Quartebacks are over/under rated

[astorian]

Of all the arguments I’ve heard for the running game, the most ludicrous is that a ball control attack “Keeps the other team’s offense off the field.”

So what???

If you’re leading in the 4th quarter, THEN it’s a blessing to have a running back who can eat up 4 or 5 yards a carry, take time off the clock, and deny the other side’s offense a chance to catch up. But until then, it’s SILLY to run the ball simply to “keep their quarterback off the field.” And it’s RIDICULOUS to start a game with that philosophy.

Suppose your team is playing against a squad with a potent passing attack. You decide to run the ball a lot, to take a lot of time off the clock. So, you run the ball again and again, moving the ball to the opponents’ 45 yard line before stalling and punting. Still, you reassure yourself, “At least we used up 5 minutes on that drive, and kept their offense off the field.”
Well, the other side comes out, throws 4 straight passes, and scores a touchdown, while taking only 1:32 off the clock

Under the circumstances, what did the running game do for the team that employed it? NOTHING!

The running game is successful IF it leads to your team scoring a lot of touchdowns. IF you have a running attack that generates a lot of 6+ minute touchdown-scoring drives, that’s GREAT, and I encourage you to stick with it. But don’t kid yourself that (prior to the 4th quarter) rushing yards that don’t lead to touchdowns are somehow valuable. They’re not!

Under Bill Parcells, the Giants did employ a ball-control offense that ate up the clock- and they DID win the 1991 Super Bowl that way. But you know what? Ray Handley’s Giants rushed just as effectively the next season, and controlled the clock just as effectively… but they usually LOST!

A ball-control strategy CAN work, but it’s just as risky as any other strategy. It works well, PROVIDED that:

1. Those lengthy drives result in TOUCHDOWNS!
2. Your defense can shut down the other side’s offense when it DOES get the ball (which it inevitably will).

Suppose a ball-control team mounts a series of 5 minute drives against the Rams, but ends up punting or kicking field goals each team. Suppose, moreover, that the Rams move down the field and score touchdowns every time they DO get the ball.

In the end, you may hold the ball for 38 minutes and STILL end up losing 35-9. If so, what the heck have you accomplished?

[RTFirefly]

I’d love to see the stats on teams that hold the ball for 38 minutes. Most of them win, of course, and I’ll bet damned few of the ones that lose, lose by more than a TD.

If you’re up against a team that can routinely score on four passes in 1:32, then you’re in trouble from the get-go, of course. But if your defense at least somewhat belongs on the same field with their offense, then here’s what happens:

1. Their defense has gotten practically no rest while their offense has been scoring. Defending against the run is more work for the D-line than rushing the passer (extrapolate from Enginerd’s explanation), so you quickly return to tiring them out.
2. They’ll sometimes go 3-and-out - quickly. Same deal as (1), only they haven’t scored.
3. After awhile, you’ll be able to string first downs together. That time on the bench helps their QB lose his rhythm, reducing the likelihood of their scoring on the next possession.

If they can score at will, then you’re SOL unless you can score at will too, and it doesn’t matter how. But we’re assuming that’s not the case.

A high-percentage passing game can do the same thing as a running game, as Enginerd discussed, but the “high-percentage” part is key.

[IzzyR]

*Originally posted by Enginerd *
Playing defense is more difficult than playing offense for one simple reason: you don’t know where the play is going. An offensive player knows which direction a run is going to go, if the qb is going to roll to one side, if it’s a draw, a sweep, a screen pass, or a 5 step drop. A defensive player has to see what the offense is doing and then react to it - and because he’s reacting, he’s half a step behind the play.

The unit that tires the most on a defense is the defensive line. The o-line has it easy - on most plays, five 300 pound+ guys have to prevent 4 guys from getting to one particular person who’s going to be in one particular place. The defensive line, on the other hand, has to get through or around those five guys… then line up and do it again. There’s an enormous difference between doing this for 25 minutes and doing it for 35 minutes.

I’m still not sure I get it. If indeed playing offence takes less running, or less energy, why would the offence not extend more energy, or run a bit harder, and be more successful? It would seem to me that both the offence and the defence would be best served by going all out as hard as they can. If the units are equally competitive, they should both be doing this.

*Originally posted by RTFirefly *
I’d love to see the stats on teams that hold the ball for 38 minutes. Most of them win, of course, and I’ll bet damned few of the ones that lose, lose by more than a TD.

This too is no doubt true but for the opposite reason. All things being equal, a team with a good offence will hold the ball longer than a team with a bad one. If you were to assume that running and passing were equally effective - implying that winning and losing teams had the same distribution in terms of the run/pass percentage - then the better teams would average more time of possession for this reason alone. So even if it were true that passing is more effective there could still be some remaining advantage.

I guess you could theoretically figure out the exact advantage that would acrue due to simple effectiveness and calculate how much difference there is between a passing and running game timewise, and calculate if there is some additional advantage. But I doubt if it could be done as a practical matter - too many assumptions and moving pieces.

[Myrr21]

The mainstay of Denver for most of Elway’s years there was an outstanding defense. Elway’s numbers were frequently not all that outstanding, but he won a lot of games, particularly on fourth quarter comebacks. This is a product of his being on a strong defensive team - if you’ve not done a whole lot all game but are still trailing by only 10-7 in the fourth quarter, you score one touchdown, the defence holds and you are a hero.

Well, I quite clearly remember watching him burn the Redskins on the first snap of the Super Bowl for an 80 yard touchdown. Granted, we whupped em after that, but it was as clear a demonstration of Elway’s ability as I’ve seen.

Disagree here too. As previously noted, for many many years, anyone the Niners stuck in there at quarterback performed outstandingly.

Apparently, I am making the mistake of going on the word of Steve Young, who described the difficulties he had running the WC offense until he got the whole timing and footwork thing down. As pointed out above, statistics often don’t tell the whole story. Sure, the backup comes in and puts up some decent numbers, but 300 passing yards doesn’t mean much if you don’t make the one critical play on your final possesion. Unless you’re going to dig up some very thorough numbers, stats don’t account for the fact that a lesser QB won’t be trusted to throw the ball on 3rd and goal on the 1.

You wonder why Corey Dillon can’t buy a yard? It’s because he has crappy QBs behind him. The defense knows he’s going to get the ball. Put Montana, Young, Elway, Favre, Unitas, etc in for the Bengals, and they sure won’t make the Super Bowl, but you can bet that they won’t keep failing to get game-winning touchdowns when they have two downs to go one yard.