"Run To Establish The Pass" And Other Rushing Advantage Stuff Is Actually A #Myth

[adub2b23]

Ron Rivera saying " we need to run the ball more" is basically him trying to mask our passing offense deficiency. Yeah passing is more effective when you can actually complete passes to open receivers that catch the ball, but when it's not working you waste plays.  Not that our running game is much better though..

[mc52beast]

Rivera graduated from the Woody Hayes School of 3 Yards and a Cloud of Dust

[frash.exe]

8 minutes ago, sharkkiller said:

Wrong. But it works both ways depending on your gameplan. The run sets up the pass, but the pass also sets up the run. Finding the balance based on your strengths is the key.

For example, if your O-line excels at run blocking, but is weak against the pass rush, then you run the ball. This causes the d-line and the linebackers to respect the run and not go full speed to your QB. However, if the opposite is true, and you have an o-line built for pass blocking, then you use screens and short passes to pull the linebackers and safeties off the line, opening holes for the run game.

How exactly is this not common sense?

“Wrong, but...” is not a good way to start a counterargument

pass blocking is not a question of “are the pass rushers going to get to my QB” but a question of when. if your offense is predicated on a lot of 5-7 step drops and long developing routes, you’re setting your QB up to get hit a lot more. brady doesn't take a lot of hits very often bc on most plays, the ball comes out of his hands so quickly, that it’s hard to get to him unless you a. have an elite pass rush or b. the play breaks down. and despite the fact that they are a passing offense, which never works in the nfl according to this forum, they still consistently rank in the top half of the league every year in pass blocking.

new england actually had the best overall run blocking line in the league in 2017 according to football outsiders, and based on your analysis, that means they should’ve ran more, since they “excel at run blocking”, but everybody knows where their bread is buttered, and if they did run more, their efficiency would probably go down.

[Saca312]

you guys are just as delusional as ron rivera if you honestly think you have to run to do much in the passing game.

stats, forward-thinking teams, and superbowl winners back this up as of late. The Patriots and Eagles essentially began the game passing and only later started running a bit more. 

[BrianS]

I think the biggest problem with the old "run to establish the pass" philosophy is that it's just not right.  You don't actually have to establish the run - you must establish idea that when you do run, you can hurt the defense.  Actually running isn't what scares a defense.  Running successfully is.

Our problem becomes, and it's certainly been discussed, our QB is not a consistent threat when passing.  Yes, he can sometimes really hurt you bad over the top.  So you take that away and force him to short and intermediate passing.  He's much less scary at that.  And it doesn't require much commitment for the defense to take away the long ball.  You simply change the way your DB's leverage and viola.

So now the defense can commit to stopping the run and leveraging against the long pass . . . leaving the door wide open for short to intermediate passing . . . which our QB has shown is not exactly his strong suit.  Welcome to our 2017 season.  We are inconsistent, because our QB has not yet established that he can take what the defense gives.

YES!  Our receivers need to separate better.  YES!  Our play calling was pretty bad.  Still, our QB has not yet, in seven years, established a reputation as a consistent intermediate range passer.  That's a problem.  It's hardly any different than a weak armed QB - which ours is definitely not.

You know what would be completely terrifying?  If our QB suddenly became a 68% thrower on short and intermediate passes, while retaining his extreme gifts for running and long balls.  Now what do you do?  You give us a chance to throw for 10?  We'll take it, thanks for the first down.  Oh, you want to let Cam Newton - THE Cam Newton - take some deep shots.  Fine, here's a gun, go ahead and shoot yourself now.

Our offense is missing a key element - a consistent intermediate passing game.  If we get that, we're suddenly a complete nightmare to shut down.

[Diehardpanther02]

While I appreciate your thoroughness and due diligence with all the stat tracking and number knowledge, we have to draw the line somewhere. Being a QB in highschool, and only saying that to show personal experience, when we ran the ball well the passing game was so much easier. Yes, passing the ball is a more explosive play. Yes, in today's NFL more TDS are scored today than ever through the air. But look at the last few Superbowl winners and what they have done well is have a strong run game.  Without it, it is much more difficult to be effective through the air as the defense knows what is coming. Statistics are one thing, but tendencies of a defense are another. When you run the ball well, you force a defense to commit to stopping the run. And that usually leads to an over commitment. A safety peaking in the backfield, makes for a huge play out of play action. And coaching middle school ball that is what I strive to do as well especially at an age where running is vital and you may only have 5-10 passing attempts per game. The game is simple if you play it that way, the more complicated you make it the slower you play.  Stats only tell half the story if that, so don't lose track that this game is played like chess, and not checkers.

