NFL teams are passing more frequently and more effectively than ever before. Given enough opportunities, most teams will eventually connect on big plays through the air. But while running backs have taken a backseat in most offenses, a successful rushing attack is still a significant component in most effective offenses.

As teams — and by extension, their opponents — become more prolific at passing, the opportunity cost of not passing increases. That makes an unsuccessful run particularly damaging. A run on third and short that forces a punt, or a run on 1st or 2nd down that makes it harder for his team to move the chains, hurts a team more significantly than ever before. In the ’70s, the running game was supposed to win games for teams, as running was a more effective optionthan passing. In some ways, the goal of the running game now is to not mess things up for the passing game, by forcing a punt or an unfavorable third down situation.

About 25 years ago, Bob Carroll, Pete Palmer and John Thorn wrote the Hidden Game of Football, a fascinating book on football theory and win probability. They went through and graded each play as a success or failure based on how many yards were gained as a percentage of how many yards were needed to pick up a first down or touchdown.

When I wrote a series on the most dominant running backs of all-time, I noted that yards per carry was a misleading statistic for running backs. Rushing is more about consistent success than passing, and rushing has a positive feedback loop in place that might lower yards per carry averages. Yards per carry is highly sensitive to large runs, decreasing the correlation it would have with the overall strength of a running game. I had a discussion with Brian Burke about this a couple of years ago, and he now uses rush success rate in his team efficiency models.

So to analyze NFL running games so far this season, I decided to use my own version of rush success rate. Here’s exactly what I did:



I looked at every play from scrimmage where the running back was credited with a carry. Note that all carries by non-running backs were specifically excluded. I then removed all instances of 3rd or 4th down carries where the player needed to gain more than 5 yards for a first down. It doesn’t feel right blaming the runner for not gaining 7 yards on 3rd and 7, so I have simply eliminated all failures from the data. However, on the rare occasions where a running back did convert for the first down, those plays were not removed. This has only happened 21 times this season, highlighted by an Arian Foster 16-yard run on 3rd and 15 against the Ravens.

For all 3rd or 4th downs, a success is defined as gaining the first down. A failure is every rush that does not gain a first down. On all downs, a first down (which includes a touchdown) is a success.

On all second downs, a success is achieved when the player gains at least 50% of the yards needed for the first down. This means that 2nd-and-10 runs are failures unless they pick up 5 yards; on 2nd-and-7, the running back must gain at least 4 yards. A rush for one yard on 2nd-and-3 is a failure, and so on.

On first down, a running back is credited with a successful play if he gains at least 40% of the yards needed; therefore, four yards are required on 1st-and-10 before the running back is given credit. On 1st and goal from the 5, a two-yard gain would be considered a success.

Using this criteria, 49% of all running plays by running backs have been successful this season. The average gain on all carries was 4.34 yards.

It’s worth remembering that 9 or 10 games it not a very large sample size, especially when the success rate among running backs is generally in the tight window between 45 and 55 percent. On 120 carries, we’re only talking about 12 more successful plays, which may only amount to 12 more yards. Over time, and on the team level, I have a bit more faith in the data. That said, the table below lists the running backs with the largest number of successful runs this season:

As painful as it is to watch the Jacksonville offense, it’s scary to fathom how bad it would look without Maurice Jones-Drew. He leads the league with 94 successful carries. If his 50% success rate does not impress you, consider that backup Deji Karim has been successful on only 37% of his runs.

DeMarco Murray has an incredible 6.7 yards per carry average, in part thanks to a 91-yard touchdown run on his first carry against the Rams. But Murray has been more than just a home run hitter, succeeding on an incredible 61% of his limited carries so far this season.

Meanwhile, Jahvid Best is drawing comparisons — both good and bad — to another former Detroit Lion. Like Barry Sanders, Best is a big-play machine, and his 4.7 yards per carry average looks impressive. But Best gained 131 yards on two carries against the Bears and has averaged just 3.2 yards per carry on his other 82 runs. He also averaged only 3.2 yards per carry as a rookie, and his inability to consistently gain yards has left the Lions ranked 29th in rushing first downs. Being only a big-play threat isn’t bad or even necessarily an insult; but to truly understand how an offense is operating, knowing that Best averages 4.7 yards per carry will not tell you much. And Best is only a small part of the problem: the Detroit offensive line is a horrible run-blocking unit as a whole.

