I wanted to take a look at the stats because I feel like most of our running plays go right up the middle for zero yards.
Here are some stats regarding our running game. I know we have played tough competition, but our OL injuries and inability to run the ball are really not helping the offense.
Here are our rushing stats (by the main ball carrier(s) in the 4 games I’m referencing:
Cowboys: Breece 4 carries for 9 yards (2.3 avg) / Dalvin Cook 4 carries for 7 yards (1.8 avg)
Patriots: Breece 12 carries for 18 yards (1.5 avg) / Cook 8 carries for 18 yards (2.3 avg)
Eagles: Breece 12 for 39 yards (3.3 avg)
Giants: Breece 12 for 17 yards (1.4 avg)
EVEN IN the games where we ran the ball well, it was really Breece having one super long run boosting the stats.
Chiefs: Breece 6 carries for 56 yards but a LONG of 43 (avg 9.3 ypc but aside from the long run 2.6 ypc), Cook 5 carries for 16 yards (3.2 avg)
Brocnos: Breece 22 carries for 177 yards, LONG of 72 (avg 8 YPC, subtracting the long run = 5 YPC) Cook 6 carries for 23 yards (3.8 ypc)
Bills: Breece 10 carries for 127 yards but a LONG of 83 (avg 12.7 ypc, subtracting the long run =4.8 ypc) Cook 13 carries for 33 yards (2.5 yards per carry)
Our total for the whole team is 157 carries for 763 yards. Good enough for a 3rd rank 4.9 YPC in the league.
However, if you remove Breece’s 3 long runs (83,72,43) - we are averaging just 3.6 YPC which is near the bottom of the league. Its actually worse if you only look at Breece’s and Cook’s carries (zach has been a decent runner): Breece (subtracting the longest 3 runs) 75 carries for 245 yards (3.2 avg) Cook 41 carries 114 yards (2.8 yards per carry). Combined ~3.09 yards per carry (would be worst YPC in league)
Takeaways:
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Breece has a special sort of explosion to generate these long runs.
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If Breece doesn’t have one of his special runs, on average, our runs go nowhere.
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No More COOK - Already happening/happened
Obviously, these stats could be affected my our injured offensive line and the fact we have our backup in at QB (defense stacking the box), but you would think we would be able to do a little bit better on average. Curious to what others think.
The whole reason I made this post was because while watching I felt like 95% of our runs have been right up the middle for zero yards and that’s pretty much what they are.
Our line is garbage and they attack the box against us bc nobody has faith in ZW to beat them in the air