[sharkkiller]

47 minutes ago, frash.exe said:

“Wrong, but...” is not a good way to start a counterargument

pass blocking is not a question of “are the pass rushers going to get to my QB” but a question of when. if your offense is predicated on a lot of 5-7 step drops and long developing routes, you’re setting your QB up to get hit a lot more. brady doesn't take a lot of hits very often bc on most plays, the ball comes out of his hands so quickly, that it’s hard to get to him unless you a. have an elite pass rush or b. the play breaks down. and despite the fact that they are a passing offense, which never works in the nfl according to this forum, they still consistently rank in the top half of the league every year in pass blocking.

new england actually had the best overall run blocking line in the league in 2017 according to football outsiders, and based on your analysis, that means they should’ve ran more, since they “excel at run blocking”, but everybody knows where their bread is buttered, and if they did run more, their efficiency would probably go down.

Way to take everything I said out of context. I never said any team should "run more because they excel at run blocking". I said that using the run can open up passing lanes and by some time for your QB. Which you supported with your opening paragraph. 

[frash.exe]

you want to know why our offense sucks? i’ll tell you why our offense sucks. it’s not because we’re not balanced enough, it’s not because we’re not running enough. defenses don’t win games simply bc they correctly diagnose whether the offense is running or passing on most downs. it gets so much more complicated than that. NE can line up with brady in shotgun and 3WR, and he can audible james white to line up in spread formation, and i dare you to tell me they’re actually going to run it up the gut in that scenario. it doesn’t matter bc he’s just going to dump it off to edelman on a 5 yard route and edelman is going to take it 15 extra yards.

NE is great at that bc they study their opponent and use decoys, personnel mismatches, and play design to exploit the weaknesses of the defense. this goes way beyond knowing that they are going to run or pass in order to stop what they are doing, and requires more intricate things like changing assignments before the snap, personnel substitutions, and most often, keeping your offense scoring points and trying to keep brady off the field, to prevent them from winning. whereas carolina on the other hand goes into a game confidently thinking “well we’re just going to run down their throats to set up the play action deep throw like we always do to everybody, nothing fancy, just physical football” and we struggle to execute and end up relying on cam newton’s legs to get first downs when the plays break down or on QB keepers because our gameplan is too simplistic and not tailored to our opponent’s weaknesses. any team can look at our film and figure out what we’re doing, and more often than not on sunday they aren’t going to see anything they didn’t see during the week. because mike shula doesn’t analyze a defense’s weaknesses. he doesn’t make adjustments during the game. he leaves it all on the players to execute the same general gameplan with minimal variation in defiance of the strategic disadvantage. and if he did the opposite, he’d still be here. maybe we would’ve even won the super bowl.  

this brings me to my other grievance i have about the offense: just how over reliant it is on elite talent at skill positions. if it wasn’t for cam newton being immensely talented, this offense wouldn’t score 15 points a game. our system basically requires a lot of talent across the board to be able to pull off.

the various players they utilize in NE’s offense don’t produce bc they are elite, they do so bc NE looks for guys with skill sets that can do the specific things that they want players to do so that they can design the offense in a way where they can gameplan against any defense’s weaknesses, and it works. why can’t we develop WRs? our passing game is too all or nothing. and most of the time it’s nothing bc our route tree is easy to defend. if we spent more time on developing designed short routes where the production is more based on getting these guys in space at speed so that they can be runners and get YAC, we’d be doing a much better job at developing WRs. these are big, self-limiting philosophical problems that can’t just be fixed by drafting a dual threat running back, or really doing anything other than drafting a top 5 overall offensive player, personnel-wise. 

59 minutes ago, sharkkiller said:

Way to take everything I said out of context. I never said any team should "run more because they excel at run blocking". I said that using the run can open up passing lanes and by some time for your QB. Which you supported with your opening paragraph. 

