Article: The secret to the Rams run blocking... McVay

[Psycho_X]

Interesting article. Kind of a no brainer really but at least he came up with some nice stats to back it. But basically... the less defenders in the box the better you run. Which is the whole point of McVay's offense. The article didn't paste well so had to cut out all the graphics.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/feature...king-success-isnt-the-linemen-its-sean-mcvay/

The Secret To The Rams’ Blocking Success Isn’t The Linemen. It’s Sean McVay.
By Josh Hermsmeyer


Todd Gurley began the 2018 season on fire, accumulating yards and scoring touchdowns at a historic pace. Despite missing the final two games of the season, the second-highest-paid running back in the NFL led the league in rushing touchdowns and finished fourth in yards from scrimmage. And yet, Gurley may start Super Bowl LIII as a backup. Since returning from injury, the Rams star has been outplayed by fill-in journeyman running back C.J. Anderson, who has more or less relegated Gurley to a change-of-pace role.

How is this even possible? How can a player go from being the league’s premier running back to backing up a guy who was cut by the Denver Broncos in May, the Carolina Panthers in November and the Oakland Raiders in December? We’ve seen backup running backs fill in admirably before — when the Chiefs released star RB Kareem Hunt this season, Damien Williams was just as, if not more, productive1 — but it’s hard to remember it happening to a back as seemingly indispensable as Gurley, let alone on a stage as big as the Rams are on now.


One explanation is that the Los Angeles Rams offensive line is just very, very good, and Gurley has been reaping the rewards. But I think there’s another factor at work — one that has more to do with the head coach than with the players on the field.

Some football observers have gone so far as to suggest that the Rams 2018 run-blocking unit might be the best in the history of the NFL. While offensive lines are perhaps the trickiest position to evaluate with data, there’s actual evidence for this scorching-hot take using a metric created by Football Outsiders called adjusted line yards. Adjusted line yards are calculated by looking at each running play and using a formula to attempt to assign the proper credit to the offensive line. The metric punishes blockers for losses on run plays, credits the hog mollies with half of the yardage on runs from 5 to 10 yards, and gives the line zero credit for any field position gained 11 yards beyond the line of scrimmage.2 By this measure, the Rams are the best-performing line in at least the past 22 years, the period for which data is available.3
But one problem with adjusted line yards is that the metric doesn’t account for the number of defenders the offensive line has to face during any given play, which has huge implications for how effective a rush will be. Running the ball when there are seven or eight defenders near the line of scrimmage is much harder than running against six or fewer. If a team runs more of its plays against light fronts, we should expect it to have more success in general. We’d also expect the offensive line in particular to have an easier time opening holes against defensive fronts that have fewer, rather than more, defensive players near the line of scrimmage that they have to block.

Looking at 10 years’ worth of data from ESPN’s Sports & Information Group,4 that’s exactly what we find. If we split the field up into 10-yard chunks, there isn’t an area of the gridiron that exists where running against seven or more men in the box is easier than running against six or fewer.


In fact, if all you know about a running play in the NFL is the approximate field position of a team and the number of defenders near the line of scrimmage, you’re able to predict the leaguewide yards per carry with an extraordinarily high degree of accuracy: 96 percent of yards-per-carry totals are explained by the offense’s field position and the number of men the opponent has in the box. How many defenders are in the box is almost certainly the most important factor in determining rushing success in football, so it follows that we should try to account for it.


But an NFL offense is not just at the mercy of the defense when it comes to running against stacked or light boxes. Play-callers actually have a large degree of control over how many defenders near the line of scrimmage they will have to face. When an offense trots out three or more wide receivers, the defense nearly always matches with an equal number of defensive backs, which limits the number of linebackers on the field and lightens up the box.

Since the 2009 season, the number of rushing plays that faced six or fewer defenders in the box has skyrocketed. This is a reflection of an evolving offensive philosophy, not a defensive one. The increasing number of light boxes was a response to the massive shift by NFL offenses to the “11 personnel”: 1 running back, 1 tight end and — most importantly — three wide receivers. Over the course of the past decade, the 11 personnel became the most popular personnel package in the NFL. It’s now the base NFL offense. And nickel5 is the current base defense — a sea change from the previous decade when 3-4 and 4-3 defensive fronts were the norm.


