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After 48 games of the 2013 NFL season, offenses were averaging 39.5 passes and 26.2 runs per game. Should those averages hold up, it will result in the most passes and fewest runs in NFL history. The 247.5 net passing yards per game would smash last year's record (231.3).
It's been a slow decay, but we may be experiencing the death of the running game as an integral part of winning football games.
Things have been trending this way for years, and it's emerged both on the field and off. In front offices, we've seen it in the reduction of running backs selected with high draft picks while teams have traded up to take even middling quarterback prospects. Between the sidelines, we've seen the pass ratio grow even higher from 2012's record -- 57.65 percent -- to 60.12 percent through Week 3 of 2013. That doesn't even include all the called passes that turn into scrambles by quarterbacks.
Looking at the league-wide numbers for the first three weeks of past seasons, we have seen the running game get off to a slow start before, but the pass has never been so in vogue.
Some would say the latest passing revolution started in 2004 after the reinforcement of illegal contact. That season there were 31 100-yard rushing performances and 17 300-yard passing games through three weeks. This season, we have seen just 14 100-yard rushing performances (lowest in 32-team era) and 30 times a quarterback has hit 300 yards passing (second only to 2011's 34).
The 300-yard passing game used to be considered the result of a guy playing catch-up in a losing effort. Now it's the expected winning performance from the best quarterbacks in the league. It's almost gotten too easy to throw short passes as substitutes for the run that can gain more yards than the typical handoff.
On Sunday against Arizona, Drew Brees was 16-of-25 passing for 182 yards and two touchdowns at halftime. That would have been a good full game for someone like Troy Aikman. The interesting part was Brees handed the ball off just three times -- for minus-five yards.
So much for the run setting up the pass.
As teams have put a premium on the passing game, the necessity for a franchise-caliber quarterback has similarly escalated. For teams without said star QB, winning behind a running foundation is difficult. And we're seeing that play out early in 2013.
Chip Kelly dominated with the running game at Oregon and has brought it to the Eagles, who lead the league with 209 rushing yards per game and an absurd 6.6 yards per carry (Michael Vick's scrambles help). However, after Sunday's game in Denver against the league's best passing attack, the Eagles may be 1-3. No one is going to view Kelly's system as a game-changer as long as Philadelphia is not winning. (And he'll need a better defense to win.)
The personnel in the backfield doesn't really matter much either. You can have the best running back in the world -- Adrian Peterson -- and still sit at 0-3. The Vikings were just 4-4 when he rushed for 1,313 yards in an eight-game stretch last year on his way to the MVP award. In his career (including playoffs), the Vikings are just 48-48 (.500) when he plays. Despite his amazing individual performance, the net result for the team is mediocrity defined.
If a great running system and top running back cannot get the job done, then we have to ask: Just how important is running to winning games in a pass-happy league that favors the quarterback?
The first step is to define what an effective running game is. Total yards are misleading, as teams run the ball because they are winning the game and abandon it when they are behind. Yards per attempt is a great stat for the passing game (0.59 correlation with winning percentage since 1970), so naturally we would expect yards per carry to be an important stat for success too.
But that's just not the case. While it may speak well of an individual running back's worth, team rushing yards per carry has just a 0.17 correlation to winning percentage since the merger. That is a weak relationship. Of the top 20 teams in yards per carry since 1970, just three won a playoff game, and it took a miracle touchdown pass -- the Immaculate Reception to Franco Harris (1972 Steelers) and Steve Young's last-second pass to Terrell Owens (1998 49ers) -- for two of those teams to advance.
We can definitely do better than yards per carry.
At Football Outsiders, the key efficiency metric is Defense-adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA). This can be used to evaluate each unit of a team by looking at every play of the season and comparing it to league-average baselines with adjustments for situation and opponent.
Sometimes a team with generally bad rushing numbers may have an effective running game when analyzed by DVOA, which will reward a seven-yard run on third-and-3 more than a seven-yard run on second-and-20, for example.
To evaluate the importance of passing in the modern NFL, we can start by asking a simple question: When you perform well in a specific area, how often do you win? The chart below displays that correlation in terms of DVOA, YPC and YPA for two nine-year periods (1995-03 and 2004-12). (Note: Rushing DVOA includes all rushing and not just the running backs.) The closer to 1.00, the more important that factor is to winning.
