by Vincent Verhei

The average NFL team this season is completing 63 percent of its passes, for 242.3 yards and 1.7 touchdowns per game, all of which would be record-high statistics. In this, the pass-wackiest year of the pass-wackiest era in league history, it's nice to know that one team is still dedicated to running over its opponents. The Seattle Seahawks ran for 350 yards against the New York Giants on Sunday, the first team to do so in nearly two years and just the sixth team to do it this century. They were led, as usual, by Marshawn Lynch, who finished with 140 yards on the ground. By total DYAR and rushing DYAR, he finished as the top running back of the week, just the latest in a series of big games for the eighth-year pro, and the third straight win for Seattle. As Lynch continues to bowl over defenders and the Seahawks keep winning games, the question must be asked: is Marshawn Lynch an MVP candidate?

It would be hard to make a case for that using conventional stats. Lynch is tied for the league lead in touchdowns, but he ranks fifth in rushing yards and eighth in yards per scrimmage. That's nothing to be ashamed of, but it's hardly typical MVP production. Football Outsiders' advanced numbers, though, tell a different story. Lynch is second behind only DeMarco Murray in rushing DYAR, and he's closing the gap. Lynch trailed Murray by 101 DYAR after Week 8, but he has since cut that margin in half and now falls only 49 DYAR short of the Cowboys runner with seven weeks still to go.

Lynch has also been an effective receiver out of the backfield, ranking fifth among running backs with 81 receiving DYAR. Add in his rushing value and that's 310 total DYAR, which is more than Murray or any other running back this season. And Lynch hasn't been piling up DYAR quietly, either. Sunday's game against New York was his fourth game this season with 50 or more total DYAR: he also did it in Week 1 against Green Bay, Week 3 against Denver (though that game was not listed in Quick Reads because we weren't yet using opponent adjustments), and last week against Oakland). The rest of the league's runners have only 12 50-DYAR games between them, and Lynch is the only man in the group to have done it more than once.

So Lynch's numbers, on their own, are quite stellar. Now let's put them in the context of Seattle's offense. Seattle entered Week 10 with the NFL's best rushing attack by DVOA, and that was before their 350-yard outburst against the Giants. Their rushing offense DVOA is now a stratospheric 37.2%. That is so far ahead of everyone else this season it's hard to make a comparison. The second-ranked rushing team, New Orleans, has a DVOA of just 12.3%. That's closer to 23rd-ranked Jacksonville (-12.5%) than it is to Seattle. In fact, if Seattle can maintain that level (which of course would be very hard to do), they would finish as the top rushing offense in DVOA history, beating out the 36.5% of Marshall Faulk's 2000 Rams. Only three other teams have even topped 30.0%: the 1993 49ers (30.5%), 1998 Broncos (31.4%), and 2011 Panthers (32.1%). As MVP resumes go, you could do a lot worse than "leading rusher on the best rushing team in the past quarter-century."

Lynch is also a critical part of Seattle's passing game, leading the team in receiving touchdowns and DYAR while ranking second in receptions and third in receiving yards. Finally, he's the Seahawks' only legitimate red zone threat. As noted, he leads the league with 12 touchowns. Russell Wilson has scored four times, and only one other player on the entire roster has managed to find the end zone more than once all season. See if you can guess who that might be. We'll list the answer at the end of this column.

Now obviously, Lynch isn't doing it all on his own. Wilson leads all quarterbacks with 500 rushing yards and 199 DYAR (In the latter stat, he is third among all players behind Murray and Lynch), and he leads the entire league with 7.6 yards per carry. That last stat is actually not doing Wilson justice, because it includes 12 kneeldowns for a net loss of 14 yards. Take those out and look only at what happened when Wilson actually tried to run forward, and you get 9.6 yards per legit rush attempt. Even with the kneeldowns, Wilson still ranks higher in rushing yards (15th) than he does in passing yards (24th), which tells you pretty much everything good and bad about the quarterback's season thus far.

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Wilson, though, isn't doing it all on his own either. Official play-by-play lists Wilson with 28 scrambles that started out as passing plays, and 26 designed runs of one sort or another. (He has had remarkably similar success on both types of runs. On scrambles, he has a 9.7-yard average and 93 DYAR; on all other runs, he has a 9.3-yard average and 106 DYAR.) The play-by-play does not differentiate between types of runs any further, but if you've watched Seattle play at all this year, you know the majority of Wilson's non-scramble runs have been either read-option plays or bootleg keepers. It's not like he's running dozens of QB sneaks. Bootlegs and options both begin first with the threat of Lynch to lure the defense in one direction, which then allows Wilson to use his quickness and agility to move the ball downfield. Even when he doesn't have the ball in his hands, Lynch is the motor that makes the Seahawks offense go.

