The myth of 'the run'
LAST WEEK, after the New England Patriots were done embarrassing the Indianapolis Colts, quarterback Tom Brady was asked how his team would beat Pittsburgh in today's AFC championship game. "We've got to go out there and try to do the same types of things we did tonight," said Brady. "Establish the run, maybe make a few plays in the passing game."
Steelers coach Bill Cowher repeated the theme when asked by reporters for his strategy against the Patriots. "It's no secret what we really want to do," said Cowher. "We like to try to establish a running game. . . ."
Hard-nosed coaches, star players, and the top NFL analysts agree: You have to establish the run to win. Look at a list of the teams that run the most often, starting with the Steelers, and you'll see a list of winning football teams. And when your running backs gain more than 100 yards on the ground, you're far more likely to win that game.
Since the Steelers run more often than any other team in the NFL, and today's weather conditions may favor more running than usual, the phrase "establish the run" will likely be repeated ad infinitum during the pregame analysis. But the conventional wisdom about establishing the run turns out to be a classic case of misinterpreting cause and effect. The clearest definition of "establishing the run" is giving your running backs as many carries as possible in the first quarter of the game. Even if you don't get too many yards on the ground early, say most analysts, winning teams need to keep running to wear the defense down.
The Steelers provide a good example. Their running backs had 127 carries in the first quarter this season, the most of any team in the league, and the team finished with the best record, 15-1.
But there's a problem. The team with the second-most carries in the first quarter was the Washington Redskins, which finished 6-10. Next come the Dallas Cowboys (6-10) and the Tennessee Titans (5-11). And the team with the fewest running back carries in the first quarter was the 13-3 Philadelphia Eagles. (New England was ninth.)
This year was no fluke. In 2003, the team with the most first-quarter runs was the 5-11 Atlanta Falcons. In 2002, it was the 4-12 Houston Texans.
So if teams that run early and often don't actually win any more games, how can it be that playoff teams always end up with more carries and running yards than non-playoff teams? The answer is that teams build up their rushing yardage totals in the fourth quarter, when they are trying to work time off the clock in order to solidify a win.
Because the game clock stops on an incomplete pass, but continues to run after a player with the ball is tackled in bounds, teams that are ahead shy away from throwing the ball. They want to avoid an incomplete that might stop the clock and leave more time for the opposing team to mount a comeback. The top two teams this season in fourth-quarter carries from running backs were the Steelers and Patriots. Nine teams ran the ball on more than 45 percent of their fourth-quarter plays, and all nine teams had winning records. In 2003, every single team that ran the ball on more than 40 percent of its fourth quarter plays had a winning record except for San Francisco.
Football experts hold up this season's first Pittsburgh-New England game, a 34-20 Pittsburgh victory, as an example of how important the running game can be. Pittsburgh ran the ball 49 times, New England only six – in the entire game. But Pittsburgh threw the ball as often as they ran with it in the first half: 18 passes, 19 runs. In the second half, the Steelers ran 30 times and passed only six.
So teams with high rushing totals aren't necessarily establishing their running game from the first snap onward. When a winning football team has a high rushing total, it is very likely they got many of those yards while running out the clock.
In short, with rare exceptions, teams don't win because they run. They run because they win.
Aaron Schatz is editor-in-chief of FootballOutsiders.com. He lives in Framingham.