Nothing correlates more highly to winning games than passing DVOA for an offense, especially since 2004. So again, we see nothing is more important than having a good quarterback and that rushing yards per carry fails to be significant.
What about the adage: "You have to run to set up the pass?" Where the run and pass are supposed to mesh is in the play-action game, yet we found no evidence that a team must be good at running the ball to be effective with play-action. Most defenders instinctively bite on the fake. No matter how bad his running game was, Peyton Manning continues to use and thrive with the play-action fake.
The correlation coefficient between rushing DVOA and play-action passing DVOA (differential from other pass plays) since 2007 is minus-0.04, which means there's really no relationship at all between the two. If you want to use play-action without the run support, you can do it. Just sell the fake really well and protect the quarterback.
But is there a threshold for how poor a run game can be for a successful team? Not really.
Getting to the postseason with a bad running game does not seem like much of a problem anymore. The 2008 Cardinals, 2009 Colts and 2011 Giants all reached the Super Bowl despite ranking in the bottom three in rushing yards.
In 1999, the Rams had 45 handoffs for 108 yards in three playoff games when they won the Super Bowl behind Kurt Warner. That's the extreme example, but it is still proof of succeeding in the playoffs without a rushing attack.
Since 1991, 74 teams have won at least 10 games despite having a negative rushing DVOA. The lowest Super Bowl winner is the 2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who at minus-12.3 percent DVOA ranked 28th in the league that season. However, they did have the league's stingiest defense, especially against the pass.
A quarterback can have many friends, but his best friend is a good defense, not a good running game. If you can get to the playoffs and have a quarterback play well, like we have seen with Joe Flacco, Eli Manning, Aaron Rodgers and Brees the past four years, then the second key ingredient is for the defense to make enough plays and stops.
Right now, the Ravens (28th) and Saints (27th) rank poorly in rushing DVOA, but should they make the playoffs, there's no reason a player like Ray Rice or Pierre Thomas cannot be effective for a game or two. Rice's only good game last postseason was in Denver -- the game the Ravens never escape without the miracle pass to Jacoby Jones.
The NFL will never fully abandon the running game, but anyone still preaching "run the ball and stop the run" is living in the past. For teams with poor ground games through Week 3, that should make the future a little brighter.
After 48 games of the 2013 NFL season, offenses were averaging 39.5 passes and 26.2 runs per game. Should those averages hold up, it will result in the most passes and fewest runs in NFL history. The 247.5 net passing yards per game would smash last year's record (231.3).
It's been a slow decay, but we may be experiencing the death of the running game as an integral part of winning football games.
Things have been trending this way for years, and it's emerged both on the field and off. In front offices, we've seen it in the reduction of running backs selected with high draft picks while teams have traded up to take even middling quarterback prospects. Between the sidelines, we've seen the pass ratio grow even higher from 2012's record -- 57.65 percent -- to 60.12 percent through Week 3 of 2013. That doesn't even include all the called passes that turn into scrambles by quarterbacks.
Looking at the league-wide numbers for the first three weeks of past seasons, we have seen the running game get off to a slow start before, but the pass has never been so in vogue.
Some would say the latest passing revolution started in 2004 after the reinforcement of illegal contact. That season there were 31 100-yard rushing performances and 17 300-yard passing games through three weeks. This season, we have seen just 14 100-yard rushing performances (lowest in 32-team era) and 30 times a quarterback has hit 300 yards passing (second only to 2011's 34).
The 300-yard passing game used to be considered the result of a guy playing catch-up in a losing effort. Now it's the expected winning performance from the best quarterbacks in the league. It's almost gotten too easy to throw short passes as substitutes for the run that can gain more yards than the typical handoff.
On Sunday against Arizona, Drew Brees was 16-of-25 passing for 182 yards and two touchdowns at halftime. That would have been a good full game for someone like Troy Aikman. The interesting part was Brees handed the ball off just three times -- for minus-five yards.
So much for the run setting up the pass.
As teams have put a premium on the passing game, the necessity for a franchise-caliber quarterback has similarly escalated. For teams without said star QB, winning behind a running foundation is difficult. And we're seeing that play out early in 2013.
Chip Kelly dominated with the running game at Oregon and has brought it to the Eagles, who lead the league with 209 rushing yards per game and an absurd 6.6 yards per carry (Michael Vick's scrambles help). However, after Sunday's game in Denver against the league's best passing attack, the Eagles may be 1-3. No one is going to view Kelly's system as a game-changer as long as Philadelphia is not winning. (And he'll need a better defense to win.)
