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Who stole my running game?!?!

A truly bizarre event has taken place across NFL offenses since last year, and no one really knows what has caused it. The trend I am referring to is the drastic increase since last season in the effectiveness of the passing game, with a fairly large drop-off in the effectiveness of rushing attacks leaguewide. Let’s take a look at the numbers:

We’ll start off with a look at the increase in effectiveness of aerial assaults in the league. This season in the NFL, SEVEN, yes 7, quarterbacks have thrown for over 4,000 yards, and an eighth, Matt Hasselbeck, fell a mere 34 yards short of making it to 4,000 yards. That is right… Nearly ONE FOURTH of NFL offenses this season were led by a quarterback who posted nearly 4,000 yards, an unprecedented number.

Last season, only FIVE quarterbacks threw for 4,000 or more yards, with no one else coming within 100 yards. And last year was no fluke. I checked back as far as I could, and never before have any more than 5 quarterbacks thrown for over 4,000 yards in the same season as each other. As far as I can tell, this was a new record for the NFL.

Completion percentages are also up in the NFL. This is the first year ever that quarterbacks have cumulatively acquired a league-wide completion percentage over 60%.

And touchdowns are ALSO up greatly, both in quarterbacks and their top (in some cases top 2) receivers. This year, 10 quarterbacks threw for over 25 touchdowns, with 4 exceeding THIRTY touchdown passes. Again going back to 1995, the only other season nearing this one was 2004, when 9 QBs threw for 25+ TDs, and 3 exceeded 30 (2004 also appears to be an anomaly, a year in which exceptional quarterback play was rampant, including Daunte Culpepper and Peyton Manning having arguably the best combined season ever for the league’s top 2 QBs.) Anyway, outside of 2004, since 1995 there have never been more than 6 QBs in one season to pass for over 25 touchdowns, and there have never been more than three to exceed 30 in one season (and it should be noted that, if it didn’t happen since 1995 it PROBABLY, though not definitely, did not happen ever), up until this season.

The wealth has also spread to receivers, who have EXPLODED into unprecendented levels this year in terms of scoring. Last season, Terrell Owens led the NFL with 13 touchdown catches, followed by Marvin Harrison with 12, and three more receivers who had 10. THIS season, Randy Moss leads the NFL with a WHOPPING 23 catches for scores (an NFL record, for those of you who haven’t yet heard ;-), while Braylon Edwards had 16 scoring grabs, and Terrell Owens had 15, despite missing a game. And that ain’t all. 8 more receivers had 10 or more touchdown snags, meaning 11 total players had double digit scoring grabs, as opposed to five last season. And that doesn’t even include Marvin Harrison, usually good for 10-13 TDs, missing most of the season, where he likely would have made it 12 players this year who had 10+ TD catches.

This anomaly seemed too big to be real, and sure enough 2206 HAD been a bit of a down year for wide receivers. But still… No other year I could find approached the quality of this season’s receiving. I mean, we had a tight end with 11 touchdowns, and even low budget receivers were getting in on the action (Reggie Williams of Jacksonville had 10)!!

So what explains this occurrence? ESPN.com’s John Clayton recently wrote an article about this, and explained the happening as a cause of a new rule implanted last off season. Under the new rule, or rather a guideline, referees were told to reduce the number of holding penalties they called on offensive linemen. Clayton explains this as allowing quarterbacks more time in the pocket, and thus more time to make plays. Certainly this is possible. Quarterbacks WERE more well protected this year than normal, although it is not a drastic change. In fact, as recently as 2003, quarterbacks at the top and bottom of the NFL had better protection than this past season.

So I don’t think the holding rule is the whole story. And something else was nagging at me. Running back play around the NFL has taken a nosedive, especially in comparison to the drastically improved quality of the passing game. The big thing for me is, though, if offensive linemen league wide are holding more, and this is helping quarterbacks, why wouldn’t the linemen hold on running plays too? Sure, there is less reason to do so, but it COULD be handy at times, obviously. Let’s take a peak at the numbers again:

This season, LaDainian Tomlinson again won the rushing crown for most yardage gained, with his 1,474 yards, a pretty good number at first glance. But hold on a second. Last season, LaDainian had 1,815 yards in leading the NFL. In fact, last season SIX running backs had more yards than LT did this year in leading the NFL. In fact, last season five backs had 1,500+ yards, and Willie Parker was 6 yards away from making it 6 backs to do so. And this was no anomaly. In 2005, five running backs exceeded LT’s number this season, with two more less than 20 yards away. All five had over 1,500 yards. In 2004, again 5 runners eclipsed the 2007 tops number and 1,500 yards.

In fact, to find the last time no single back eclipsed 1,500 yards, I had to go all the way back to 1993, when Emmitt Smith still led LT with 1,486 yards. And also going back to 1993, at least one NFL back eclipsed 1700 yards in 8 of the 13 years since (not counting this year), and the 2,000 yard mark was eclipsed 3 times in that span, showing you how futile rushing really was this season. The shortage wasn’t just in yards, though, but also in yards per carry and touchdowns, where the numbers petered off from where they had been over the last few years.

So who knows what the cause is. Is it a trend? The passing game has increased with rising frequency over the last 35 years while the run game very gradually decreased, although the numbers had leveled out before the very big hiccup of the 2007 NFL season. Have NFL defenses finally figured out the run game, and the way to best slow it? Are we reverting back to the old days? We have established the two backs win… are we slipping even further back to where teams have two or three good backs and a fullback who could run and need all of them to succeed? Or has the Holy Grail of passing finally been found, and has the passing game reached a peak from which it will never descend, dominating the game?

I’d love to hear you all weigh in with your theories.

Keys and defensive strategies to the Cowboys- Packers game

*** A NOTE *** You might have seen that a Cowboys homerwrote thi, and have just expected I picked the Cowboys to win. You're wrong. I think the Cowboys WILL win the game, but I have NOT picked a winner in the blog.

Now, I was thinking about the Cowboys- Packers game, and, for all the talk about how much hype there would be, there has been surprisingly litte talk compared to other games. However, that is likely due to a certain unfortunate happening that happened this week in the NFL.

NFL Mock Draft, 2008

I've seen a few of these around, and decided to do my own. Feel free to leave comments. Oh, and I'll update this tomorrow with more detailed reasons for each pick LOL, jk

1- St. Louis Rams- Jake Long. Has a team ever needed an offensive lineman so badly?

2- Miami Dolphins- Chris Long. 28th in sacks. 31st against the run. Dead last in scoring defense. Those are the Dolphin defense's numbers this year. So don't blame the offense! Long would help every single category immensely.

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I decided I was SICK of looking at all these idiots on fannation posting random crap. I am a HUGE football fan, and it actually pains me to see people making obviously wrong statements, not backing up their opinions with fact, spouting off on what they don't know, etc. Even in groups that are for football fans exclusively get infiltrated by dumb people.

And so, I decided to do anything about it. I decided to make the ONLY group on fannation that is exclusively for people who really know their football. You have to apply to get in (sorry, even friends have to apply). But this is all for something. We are looking for a diverse range of people in this group. I don't just want one segment of people. I want any fan who thinks he, or she, can hold their own in a football debate. I want people who know their Xs and Os. I want people love a football debate.