Weekly Commentary & Review #10

The NFL cycle for the run is back, as it has been for every offseason in theory, never in practice. Don't get distracted by strength-of-schedule stats and chart porn

This post looks at the storylines of the week, whether relevant articles, analyses or other news from the week that provide useful insight to absorb, or missing context to add.

Each NFL season gives pundits another chance to predict the running game rising from the ashes and some sort of cycles shifting in NFL play. In reality, the shift towards passing and away from running has been in a steady one-way move for decades, without any evidence of cycles.

Why does the success of SmashMouth football (RIP Steve Harwell) make media and former players/coaches salivate unlike the more impactful shift towards passing? It’s probably a some degree of contrarianism, but more of a systemic bias towards a “tougher” style of play. I highlighted last year on the Unexpected Points podcast an NFL Live segment on ESPN went from pointing out the objective facts that defenses were winning by limiting opponents’ passing, to spending the entire segment lamenting a 0.1 yards-per-carry increase in rushing and how defenses aren’t tough anyone. Even factual wins become mental losses if the ground game isn’t controlled.

Most recently, the Ringer’s Stephen Ruiz this week listed No. 2 of 23 NFL questions whether running the football is back. The simple answer to “no”, at least as it’s commonly understood. Running the ball has become a bigger part of the NFL in recent season for one reason only: there are more rushing quarterbacks in the NFL. The traditional, 2-yards-and-a-cloud-dust style of running still is generally inefficient, and would require a massive downshift in passing efficiency to make a real comeback at a lower opportunity cost.

2. Is running the football back?

The NFL will never return to being a run-first league, but a number of top offenses have succeeded in recent years with an attack built around an imposing run game. Philadelphia rode the run threat posed by Jalen Hurts and the NFL’s most expensive offensive line to the Super Bowl last season. The Lions finished fifth in scoring in 2022 thanks to their run game. Arthur Smith schemed up a top-10 offense in Atlanta with Marcus Mariota at quarterback. The Bears scored in droves late last year after they supercharged their run game with Justin Fields. The Chiefs overhauled their offense last offseason to get tougher on the ground. The Bills tried to do the same this offseason. And Kyle Shanahan’s offense was rejuvenated by a blockbuster trade for a running back, something that goes against the grain of modern NFL team building. This league will be dominated by top quarterbacks going forward—and the debate about running back value was revived in full force just this offseason. But even teams with an elite passer are pouring resources into their ground game. That has to mean something.

When Ruiz gives reasons that point to the return of the run, none really stand up even to basic scrutiny, which is almost always the case with arguments for rushing truthers. Arguments for running the ball can’t ever be evidence based; they can only rely on the possibility that there are intangible benefits that running the ball brings that you can’t measure. It’s kinda like believing in God. Either you have faith, or you don’t. Proving God exists with facts is folly.

So why do analysts give misleading facts to accompany the argument, because those who believe in the premise don’t really need to verify the facts. Again, it’s a vibes thing. Let walk through the claims in this one paragraph arguing a return of the run:

• “The Lions finished fifth in scoring in 2022 thanks to their run game”

Absolute scoring is mostly a bad stat, but in this case it’s not far from the more important per-play figure. The Detroit Lions were sixth in EPA per play, but the breakdown was fourth in EPA per dropback and 21st in EPA per designed run. you might think that it’s the volume at which the Lions ran that made the difference, but their passing rate over expectation in 2022 was -1.2%, or almost perfectly average. The Lions were good because they were good at passing.

• “Arthur Smith schemed up a top-10 offense in Atlanta with Marcus Mariota at quarterback”

The Atlanta Falcons were actually good at running the ball, so that’s a better start for this claim. But even at +0.01 EPA per play rushing the ball with Mariota (Weeks 1-13), that would rank 17th in overall offensive efficiency. Also, the Falcons were 17th in EPA per play with Mariota, so whatever metric says top-10 is probably, at the very least, not ideal for measuring offensive goodness.

• “The Bears scored in droves late last year after they supercharged their run game with Justin Fields”

Props for the ambiguous usage of “droves”, but this still can’t align with any understood definition of the word. In the last five starts for Fields, the Bears scored 10, 13, 20, 19 and 24 points. For non-math majors, that’s 17.2 points per game. During those weeks, the Bears ranked 26th in total EPA per play, 23rd in rushing EPA per play. Droves of scoring I do not see. Now, this was a convenient cutoff by me (two can play this game!), with the Bears scoring 30, 32 and 29 the three prior weeks. But are Weeks 10-12 “late last year”? Even those three weeks required two 60-plus yard runs from Fields and an 50-plus yard Cole Kmet touchdown to hit those figure, not exactly the evidence of sustainable running game return.

• “The Chiefs overhauled their offense last offseason to get tougher on the ground. The Bills tried to do the same this offseason”

I’m honestly not sure what this means in any practical way. Neither team spent much on actual running backs, so should we assume that any additions to the offensive line are “overhauling” highly successful offense to shift towards less efficient plays? I think not. Maybe they want to run a little more theoretically, but when the rubber hits the road they continue to be two of the very top passing volume teams in the NFL.