The personnel in the backfield doesn't really matter much either. You can have the best running back in the world -- Adrian Peterson -- and still sit at 0-3. The Vikings were just 4-4 when he rushed for 1,313 yards in an eight-game stretch last year on his way to the MVP award. In his career (including playoffs), the Vikings are just 48-48 (.500) when he plays. Despite his amazing individual performance, the net result for the team is mediocrity defined.
If a great running system and top running back cannot get the job done, then we have to ask: Just how important is running to winning games in a pass-happy league that favors the quarterback?
The first step is to define what an effective running game is. Total yards are misleading, as teams run the ball because they are winning the game and abandon it when they are behind. Yards per attempt is a great stat for the passing game (0.59 correlation with winning percentage since 1970), so naturally we would expect yards per carry to be an important stat for success too.
But that's just not the case. While it may speak well of an individual running back's worth, team rushing yards per carry has just a 0.17 correlation to winning percentage since the merger. That is a weak relationship. Of the top 20 teams in yards per carry since 1970, just three won a playoff game, and it took a miracle touchdown pass -- the Immaculate Reception to Franco Harris (1972 Steelers) and Steve Young's last-second pass to Terrell Owens (1998 49ers) -- for two of those teams to advance.
We can definitely do better than yards per carry.
At Football Outsiders, the key efficiency metric is Defense-adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA). This can be used to evaluate each unit of a team by looking at every play of the season and comparing it to league-average baselines with adjustments for situation and opponent.
Sometimes a team with generally bad rushing numbers may have an effective running game when analyzed by DVOA, which will reward a seven-yard run on third-and-3 more than a seven-yard run on second-and-20, for example.
To evaluate the importance of passing in the modern NFL, we can start by asking a simple question: When you perform well in a specific area, how often do you win? The chart below displays that correlation in terms of DVOA, YPC and YPA for two nine-year periods (1995-03 and 2004-12). (Note: Rushing DVOA includes all rushing and not just the running backs.) The closer to 1.00, the more important that factor is to winning.
Nothing correlates more highly to winning games than passing DVOA for an offense, especially since 2004. So again, we see nothing is more important than having a good quarterback and that rushing yards per carry fails to be significant.
What about the adage: "You have to run to set up the pass?" Where the run and pass are supposed to mesh is in the play-action game, yet we found no evidence that a team must be good at running the ball to be effective with play-action. Most defenders instinctively bite on the fake. No matter how bad his running game was, Peyton Manning continues to use and thrive with the play-action fake.
The correlation coefficient between rushing DVOA and play-action passing DVOA (differential from other pass plays) since 2007 is minus-0.04, which means there's really no relationship at all between the two. If you want to use play-action without the run support, you can do it. Just sell the fake really well and protect the quarterback.
But is there a threshold for how poor a run game can be for a successful team? Not really.
Getting to the postseason with a bad running game does not seem like much of a problem anymore. The 2008 Cardinals, 2009 Colts and 2011 Giants all reached the Super Bowl despite ranking in the bottom three in rushing yards.
In 1999, the Rams had 45 handoffs for 108 yards in three playoff games when they won the Super Bowl behind Kurt Warner. That's the extreme example, but it is still proof of succeeding in the playoffs without a rushing attack.
Since 1991, 74 teams have won at least 10 games despite having a negative rushing DVOA. The lowest Super Bowl winner is the 2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who at minus-12.3 percent DVOA ranked 28th in the league that season. However, they did have the league's stingiest defense, especially against the pass.
A quarterback can have many friends, but his best friend is a good defense, not a good running game. If you can get to the playoffs and have a quarterback play well, like we have seen with Joe Flacco, Eli Manning, Aaron Rodgers and Brees the past four years, then the second key ingredient is for the defense to make enough plays and stops.
Right now, the Ravens (28th) and Saints (27th) rank poorly in rushing DVOA, but should they make the playoffs, there's no reason a player like Ray Rice or Pierre Thomas cannot be effective for a game or two. Rice's only good game last postseason was in Denver -- the game the Ravens never escape without the miracle pass to Jacoby Jones.
The NFL will never fully abandon the running game, but anyone still preaching "run the ball and stop the run" is living in the past. For teams with poor ground games through Week 3, that should make the future a little brighter.