For players, I thought it fairer to grade them by total number of successful plays. But on the team level, let’s sort by success rate:

Team Car Succ Succ% RshYd YPC NOR 233 132 56.7% 1109 4.8 BUF 185 102 55.1% 1050 5.7 NWE 203 110 54.2% 861 4.2 SDG 213 115 54.0% 904 4.2 DAL 207 111 53.6% 1039 5.0 PIT 226 120 53.1% 967 4.3 PHI 190 100 52.6% 983 5.2 ARI 196 102 52.0% 745 3.8 HOU 323 167 51.7% 1498 4.6 CIN 224 114 50.9% 876 3.9 MIN 199 101 50.8% 971 4.9 GNB 187 93 49.7% 774 4.1 WAS 177 88 49.7% 705 4.0 NYG 218 107 49.1% 789 3.6 SFO 214 105 49.1% 1027 4.8 IND 202 99 49.0% 849 4.2 OAK 233 114 48.9% 1190 5.1 NYJ 211 103 48.8% 780 3.7 MIA 214 104 48.6% 858 4.0 CAR 159 77 48.4% 747 4.7 CHI 212 102 48.1% 1019 4.8 DEN 217 104 47.9% 1040 4.8 JAX 247 118 47.8% 1003 4.1 CLE 192 91 47.4% 643 3.3 STL 202 95 47.0% 906 4.5 TAM 160 75 46.9% 726 4.5 KAN 228 105 46.1% 965 4.2 ATL 227 103 45.4% 964 4.2 BAL 190 84 44.2% 767 4.0 SEA 175 77 44.0% 686 3.9 DET 182 74 40.7% 750 4.1 TEN 197 78 39.6% 659 3.3

The top three teams may surprise you. The most publicized portion of the Saints’ running game has been the failure of Mark Ingram to live up to high expectations. And while there’s nothing impressive about his 340 rushing yards, 3 touchdowns or 3.7 yards per carry average, his 58% success rate is something to be lauded. That high rate has been equaled by the other newcomer to the Saints backfield, Darren Sproles. To be clear, the differences end there: not only does Sproles have an incredible 6.8 yards per carry average, his 60 catches rank third in the league and his 1,604 all-purpose yards lead the NFL. As Chris described, Sproles is the top space player in the game today. Throw in Pierre Thomas’ also outstanding success rate (56%), and one could fairly attribute much of the success of the Saints rushing game to the offensive line. New Orleans a fantastic pair of run-blocking guards in Jahri Evans and Carl Nicks, while fullback Jed Collins has been masterful filling the void left by the retired Heath Evans.

In Buffalo, it’s all about Fred Jackson. His 57% success rate trails only Ben Tate among running backs with at least 100 carries. The Bills have looked terrible the last two weeks, but Jackson’s fantastic season continues. He leads the NFL in rushing yards, yards per game and yards from scrimmage, while averaging a healthy 5.6 yards per carry and recording an incredibly high success rate. Jackson’s ability is finally being recognized, but did you know that BenJarvus Green-Ellis’ 57% success rate ranks third in that category? And that’s after a couple of miserable games (perhaps due to injury) against the Steelers and Jets. Danny Woodhead (53%) and Stevan Ridley (49%) have been slightly less successful, but the Patriots have been a very effective team on the ground this season. It’s tempting to give Brady or Brees credit for that because of the respect defenses must pay them, but don’t forget that many Peyton Manning and Philip Rivers teams in years past struggled to run the ball despite having fantastic passing attacks. The Jets running attack has declined each season as Mark Sanchez progresses from a rookie to third year quarterback. There isn’t anywhere near the correlation between passing and rushing success in the NFL as there it as the lower levels of play. If anything, I’d credit Brady because of his ability to check to and from running plays based on how the defense is lined up (but again, see Manning, Peyton).

In fact, while Rivers is having his worst season in years, the Chargers running game has never been better post-Tomlinson. Mike Tolbert has the lower yards per carry average but the higher success rate, while Ryan Mathews has been the big play running back for the Chargers. Together, the duo give San Diego a fantastic running attack that is shockingly the strength of the team. Just last season, the Chargers led the league in net yards per pass and net yards per pass allowed while being stout against the run; San Diego has regressed everywhere but the running game (and special teams) this season.

Houston’s running attack has received praise throughout the football world, and I’m not going to tell you that Arian Foster, Ben Tate and the Texans’ offensive line aren’t fantastic. The Texans are 3rd in rushing yards and 2nd in rushing touchdowns (on a per game basis), so the stats back up the theory. But those statistics also reflect the fact that the Texans have had the highest points differential during their average play of any team this season. The Texans have led after the first quarter in nine of ten games thus far; on average, Houston is leading by 11.6 points at halftime. That’s played a key role in the high raw rushing totals, as Houston has at least 32 carries in each of their seven wins but fewer than 25 carries in each of their three losses. Lest one be led to believe that the Texans’ problem in their losses is that they are simply not running frequently enough, the issue is that the Houston running backs have recorded a 56% success rate in wins but just a 37% success rate in losses. There’s no doubt that Houston has a great running game, but I’m curious to see how their rushing production changes once they play in more competitive games. Unfortunately, that’s almost certainly bound to happen now.

On the other end of the spectrum, there’s no way to put Chris Johnson and the Titans in a positive light. Even with Johnson gaining over 100 yards against the Panthers this weekend, it was more methodical than explosive: Tennessee running backs had 33 carries for 149 yards. Tennessee still ranks 32nd in rushing yards even after their best rushing performance of the season.