Seattle has two games remaining against Arizona, and if they can overtake the Cardinals and hold off the 49ers, repeating as NFC West champs, then Lynch will be the biggest reason why.

Oh, and the answer to our trivia question: Ricardo Lockette has only seven catches this season (and just 14 in his four-year career), but two of those catches resulted in touchdowns. That's good enough for third place on the Seattle roster in touchdowns, even though he hasn't scored since September. Did we mention that Seattle has a weakness at receiver?

Quarterbacks Rk Player Team CP/AT Yds TD INT Total

DYAR Pass

DYAR Rush

DYAR 1. Aaron Rodgers GB 18/27 315 6 0 208 208 0 Rodgers only threw three passes in the second half, all incomplete. He finished the first half with 235 DYAR. This is not the best first half of all time, but it's probably close. A quick check of the best games ever found one first half better than this. In Week 6 of 2009, Tom Brady put up 255 DYAR in the first half against Tennessee, going 24-of-28 for 345 yards with five touchdowns. Like Rodgers this week, Brady won in a blowout, and barely played after halftime, picking up 39 DYAR six passes in the third quarter. Rodgers' six touchdowns against Chicago covered an average of 32 yards. He threw seven deep passes against the Bears, collecting five completions for 181 yards (and three touchdowns), one DPI for 53 more yards, and one lonely incompletion that came when the Packers were already up by 42 points. 2. Tony Romo DAL 20/27 246 3 0 101 101 0 Throwing to his right, Romo went 8-of-12 for 144 yards and five first downs, including all three of his touchdowns. 3. Matthew Stafford DET 25/40 280 2 1 97 101 -4 This was not a strong week for quarterbacks, with only two players entering Monday night over 100 DYAR. There are usually five or six quarterbacks over 100 DYAR, and only one other time this season (Week 5) have only two QBs surpassed that threshold. Stafford went 6-of-9 throwing up the middle of the Miami defense, gaining 126 yards and a touchdown. 4. Brian Hoyer CLE 15/23 198 0 0 78 101 -23 Hoyer had some decent success in this game, but not much of it came on the right side of the field. Hoyer only threw four passes in that direction, with two completions for 3 total yards (though one of those completions did pick up a first down). 5. Mark Sanchez PHI 21/37 332 2 0 60 60 0 6. Peyton Manning DEN 32/44 340 5 2 44 44 0 This is awfully low for a quarterback who threw five touchdowns and left in the third quarter with a 31-point lead, but that's what strong opponent adjustments and a pair of interceptions will do for you. It was also a slow start for Peyton. On Denver's first six drives, he went 18-of-28 for 126 yards, with a 21-yard gain on a DPI, a 10-yard loss on intentional grounding, and two sacks mixed in. On their next six drives, he went 13-of-15 for 214 yards and all five scores. 7. Matt Ryan ATL 20/30 219 1 0 43 42 1 Ryan wasn't always effective against Tampa Bay, but he did a good job of extending drives. On third downs, he went 6-of-9 for 98 yards and five first downs, and picked up another first down on a 10-yard DPI on a tenth throw. 8. Eli Manning NYG 29/43 283 1 1 32 32 0 For two and a half quarters Manning was playing pretty well on the road, and the Giants were tied with Seattle midway through the third quarter. Then everything fell apart. First he threw an interception in scoring range. Seattle would take the lead with a touchdown on their next drive, and from that point forward Manning went 8-of-12 for just 38 yards with three first downs, two sacks, and one fumble. 9. Kyle Orton BUF 29/48 266 1 0 32 41 -9 In a game that the Bills lost by just four points, Orton had a terrible day in the red zone, going 4-of-11 for 23 yards with no touchdowns, no first downs, and one sack. 10. Russell Wilson SEA 10/17 172 0 2 24 -8 33 As a passer, when things went well for Wilson, they usually went very well; eight of his ten completions picked up first downs. (About 57 percent of completions across the league have gone for first downs so far this season.) His other two completions gained only 2 yards, though, and he was sacked twice in addition to his two picks. He finished with 12 carries for 116 yards with a touchdown and seven other first downs. His rushing DYAR would be a lot higher but he fumbled once, though the Seahawks recovered. Oddly, he had only two passes and two runs on second down. 11. Michael Vick NYJ 10/18 132 2 0 12 3 9 Vick and the Jets left a lot of points on the board. On PIttsburgh's side of the field, he went 4-of-9 for 22 yards with only three first downs (including a touchdown) and three sacks. All told, he had five runs for 42 yards and three more first downs. 12. Alex Smith KC 17/29 177 0 0 9 -13 22 It was a similar tale for Smith. His first pass on Buffalo's side of the field was an 8-yard gain on second-and-7. from that point forward, he went 1-of-5 for 6 yards with no first downs and one sack, though he did run for an 8-yard score in the fourth quarter. Rk Player Team CP/AT Yds TD INT Total

