Rushing Offense
John Fox has always said his philosophy is to be able to run the ball and stop the run. Common sense would say that bringing those philosophies to fruition would consume a large part of the team’s budget each year. This team has struggled to find the solution to getting back to the power rushing offense of 2003 and has finished each year since then ranked in the bottom half of the league in rushing. Everyone knows that he would prefer to have a rushing offense ranked much higher.
In 2004, the team finished 28th in the league in rushing. To strengthen that stat, the team went out and did several things to fix it. The first signed Pro Bowl guard Mike Wahle from a very successful running team in Green Bay and gave him a large contract. Next, the team expended a second round pick in Eric Shelton to add insurance for Stephen Davis. They also spent a third and fifth round pick on offensive linemen. What did that result in?
The team improved nine spots to finish with the 19th ranked rushing attack in 2005. But most of the year the team ranked in the mid twenties until two strong efforts near the end of the year pushed them up on the list a bit. The 2005 rushing offense was consistently inconsistent all season. They team ranked 23rd in number of rushing first downs in the NFL. Only 6 teams had less 20+ yard runs than the Panthers. Only 1 team had less than our 3.4 yards per carry average for the season. The last four teams playing last season were the Panthers, Denver, Seattle, and Pittsburgh. Our rushing attacked ranked 19th, while theirs were ranked 2nd, 3rd, and 5th.
So what did the Panthers do during last offseason to again try to improve the rushing game? They went out and signed a top Center in Justin Hartwig. They expended a first round pick on DeAngelo Williams and a third rounder in Richard Butler as a tackle. They signed a good college pass catching TE in Jeff King with their fifth round pick. And lastly, they signed Keyshawn Johnson partly as an upgrade at WR in run blocking and use him extensively to do just that. What has all this produced?
The Panthers currently rank 18th overall in rushing. Only ten teams have fewer attempts per game. We are in the middle of the league in yards per attempt. Only three teams have fewer rushing touchdowns, which was one area we excelled in last year with Stephen Davis early. The bottom five teams in the league in rushing are Arizona, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Tampa Bay. Can you see the correlation?
This team must run the ball more effectively if they want to win more games. Jake Delhomme’s current QB rating is nearly identical to what he did in 2003, yet we won a lot more games because of our top ten rushing attack. If this team were ranked in the top 10 in rushing, which is a focus of the John Fox offense, we would not be 6-6 right now. Effective rushing means less passing and more defenders concentrating on stopping the run. Eventually that leads to more favorable matchups when the team does pass. But every defensive coordinator knows that if we want to do anything in this offense, it has to go through the air.
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