Returning to Los Angeles, the Rams used the 11 personnel more than any other team in the NFL in 2018. So it’s possible that instead of the Rams being generationally superior at run blocking — or instead of Gurley being a one-of-a-kind game-altering running back — the Rams’ offensive line just faced fewer crowded fronts than other teams. This would at least provide some context for their overwhelming success — and help explain how Anderson could Wally Pipp an MVP candidate in the playoffs.

To find out, I created a reasonable facsimile of Football Outsiders’ adjusted line yards and then calculated the number of yards each team earned either over or under expected based on the number of men in the box and the field position from which the play originated.6
Both Football Outsiders’ line yards and my version agree that the Rams had the best rushing offensive line unadjusted for box count. When we look at line yards over expected after accounting for box defenders, however, the Rams aren’t the best run-blocking offensive line ever. In fact, they’re not even in the top four since 2009.

The Rams have the fifth-best offensive line since 2009
NFL offensive lines by two metrics for regular-season adjusted line yards, yards accounting for the number of defenders in the box and yards over expected based on defenders in the box, 2009-2018

TEAM SEASON 538 ADJ. LINE YDS 538 BOX ADJ. LINE YDS BOX ADJ. LINE YDS OVER EXPECTED FOOTBALL OUTSIDERS ADJ. LINE YDS
1 San Francisco 2012 3.19 2.57 0.63 4.50
2 New England 2010 3.32 2.73 0.60 4.82
3 New Orleans 2011 3.31 2.73 0.59 4.95
4 Jacksonville 2010 3.20 2.62 0.59 4.63
5 Los Angeles 2018 3.31 2.83 0.51 5.49
6 Miami 2009 3.01 2.55 0.47 4.44
7 New Orleans 2018 3.12 2.69 0.45 5.19
8 New England 2017 3.08 2.65 0.44 5.05
9 New York 2010 3.17 2.73 0.43 4.56
10 Washington 2012 3.16 2.74 0.43 4.24
11 Baltimore 2018 3.12 2.71 0.43 4.61
12 Carolina 2011 3.11 2.71 0.42 4.32
13 New England 2018 3.04 2.65 0.41 5.03
14 Houston 2010 3.01 2.61 0.41 4.52
15 Seattle 2012 3.14 2.78 0.37 4.42
16 Kansas City 2010 3.06 2.70 0.37 4.44
17 Dallas 2009 2.98 2.60 0.37 4.48
18 New England 2009 3.06 2.72 0.36 4.43
19 Tennessee 2016 3.05 2.70 0.36 4.63
*Box-adjusted line yards adjusts for number of defenders faced near the line of scrimmage.

SOURCE: ESPN STATS & INFORMATION GROUP

The 2012 San Francisco 49ers — who were 5 yards from winning a Super Bowl under Jim Harbaugh and QB Colin Kaepernick — take the honor of fielding the best run-blocking offensive line since 2009. Thinking back on the number of big plays Frank Gore broke off against stacked boxes, the ranking certainly passes the smell test. The 2010 Jaguars offensive line, ranking just ahead of the Rams, was also formidable: It opened massive holes for Maurice Jones-Drew and Rashad Jennings, who combined for nine touchdowns and 1,783 yards on the ground despite QB David Garrard doing nothing to scare opposing defenses away from crowding the line and trying to stop the run.

The Rams still fielded the fifth best offensive line in our time frame and easily the best this year. But much of the credit for the success of the running game should probably go not to Gurley, Anderson or the Rams offensive line, but to Sean McVay. The second-year coach has put his players in the very best position to succeed through his scheme and play-calling. Running the ball out of the 11 personnel helps dictate to the defense and lightens the box for his linemen, allowing them to open holes even thrice-cut journeyman running backs can run through.

While league observers can fall into the trap of over-weighting the effect of coaching, in some cases the credit and praise is warranted. The distribution of talent across teams is so even, it’s really not so much a matter of who you run the ball with — or behind — it’s a matter of when you run it. McVay chooses his spots as well as anyone in the NFL, and the Rams are in Super Bowl LIII because of it.

 

[Ram65]

Interesting. The Rams offensive line is one of the best right now. I don't see them as a run it down your throat type of line. The great thing about the Rams run game is that teams can't focus on run when they pass out of the same formation. The combination of McVay's scheme and Rams talent makes them hard to defend.

Edit: I don't exactly get all those numbers but, understand the concept.