 

[sharkkiller]

6 minutes ago, frash.exe said:

you want to know why our offense sucks? i’ll tell you why our offense sucks. it’s not because we’re not balanced enough, it’s not because we’re not running enough. defenses don’t win games simply bc they correctly diagnose whether the offense is running or passing on most downs. it gets so much more complicated than that. NE can line up with brady in shotgun and 3WR, and he can audible james white to line up in spread formation, and i dare you to tell me they’re actually going to run it up the gut in that scenario. it doesn’t matter bc he’s just going to dump it off to edelman on a 5 yard route and edelman is going to take it 15 extra yards.

NE is great at that bc they study their opponent and use decoys, personnel mismatches, and and play design to exploit the weaknesses of the defense. this goes way beyond knowing that they are going to run or pass in order to stop what they are doing, and requires more intricate things like changing assignments before the snap, personnel substitutions, and most often, keeping your offense scoring points and trying to keep brady off the field, to prevent them from winning. whereas carolina on the other hand goes into a game confidently thinking “well we’re just going to run down their throats to set up the play action deep throw like we always do to everybody, nothing fancy, just physical football” and we struggle to execute and end up relying on cam newton’s legs to get first downs when the plays break down or on QB keepers because our gameplan is too simplistic and not tailored to our opponent’s weaknesses. any team can look at our film and figure out what we’re doing, and more often than not on sunday they aren’t going to see anything they didn’t see during the week. because mike shula doesn’t analyze a defense’s weaknesses. he doesn’t make adjustments during the game. he leaves it all on the players to execute the same general gameplan with minimal variation in defiance of the strategic disadvantage. and if he did the opposite, he’d still be here. maybe we would’ve even won the super bowl.  

this brings me to my other grievance i have about the offense: just how over reliant it is on elite talent at skill positions. if it wasn’t for cam newton being immensely talented, this offense wouldn’t score 15 points a game. our system basically requires a lot of talent across the board to be able to pull off.

the various players they utilize in NE’s offense don’t produce bc they are elite, they do so bc NE looks for guys with skill sets that can do the specific things that they want players to do so that they can design the offense in a way where they can gameplan against any defense’s weaknesses, and it works. why can’t we develop WRs? our passing game is too all or nothing. and most of the time it’s nothing bc our route tree is easy to defend. if we spent more time on developing designed short routes where the production is more based on getting these guys in space at speed so that they can be runners and get YAC, we’d be doing a much better job at developing WRs. these are big, self-limiting philosophical problems that can’t just be fixed by drafting a dual threat running back, or really doing anything other than drafting a top 5 overall offensive player, personnel-wise. 

 

I do not disagree with anything you just said. I was merely arguing with the premise of the OP. I was not saying that our offense is effective nor even a good offense. 

 

[LinvilleGorge]

The final four teams in the playoffs this year all had top 10 regular season rushing offenses.

Jags - #1

Eagles - #3

Vikings - #7

Patriots - #10

Only one of those teams had a top 10 passing offense.

Patriots - #2

Vikings - #11

Eagles - #13

Jaguars - #17

The league is evolving more and more toward passing, but running the football is still really important.

 

[Ace_Aladdin]

2 hours ago, LinvilleGorge said:

The final four teams in the playoffs this year all had top 10 regular season rushing offenses.

Jags - #1

Eagles - #3

Vikings - #7

Patriots - #10

Only one of those teams had a top 10 passing offense.

Patriots - #2

Vikings - #11

Eagles - #13

Jaguars - #17

The league is evolving more and more toward passing, but running the football is still really important.

 

@Saca312

[MasterAwesome]

So why do the majority of teams still run the ball 40-50% of the time (including NE and Philly)? Sounds like it obviously should be 0%. Silly NFL teams...I wish they would listen to the real professionals like Twitter Bob and Twitter Joe.

[ras977]

7 hours ago, Saca312 said:

you guys are just as delusional as ron rivera if you honestly think you have to run to do much in the passing game.

stats, forward-thinking teams, and superbowl winners back this up as of late. The Patriots and Eagles essentially began the game passing and only later started running a bit more. 

Not everyone has a Brady or Montana--you mix it up period,--pass /run--run/pass  whatever works.

[tiger7_88]

9 hours ago, thomas96 said:

Numbers actually DO lie. The film don’t lie though.

Like the film that shows that the primary reason Ron Rivera's "ground and pound" has any success at all is because of one Cameron Jerrell Newton?