUF16%235.3-17.9%5.4-27.2%325.6-10.1%26-0.3-7.8%26NYG15%246.8-5.8%6.8-5.8%275.9-17.6%291.011.8%16MIA14%257.350.0%7.450.7%55.4-0.9%222.050.9%1ARI14%267.915.4%7.915.4%186.410.7%171.54.8%20PIT13%277.44.1%7.30.0%226.426.5%71.0-22.4%31TEN13%286.00.5%5.6-5.1%256.515.9%12-0.4-15.4%29BAL13%298.230.5%8.230.1%105.4-11.9%272.842.4%2DAL13%306.839.0%6.839.0%86.414.5%130.424.6%9ATL13%316.35.3%6.35.3%216.218.6%100.1-13.3%28SD12%329.581.2%9.783.9%27.549.3%22.031.9%6NFL21%—7.520.9%7.519.5%—6.19.8%—1.411.1%—

Across the NFL, teams averaged more than TWICE as many yards from the play-action than from a standard pass play. It goes without saying that effective use of these types of plays is incredibly advantageous.

We hope you guys enjoyed this episode and subscribe on iTunes. Please follow us @AverageFanPOD and let us know if you have any topic ideas or comments.

Keep being average,

The Co-Host and the Co-Host
^the brown one     ^the not brown one