Posted: 2020-07-22
The first article ever written for Football Outsiders was devoted to debunking the myth of “establishing the run.” If we could only share one piece of anti-conventional wisdom with you before you read the rest of our book, this would be it. There is no correlation whatsoever between giving your running backs a lot of carries early in the game and winning the game. Just running the ball is not going to help a team score; it has to run successfully.
There is also no evidence that running the ball more early in the game creates the opportunity for longer gains late in the game, i.e. the so-called “body blows” thesis. And there is no evidence that passing the ball too frequently puts the defense on the field too much and tires it out.
Why does nearly every beat writer and television analyst still repeat the tired old school mantra that “establishing the run” is the secret to winning football games? The biggest issue is confusing cause and effect. There are exceptions, but for the most part, winning teams have a lot of carries because their running backs are running out the clock at the end of wins, not because they are running wild early in games.
A sister statement to “you have to establish the run” is “team X is 8-1 when running back John Doe runs for at least 100 yards.” Unless John Doe is possessed by otherworldly spirits the way Adrian Peterson was a couple years ago, the team isn’t winning because of his 100-yard games. He’s putting up 100-yard games because his team is winning.
At this point, it’s hard to figure out why so many commentators and fans still overrate the importance of the running game. One problem has always been history. Older NFL analysts and fans came of age during the 1970s, when the rules favored the running game much more than those in the modern NFL. We used to have to explain that optimal strategies from 1974 are not optimal strategies for today. But this would seem to be a smaller problem now than it was ten years ago; most current NFL analysts played the game in the ‘90s or beyond, when the game was heavily pass-centric.
Another issue may be a confusion of professional football with other levels. As you go down the football pyramid, from NFL teams to FBS to FCS to Division II and so on down to high school, at every level further down the running game becomes more important. To give an example, the Carolina Panthers led the NFL in 2018 with 5.1 yards per carry but that average was lower than five different teams in the SEC. Strategies that win on Saturday do not necessarily win on Sunday.