Why Passing Beats Running

[RayClay]

I missed a couple posts by the OP about the overall effect of running outside of any one particular play. I agreed with him and that probably negates a post on this page.

 

[Wordsmyth]

Can't really play the game on a spreadsheet.

Nope...they're played inside TV sets.

 

[Wordsmyth]

I stole that particular witticism from Kenny Mayne.
:d

 

[Off The Grid]

This quote from 538 about sums it up:

Basically, there is pretty much no ordinary situation in which running produces better results than passing.
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Of course even in situations where passing dominates running, you still need to run some percentage of the time for game-theoretic reasons. Basically you have to keep the defense guessing and have to keep them from always going with a light box.

The main consequence of this is that RBs have been clearly devalued over time. Percentage of total salary to RBs has been heading steadily downward.

This year the Pats have more hybrid RBs that can also catch - that for me was the big problem with Blount - he signalled a run. But the Pats also seem to use RBs near the goal line more than most other teams, so we do need a strong short-yardage back.

Full article here:
Running Backs Are Finally Getting Paid What They’re Worth

Pass Plays average more Yards Per Attempt than Runs??

I had no Idea.

 

[Vindicate]

Seems to me that Patsfans needs to be the first group to develop a multivariate model that accurately predicts the out come of the game!

Just kidding it'd be hundreds of variables. At any given time. The beauty about baseball is how it's largely one on one matchups with an overall pretty simple game. Football you have 11 men on the field, those people are constantly being subbed out while the other team is doing the same (good advantage of hurry up? Less variance). That alone is hilariously difficult to quantify.

Then you account for field position. Inside your own 5/10/15 then 20 - 20 generally yield similar play calling (relatively) and then 15/10/5 in opponent territory. But to get a more accurate feeling for that, you have to factor in time left, along with score (Do I need to run two minute? Am I chewing the clock? Do I go out of bounds?).

Then comes matchups, which have to factor in what routes your receivers are running, how long the QB stands in the pocket, if they QB breaks out, if the RB runs. It's just impossible to get a truly accurate reading in football except for very broad theoretical assumptions such as "try to balance run and pass".

Running a statistical analysis on Bill's team would literally be the worst. SO MANY PACKAGES. SO MANY LOOKS. Disguised plays. So maybe what teams should be doing is increasing the variance under which they operate and getting their team comfy with that. One of the best tools a coach has in football is keeping the other team guessing. This is why things like hurry up is pretty cool, you not only decrease variance, the defense has to do more of a reaction process than the offense, letting the offense control the variance on the field.



This might all be mumbo jumbo blabber. It's 9am on a Saturday and I went to bed not long ago, and to top it off I don't know sheeeeeet about statistical modeling. But I like football variables. So many.

Edit: Plus trying to account for fumbles and interceptions,? Lmao, it gets impossible. A fumble alone has so many things happening at once

 

[Ring 6]

There has generally been a trend to smaller, faster LBs and much more nickel/dime.

Let's see if Belichick now zigs when everyone else zags, and starts running the ball more. He certainly has paid up a lot more this season for RBs than he has in recent memory, and he should also have two TEs both highly capable of blocking. Add an OL with an additional year of experience and perhaps the desire to reduce wear-and-tear on Brady.

The problem is speed can be as much a deterrent to the running game as size. with the speed of LBs today they can make plays from positions that "innthe old days" they wouldn't even be blocked. Off side Olb on a run off tackle used to not even be assigned a blocker for example and the speed in the game now changes that, which makes running the ball harder.

 

[Ring 6]

Well of course you generally need to run somewhat to keep balance but most scoring drives don't end up as scores cause of running plays but passing plays.

IMO in a perfectly run offense. You run the ball to keep the defense from going too light and the pass rushers honest as well as to set up play action. You do it to get short yardage gains (2nd/3rd and short) and hopefully accomplish all that while running effectively. But those runs don't tend to really move you down the field much. You move down the field generally with pass plays.

A perfect offense studies the opponents finds mismatches and weaknesses and exploits them, being smart enough to not go to the well too often. For example if a team had a weak corner that you can feast on if you make it your game plan to throw at him 30 times you will never get single coverage and you have instructed the opponent to comoensate for their largest weakness.
A "perfect offense" finds ways to get that corner matched up one on one and then attacks him at critical times.

 

[Ring 6]

There's also the issue of turnovers. In the NFL this past season, there were 285 fumbles and 404 interceptions. That's 199 more INTs than fumbles. Moreover, those 285 fumbles includes QB strip sacks (which should really count against the passing game), fumbles by receivers after making a catch (which should also count against the passing game), and kick returns (which should be taken right out).

Long story short, football isn't all about moving the ball and scoring points. There are plenty of situations where all you need to do is take care of the ball.

Moreover, sacks are a big factor. A loss of yardage on a sack is much higher than the average loss from a running play.

Also, there's the clock. Sometimes you just want to keep the clock moving, and so passing brings with it an increased risk of stopping the clock.

Passing, when it works, has a much higher likelihood of moving the ball down the field, but it also comes with increased risk. The more you pass, the more likely it is that you'll have a massively negative play that could have a big impact on a game, not in your favor.

Turnovers largely win games. Focusing on yards per play without accounting for the frequency of turnovers is silly.

 

[PatsFanInVa]

Wait! It doesn't?!

Just like the original thread title, you have to do both.