I wrote about the Baltimore Ravens incredibly high adjusted pass-to-rush ratio for the New York Times’ blog last week. While we all love Ray Rice, his low success rate is likely playing a part in the offensive philosophy. Rice (46%) and Ricky Williams (42%) have not done enough to dissuade Cam Cameron from shifting the team’s offensive philosophy, even if the passing attack is led by Joe Flacco. On 70 first-and-ten rushes, Rice is averaging 4.0 yards per carry but only succeeding on 44% of his carries; Williams has been even worse, with just a 36% success rate on 1st-and-10 and a 3.5 yards per carry average. That doesn’t make life easy on an offensive coordinator. But then again, calling 52 pass plays and only five runs for Rice is shifting things way too far in the other direction, and won’t exactly appease many fans.

Stopping the run

When the 49ers were 4-1, I wrote that Jim Harbaugh was doing another masterful job in the Bay Area. In that article, I noted that the 49ers were the only team that had not allowed a rushing touchdown. At 8-1, both of those statements remain true. The 49ers rank first in the league in rushing yards allowed and yards per rush allowed, as well. They’ll have to settle for #2 in defensive rush success rate: here, of course, a lower success rate is better:

Team Car Succ Succ% RshYd YPC SEA 220 87 39.5% 771 3.5 SFO 157 65 41.4% 516 3.3 ATL 176 73 41.5% 676 3.8 DET 199 84 42.2% 944 4.7 JAX 212 92 43.4% 835 3.9 DEN 215 95 44.2% 908 4.2 CHI 159 72 45.3% 832 5.2 BAL 219 100 45.7% 750 3.4 CIN 199 93 46.7% 741 3.7 PIT 209 99 47.4% 868 4.2 OAK 194 92 47.4% 986 5.1 HOU 189 90 47.6% 823 4.4 MIN 193 92 47.7% 706 3.7 WAS 209 100 47.8% 905 4.3 PHI 197 95 48.2% 980 5.0 NYJ 235 114 48.5% 963 4.1 NYG 195 96 49.2% 879 4.5 TEN 225 111 49.3% 920 4.1 KAN 237 120 50.6% 975 4.1 TAM 224 115 51.3% 1104 4.9 DAL 181 93 51.4% 825 4.6 NOR 195 101 51.8% 1051 5.4 MIA 208 108 51.9% 813 3.9 STL 215 112 52.1% 1132 5.3 SDG 211 112 53.1% 957 4.5 CAR 232 125 53.9% 1164 5.0 CLE 257 139 54.1% 1168 4.5 ARI 220 119 54.1% 941 4.3 GNB 157 85 54.1% 728 4.6 IND 311 170 54.7% 1292 4.2 BUF 210 118 56.2% 950 4.5 NWE 183 103 56.3% 747 4.1

For all the criticism Pete Carroll’s Seahawks have endured, let’s give them credit for having a fantastic run defense. Pro Football Focus ranks the Seattle run defense as third best in the league, in large part thanks to the spectacular work by Alan Branch, Red Bryant, Brandon Mebane and K.J. Wright. Branch ranks as PFF’s top defensive tackle in the league against the run while Mebane is tied for second among defensive tackles (to Cleveland’s Ahtyba Rubin) in stops.

The Falcons and Broncos have been surprisingly difficult to run on in 2011. In Denver, rookie of the year candidate Von Miller has been an absolute monster not just at getting to the quarterback but at frustrating opposing running games. In Atlanta, John Abraham and Ray Edwards have been more notable for their pass rushing prowess than anything else in prior years, but both are holding up very well against the run this season.

At the bottom? The Bills ranked last in rushing yards and yards per carry allowed in 2010 after ranking 30th in those categories in 2009. And while Buffalo got off to a hot start this season, their run defense looks to be a culprit again in 2011. I can’t even imagine how ugly they look against Fred Jackson in practice.

Everyone knows the Patriots rank dead last in passing yards allowed, but the run defense hasn’t been any better. Vince Wilfork is having a miserable season and New England seems incapable of doing anything well on defense against any team besides the Jets.

No surprise seeing the Colts near the bottom of the list. For the first time in years, the Indianapolis run defense hasn’t been bailed out by Peyton Manning in 2011, who has at times covered the spotlight on the awful run defense.

The most surprising name in the bottom five belongs to the defending Super Bowl champs. It’s tempting to think that perhaps Green Bay just allows some runs in garbage time as the Packers always seem to be leading, but that’s not the case. The rush defense struggled mightily against the Saints (70% success rate), Chargers (72%) and Panthers (69%) in games that never truly entered garbage time. The pass defense has been spotty this season, ranking below average in every category except interceptions, but the run defense has been even worse. With New Orleans’ strong running attack, they present as tough a matchup as anyone to stop the Packers from repeating as Super Bowl champs. I put almost no stock in the theory that you beat great offenses by keeping them off the field — in fact, I devoted an entire post to dispelling that theory in my attempt to correct the narrative from the Bills-Giants Super Bowl — but the Saints certainly seem capable of doing just that against the Packers. New Orleans’ three-headed rushing attack and consistent ability to succeed on the ground could prevent significant issues for the Packers in a playoff rematch. And their quarterback is pretty good, too.