Football Dogma

I love football. I love the chess match. I love the concept of getting 11 people to work together towards a common goal, even it it means self-sacrifice. Indeed, football is the ultimate team game.

We folks in Indianapolis have long been spoiled by watching one of the great franchises in the sport. But, just for curiosities sake, how does a team consistently win games in the NFL? Turn on ESPN sometime, and you'll hear a certain dogma.

Now, to be fair, ESPN employs some pretty good former NFL players, while I was not a very good former high school player. To be sure, Mark Schlereth, Merrill Hodge, Darren Woodson, and Co. know the game very well. They have played it at a high level and won Super Bowls. But one of my recent pet peeves has been watching the veins on Mark Schlereth's head pop out as he breathlessly proclaims that a football team has to get physical and run the football, while stopping the other team from running the football on the football field during the football game. As a side note, I love how he assumes he is talking to an audience of goldfish, so he must remind us several times mid-sentence that is talking about the sport of football.

At any rate, this has often annoyed me because these sermons come at the expense of the Colts. Every year we hear the analysts put the Colts down after both wins and losses in which they give up a bunch of rushing yards, or fail to run the ball many times. Obviously, despite the doomsday predictions, the Colts remain successful year in and year out.

But do the analysts have a point in most other cases. It is fair to say that many rules might not apply to the Colts because they have Peyton Manning. Do you HAVE to run the ball well and stop the run to win a Super Bowl or, at least, your division? I visited Pro Football Reference's website, looked up team stats from 2000-2009, and recorded data on every playoff team from that time frame.

Let's talk offense first. A quick glance at the list shows that the best running team in the league (note that the official stat the ranks the teams is rushing yards), made the playoffs 7 out of 10 seasons. However, the average rush offense rank for Super Bowl winners was only 13.5, while the average rank for Super Bowl runner-ups was 16th. And the story has only gotten worse for the Wish-Bone fans recently, as only 2 out of the last 8 Super Bowl teams have posted top 10 rushing offenses.

The playoffs, though, can be a bit misleading for a strategy's actual success. After all, late season injuries, inclement weather, the extra time and focus to prepare for a teams attack, and just the "ball didn't bounce our way" factor that exists in single games can make trends a bit harder to identify. So looking at division winners should provide a more accurate view. Over the course of an entire season, some of those hard to control for factors should average themselves out. For this analysis, I took out the 2000 season because that was the last year before the new divisional alignment. There have been 72 division winners since 2001, and their average rush offense rank is 13.2.

Does this mean that a team need be only average at running the ball to win games? It would even be accurate to point out that in some of these cases a team's rank is probably elevated over their actual effectiveness. Indeed if a team is at a elite level, they are probably ahead late in games. Being ahead late in games means running the ball a bit more to keep the clock rolling. Even so, an average ranking shoots some holes in the story that you absolutely have to run the ball well to win.

I would make that same argument, to an even greater degree, in the case of rush defense. Most fans are familiar with the strategy of running the ball early and often to "wear out" a defense. As the game ticks down into the last quarter or so, a team should be churning out the most yards rushing, as they are facing a tired opponent. But elite level teams are often far enough ahead late, that their opponents can't run the ball because of the clock. In 2007, for example, the Patriots boasted the 10th ranked run defense in the league. They were a very good defense, no doubt, but it helped that they lead many of those games by 3 touchdowns or more in the 4th quarter.

The average rush defense rank for Super Bowl winners since 2000 is 10.2. For the sake of clarity though, I should point out that in 2006, the Colts had the 32nd ranked rush defense in the league. Therefore, throwing out that statistical outlier, the average rank drops to 7th. Runner-ups boasted an average of 9.9, while division winners posted a 11.6 ranking.

What do these stats show? Simply that you can win without running the ball and stopping the run at a very high level, but your chances certainly do improve if you perform at an average rate at least. Passing tells a similar story, though it has been more important recently. The average pass offense ranking for Super Bowl winners is 14.7, and losers is 7.2. However, of the last 8 Super Bowl teams, 5 have posted top 10 passing offenses (compared to 2 posting top 10 rushing offenses).

So are the analysts wrong? Well, the stats can still be misleading. While a running play is defined as a underhanded pitch or handoff to a player, is it really that different from a screen pass or 2 yard slant or hitch? The Colts often use wide receiver screens or quick slants in place of traditional run-between-the-tackles kind of plays, but they still act as running plays in that offense.

Whatever the case may be, Colts fans shouldn't fret when the analysts proclaim that they can't win due to a bad performance or two stopping the run. We've been here before, seen this movie, and still won. Now you have the stats to back that up. Of course, as the old saying goes, 'there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.'