DYAR Pass

DYAR Rush

DYAR 13. Ryan Tannehill MIA 27/37 218 1 1 6 10 -4 Not a good day for Tannehill on third downs, where he went 6-of-11 for 44 yards with one interception, one sack, and only four conversions. That includes five failures to convert on third down with 7 yards or less to go. 14. Joe Flacco BAL 16/27 169 1 0 4 4 0 Flacco was best going to his left, where he went 7-of-10 for 85 yards with one touchdown and four other first downs. 15. Drew Brees NO 28/46 292 3 2 -10 -13 4 Brees spent a lot of time trapped in the shadows of his own goalposts. Inside the New Orleans 20, he went 3-of-7 for 17 yards with only one first down, plus the sack-fumble that set up the winning kick for San Francisco. 16. Ben Roethlisberger PIT 30/41 342 1 2 -16 -16 0 Remember the one dozen touchdowns Roethlisberger threw in Weeks 8 and 9? They traveled an average of 15.8 yards through the air, and seven of them traveled at least 17 yards downfield. So why on earth did Pittsburgh come out against the Jets throwing so much short stuff? Seven of Roethlisberger's first 11 pass attempts were thrown to receivers at or behind the line of scrimmage. He completed nine of those passes, but only gained 53 yards in the process, losing yards on four of his first seven completions. He did not attempt a deep pass in the first half, and did not complete one until the Steelers were down 20-3 in the third quarter. 17. Josh McCown TB 27/41 301 2 2 -32 -41 9 In the first 58 minutes of the game, McCown threw 17 passes to the left side of the field, completing 13 of them for 152 yards. In the last two minutes of the game, he threw three passes to his left. One was caught for a 13-yard gain; the other two were intercepted. 18. Zach Mettenberger TEN 16/27 179 1 1 -39 -39 0 First quarter: 8-of-11 for 98 yards with one touchdown and seven other first downs. Rest of the game: 8-of-16 for 81 yards with more sacks (five) than first downs (four), plus an interception. 19. Colin Kaepernick SF 14/32 210 1 0 -44 -51 6 How to turn a 10-point halftime lead into an overtime win: in the second half (plus overtime), Kaepernick went 6-of-18 for 91 yards (51 of them on one play) with three sacks and three first downs. 20. Derek Carr OAK 30/47 192 2 2 -71 -71 0 Carr had a whopping 14 failed completions this week. Nobody else had more than nine. His first completion gained 10 yards; he did not gain 10 yards on any one play again until the Raiders were down by 31 points in the fourth quarter. In between, he went 23-of-40 for 93 yards with four first downs and two interceptions. 21. Blake Bortles JAC 22/37 290 0 1 -74 -67 -7 Bortles threw a ton of short passes that didn't really go anywhere. To receivers within 3 yards of the line of scrimmage, he went 10-of-15 for 65 yards with only one first down. 22. Jay Cutler CHI 22/37 272 1 2 -84 -79 -5 Cutler got a lot of help from his receivers. His average completion gained 9.0 yards after the catch, most of any starting quarterback this week. Rk Player Team CP/AT Yds TD INT Total

DYAR Pass

DYAR Rush

DYAR 23. Carson Palmer ARI 25/36 241 0 1 -87 -68 -19 Ah, man. I really don't feel like kicking a guy when he's down. But it's kinda my job. Palmer ranks this low largely because, rare for Arizona quarterbacks this year, he had no success on deep passes, going 0-for-5 on deep throws. 24. Austin Davis STL 17/30 216 1 2 -115 -113 -3 Davis had no plays in the red zone, and only five plays inside the Arizona 40. Those five plays were one 9-yard completion, one incompletion, and three sacks, which largely explains why he had no plays in the red zone. 25. Cam Newton CAR 25/40 306 2 3 -141 -145 5 Newton was sacked nine times (four times on third down) and fumbled twice, so... yeah. 26. Andy Dalton CIN 10/33 86 0 3 -190 -181 -9 Let's make this clear: this was an awful game. On throws to receivers within 7 yards of the line of scrimmage, Dalton went 7-of-19 for 42 yards with no first downs and two interceptions. And it's not as if the long ball paid off either. He threw nine deep passes, completing more of them to the Browns (one) than to the Bengals (zero, though he did pick up 13 yards on a DPI). However, it was not the worst game of the year, let alone one of the worst games of all time. That's largely because he was sacked only twice. The worst game of the year was Teddy Bridgewater's 8-sack day against Detroit, followed by Chad Henne's 10-sack outing against Washington. Also, two of Dalton's interceptions came on third downs with huge deficits late in the fourth quarter, so he's not docked too severely for those either. Finally, Dalton was stuck in long yardage all night. His average pass came with 10.5 yards to go for a first down, most of any starter this week. So no, Cincinnati fans, not much went right for Dalton. But a lot more things still could have gone wrong.