You need to lay down the base of say nachos or potato skins while beginning to drink, thus enabling you to drink more in the future.

It also keeps the waitress on her toes.

 

[Kontradiction]

I don't think he made a relevant point. Of course you gain more yards passing, that's why they don't lateral like in the leather helmet days. Not really worth spending the effort he did to make an obvious point, especially since his statistics don't really prove anything. If a team only ran when he said it was advantageous, that would negatively affect passing plays because defenses would adjust. There's a difference between compiling statistics and proving a point. Also, it greatly depends on who your QB and RB are.

Jesus. The OP literally made the same point you're making here under the flow chart. Instead of digging your heels in, why don't you just admit that you didn't read the post properly?

 

[Ring 6]

I stole that particular witticism from Kenny Mayne.
:d

That explains why it wasn't funny.

 

[lamafist]

Correlation vs causation.
Teams trailing pass more, teams leading pass less. not true in ALL games but true in enough games with large leads to mean that statistically teams pass less because they win not that they win because they pass less

Exactly. This is also why you can't really learn much of anything from the relative success of individual team's and their full-season pass/run ratios -- teams will have a higher passing ratio because they are bad, and thus often trailing at the end of games.

This also skews the turnover rates of passing plays vs. running plays, as the number of interceptions spikes dramatically in the fourth quarter when losing teams a forced into attempting high-risk passes.

If you compare only plays in similar game situations, you'll very often find the turnover rate on a running play to actually be higher than a passing play --
like say, for example, on 2nd down at the goal line, running plays more frequently result in lost fumbles than passing plays result in Malcolm Butlers.

 

[Ring 6]

Exactly. This is also why you can't really learn much of anything from the relative success of individual team's and their full-season pass/run ratios -- teams will have a higher passing ratio because they are bad, and thus often trailing at the end of games.

This also skews the turnover rates of passing plays vs. running plays, as the number of interceptions spikes dramatically in the fourth quarter when losing teams a forced into attempting high-risk passes.

If you compare only plays in similar game situations, you'll very often find the turnover rate on a running play to actually be higher than a passing play --
like say, for example, on 2nd down at the goal line, running plays more frequently result in lost fumbles than passing plays result in Malcolm Butlers.

I disagree that garbage time makes up the entire difference in turnovers by the pass vs run. Remember a high % of list fumbles are on pass plays (sacks or receiver fumbles)

 

[lamafist]

The problem is you win football games by scoring the most points; not by get the most yards per play.

Which is the real problem with the article. In football more so than other sports the result of previous plays impacts the current play. So that an action that might be suboptimal over a 1 play span, can actually be optimal over a multiplay span.

That's why, in the article linked to by the OP (including the multi-colored set of graphs he kindly embedded for us right there in the first post) they don't measure in yards per play, but rather winning percentage added.

 

[lamafist]

I disagree that garbage time makes up the entire difference in turnovers by the pass vs run. Remember a high % of list fumbles are on pass plays (sacks or receiver fumbles)

I'm not saying that it makes up the entire difference, I'm saying it exaggerates it.

And even if it didn't, the question remains whether reducing the likelihood of a turnover from ~2% to ~1% makes it worth it to call a play that more often than not REDUCES your team's chances of converting that set of downs. That's why when your metric is winning percent added, passing remains the better option in most situations.

 

[lamafist]

But these statistics are based upon the effectiveness of passing only within the current way the game is played, something like 60/40 pass run.

Not true. You also have the statistics that show that, since 1925, as NFL teams ran less often per play, their average yards gained per play increased at a similar rate.

So far, no matter what the league average ratio has been, passing more has resulted in a more efficient offense. Obviously, as teams begin to gear their defense more and more toward the pass, eventually the law of diminishing returns will kick in. So far, the gains haven't even started to plateau yet, but maybe the leveling off will be sudden.

 

[AzPatsFan]

If you read the study and chew on it a bit, you'll see that all of the situational factors mentioned above are taken into consideration. The authors are as surprised as anyone else at the outcome.

Yet this guy is peddling Climate Bovine Scatology like an earlier generation peddled Marxist Lysenko Genetic theory. I am a Scientist and Engineer, and CAGW is pure pseudo-scientific hogwash.

 

[Deus Irae]

That's why, in the article linked to by the OP (including the multi-colored set of graphs he kindly embedded for us right there in the first post) they don't measure in yards per play, but rather winning percentage added.

People still haven't realized that winning percentage added/subtracted is complete nonsense?

 

[Ring 6]

Not true. You also have the statistics that show that, since 1925, as NFL teams ran less often per play, their average yards gained per play increased at a similar rate.

So far, no matter what the league average ratio has been, passing more has resulted in a more efficient offense. Obviously, as teams begin to gear their defense more and more toward the pass, eventually the law of diminishing returns will kick in. So far, the gains haven't even started to plateau yet, but maybe the leveling off will be sudden.

This study was one season.
You cannot take stats generated under certain conditions and apply them to different conditions. It doesn't work that way.

 

[Ring 6]

I'm not saying that it makes up the entire difference, I'm saying it exaggerates it.

And even if it didn't, the question remains whether reducing the likelihood of a turnover from ~2% to ~1% makes it worth it to call a play that more often than not REDUCES your team's chances of converting that set of downs. That's why when your metric is winning percent added, passing remains the better option in most situations.

Double the turnovers is a tremendous difference in terms of winning and losing.