 

[BonifayRam]

https://www.si.com/nfl/2019/02/01/super-bowl-los-angeles-rams-cj-anderson-todd-gurley
Why C.J. Anderson Is a Better Fit for the Rams' Offense Than Todd Gurley Right Now
By Andy Benoit/ February 01, 2019

ATLANTA—Walking into the tunnel at halftime in Week 16 at Arizona, Rams veteran center John Sullivan pulled aside C.J. Anderson, who had signed just days earlier, and asked the one question that has followed the soon-to-be 28-year-old running back since: “How on Earth were you available!?”

Anderson’s cliff-noted answer: He was wedged out by younger (cheaper) running backs in Denver, never got on the field in Carolina thanks to Christian McCaffrey playing 91.3 percent of the snaps and was sacrificed after just one week in Oakland when injuries demanded reinforcements along the offensive line.

The Rams only signed Anderson because, with No. 2 tailback Malcolm Brown seriously injuring his clavicle in Week 13 at Detroit, they eventually needed someone to fill in while Todd Gurley nursed a knee injury in Weeks 16 and 17. Not a soul would have guessed Anderson could play well enough to supplant Gurley, who over the summer signed a deal worth $45 million guaranteed. But in the NFC Championship, that’s exactly what happened.

The Rams insist Gurley’s injured right knee is healed, and recall that in his first game back—the divisional round stomping of Dallas—he looked vibrant, rushing for 115 yards on 16 carries. (For what it’s worth, Anderson that night had 123 yards on 23 carries.)

There’s an explanation for L.A.’s unlikely shift in backfield power: Gurley might be the more talented all-around player, but stylistically, Anderson is the better schematic fit. The Rams employ a classic outside zone running scheme. On outside zone runs, a ballcarrier directs his run toward the perimeter, but with the hope that he’ll find an inside cutback lane along the way. Anderson is great at spotting and exploiting those cutback lanes. He runs low to the ground with keen vision and deceptively loose hips, which allow him to work through small cracks and elude defenders within confined areas.

Gurley, on the other hand, is a higher-velocity runner but with buildup speed. His top gear bests Anderson’s by several notches, but it takes Gurley longer to reach that top gear. (This is why he’s more feared running outside than inside; outside runs take longer to develop.) Gurley also has tighter hips. This isn’t to say he’s stiff, but fluid change-of-direction has never been his forte. Consider the entirety of Gurley’s traits and it’s easy to understand why he’s more feared as an outside runner than inside runner. Outside runs lend more time for building velocity.

The problem is, outside runs are not consistently available in the NFL. They’re especially not available against the Patriots, who put a premium on setting the edge. When you set the edge properly, the widest-aligned line of scrimmage defender acts as a wall that forces the ball to stay inside. When asked this week, “Besides setting the edge, what’s the biggest key for you guys stopping the outside zone run game?” Patriots defensive lineman Trey Flowers still instinctively answered “setting the edge.”

Flowers told me the same thing about L.A.’s ground game as dozens of other players this week: the Rams call the same plays for Gurley and Anderson, but those plays pan out differently because the two are such different runners.

Typically what keeps a recently-signed running back from vaulting to the top of the depth chart is pass protection. It can be difficult to pick up an offense’s blocking rules, and the consequences for not picking them up terrifies offensive coaches.

But “we’re in our first pressure meeting and it was very clear from the start that C.J. had a lot of thoughts on protection,” Sullivan said. “He had opinions, he was willing to communicate them, he was willing to listen to other people, listen to how we see it in our system. Go back to the Arizona game. Look at the job he did without the ball in his hands. He was amazing right from the start.”

In the other phase of the passing game—receiving—Anderson is not as threatening as Gurley, but this season Gurley himself has not quite been as threatening as he was a year ago. His receiving yards have dropped from 52 per game to 41, as the Rams have not featured him on designer backfield screens as aggressively as last year. That’s almost certainly an unintended byproduct of this offense’s evolution, not a philosophical shift from Sean McVay. But however it shakes out, Los Angeles’s passing game has become subtly less dependent on Gurley.

Anderson has praised McVay and L.A.’s staff for putting players in position to succeed. “They’re not asking us to do something we have not done or maybe can’t do,” he said. “They’re not even testing those waters.” Anderson also said this week, “This is Todd’s football team.”Long-term, yes. But don’t be surprised if this Sunday it again looks more like C.J.’s.

 

[nighttrain]

ehhhhhhhhhhhhh