Five most valuable running backs (Total) Rk Player Team Runs Rush

Yds Rush

TD Rec Rec

Yds Rec

TD Total

DYAR Rush

DYAR Rec

DYAR 1. Marshawn Lynch SEA 21 144 4 1/1 23 0 74 62 12 Lynch was stuffed three times and fumbled once, but he had seven 10-yard runs, most by any player in any game this year. 2. C.J. Anderson DEN 13 90 0 4/7 73 1 62 34 27 All of Anderson's carries gained positive yardage. He had four 10-yard runs and two shorter first downs. His receptions included a 51-yard touchdown on third-and-8. 3. Steven Jackson ATL 16 81 1 2/2 14 0 37 33 4 Eight of Jackson's runs gained 5 yards or more, and he was stuffed only three times. 4. Damien Williams MIA 7 34 0 2/4 27 0 30 10 20 An undrafted rookie out of Oklahoma, Williams managed only 66 yards on his first 24 carries of the season before breaking out against Detroit, thanks largely to some hefty opponent adjustments. His longest run was a 19-yarder. He had three first downs as a receiver, including a 3-yard DPI. 5. Jamaal Charles KC 15 98 1 3/4 20 0 29 28 1 Charles' first three carries against Buffalo all lost yardage, but he wasn't stuffed again the rest of the day, with runs of 17, 18, and 39 yards.

Five most valuable running backs (Rushing) Rk Player Team Runs Rush

Yds Rush

TD Rec Rec

Yds Rec

TD Total

DYAR Rush

DYAR Rec

DYAR 1. Marshawn Lynch SEA 21 144 4 1/1 23 0 74 62 12 2. C.J. Anderson DEN 13 90 0 4/7 73 1 62 34 27 3. Steven Jackson ATL 16 81 1 2/2 14 0 37 33 4 4. Jamaal Charles KC 15 98 1 3/4 20 0 29 28 1 5. DuJuan Harris GB 8 52 0 0/0 0 0 23 23 0 Harris lost yards once, but each of his other carries gained at least 3 yards, with three 10-yard runs and another first down.

Least valuable running back (Total) Rk Player Team Runs Rush

Yds Rush

TD Rec Rec

Yds Rec

TD Total

DYAR Rush

DYAR Rec

DYAR 1. DeAngelo Williams CAR 13 33 0 3/3 17 0 -25 -31 6 2.4 yards per carry and a fumble, so... yeah.

Least valuable running back (Rushing) Rk Player Team Runs Rush

Yds Rush

TD Rec Rec

Yds Rec

TD Total

DYAR Rush

DYAR Rec

DYAR 1. Knile Davis KC 4 1 0 1/1 5 0 -24 -32 8 Davis' first carry lost 5 yards -- and the ball. Things improved after that, but only slightly.

Five most valuable wide receivers and tight ends Rk Player Team Rec Att Yds Avg TD Total

DYAR 1. Jordy Nelson GB 6 6 152 25.3 2 101 This was the second-best day for a receiver this year. Save for a 5-yard gain on first-and-goal at the 9, each of Nelson's receptions gained a first down, and he also picked up 53 yards on a DPI. 2. Dez Bryant DAL 6 8 158 26.3 2 70 Five of Bryant's receptions picked up first downs. The sixth was an 11-yard gain on second-and-12. 3. Jordan Matthews PHI 7 9 138 19.7 2 60 4. Odell Beckham NYG 7 9 108 15.4 0 58 Beckham had six first downs on the day, including three third-down conversions. 5. Preston Parker NYG 7 7 79 11.3 1 57 Parker had six first downs on the day, including three third-down conversions. Yes, this is a copy-and-paste from Odell Beckham's comment, but it's still true.