Continuing issue: The run game

[frozen joe flacco fan]

Jamal Lewis and Brian Billick analyzed the problem correctly. He who hesitates is lost. While there are times our running backs have to be patient and wait for a hole to open or a run blocker to set up a block, hesitation doesn't work as a general rule. NFL RBs who fire into the line typically fare better than the ones who hesitate and stutter step before running south to north. By not trusting the play or following the lead blocker into the hole, Rice & Pierce often wait until the hole closes. Its also OK too to hand-off the ball to the up back (Leach) occasionally on a quick hitter at the goal line or to run a QB sneak or a QB draw. Our running game is way too vanilla. Forward handoffs to a tailback can also be an effective way of keeping the defense honest. Its fairly obvious that the coaching staff does not trust the O-line enough to call some of these "exotic" plays. For instance, a QB needs time to throw a flea-flicker.  

[gabefergy]

Your problem is that you are looking at solutions to mask a weakness. I am looking at fixing the execution issues and getting the run game on track.

you are trying to argue a point that I don't necessarily disagree with, however your thoughts are short-sighted. With no effective run game and the Ravens not running their brand and style to fix it, they will be nothing good. Having a 50/50 run-pass distribution work beautifully is predicated on running effectively, whether it is first, second, or third down. Try pass, pass, run or pass, run pass, or run, pass, pass or pass, run, run or...... Whatever. Whatever combo... The Ravens scheme will not work without the run game being effective. Period.

The latter is not true though. We have seen this season, our offense perform better when they aren't constantly battling 3rd and long. Some of the time it has been because the run game has actually been functional, but it has also been a function of putting the ball in Joe's hands.

A 50/50 run/pass ratio doesn't guarantee success, but at least it makes our offense less predictable and allows for a greater chance to pick up positive yardage on first down. If defenses are actually respecting the pass it allows to run into 6 and 7 man fronts instead of 8.

[CalvinSmoke]

I don't think we will straighten out until after the bye week. 

[callahan09]

Saw someone else mention it before, but I wanted to reiterate: If we don't improve by season's end, this will be the worst yards per attempt rushing that a team has had since the 1953 Giants.  Now, Jacksonville is slightly below us at the moment, so they are in the same dubious position we are, but unfortunately for us, they've been trending up recently.  Over the past 3 games, they've had more yards per attempt than we have.  We are falling into last place as they climb ahead of us each week.

 

The other 5 teams in league history that have finished the season with as bad or worse of a rushing yards per attempt as this year's Ravens, those teams had a combined record of 8-46.  If you include the two teams on track to finish among them this season (us and the Jags), then we so far have a combined record of 11-55.

 

The fact is... running the ball like this makes it insanely difficult to win games.

 

The Jags and Ravens in 2013 are the 21st and 22nd teams in NFL history to finish the first 6 games of the season with less than 2.75 yards per rush attempt.  The combined record of all 22 teams is 36-95, for a .275 winning percentage.  So we are sitting damn pretty to even be at.500 considering the abysmal quality of our run game.  Not good.

 

As I was saying... After today's games, we are officially #32 in the league in rushing yards per attempt:

BAL 185 Rush, 518 Yards = 2.80 YPC

JAX 153 Rush, 441 Yards = 2.88 YPC

[callahan09]

 

As I was saying... After today's games, we are officially #32 in the league in rushing yards per attempt:

BAL 185 Rush, 518 Yards = 2.80 YPC

JAX 153 Rush, 441 Yards = 2.88 YPC

 

And you know what's sad?  If you exclude quarterbacks from this equation and look literally at the running game for these teams, Flacco actually brings UP our team rushing yards per attempt (while the quarterbacks for Jacksonville bring theirs down).

 

Subtracting QBs from the equation, it looks like this:

 

BAL 176 Rush, 479 Yards = 2.72 YPC

JAX 133 Rush, 391 Yards = 2.94 YPC

 

Just... sad...

[RedFire]

And it's the line....cause it doesn't matter who we put in the backfield. Even though people said Pierce was more successful 3 weeks into the season which was false.

We would need Prime Jamal Lewis or Jerome Bettis to be successful with our current line cause they could run dudes over like a battering ram.

[arnie_uk]

And it's the line....cause it doesn't matter who we put in the backfield. Even though people said Pierce was more successful 3 weeks into the season which was false.
We would need Prime Jamal Lewis or Jerome Bettis to be successful with our current line cause they could run dudes over like a battering ram.

when we bring in each leach teams key in on the run, we need to run more with him off the field

[izvoodoo]

when we bring in each leach teams key in on the run, we need to run more with him off the field

We're not blocking well enough to run in an open set.

[Ed_Reed20]

when we bring in each leach teams key in on the run, we need to run more with him off the field

 

Leach himself hasn't blocked to his usual standard this year either. The running game is a complete mess.

[callahan09]

We now rank LAST in the league in both yards per attempt and 1st down percentage on rush attempts.

 

Out of 62 players with more than 30 rush attempts this season, Ray Rice and Bernard Pierce rank 61st and 62nd in yards per attempt.

 

That is beyond pathetic.

[TheRavenouseD2008]

guys I think  KO spotted the issue its him ......he has been playing with an injury the requires surgery AQ time

[flynismo]

And you know what's sad? If you exclude quarterbacks from this equation and look literally at the running game for these teams, Flacco actually brings UP our team rushing yards per attempt (while the quarterbacks for Jacksonville bring theirs down).

Subtracting QBs from the equation, it looks like this:

BAL 176 Rush, 479 Yards = 2.72 YPC
JAX 133 Rush, 391 Yards = 2.94 YPC

Just... sad...

Its comical...I can understand Vick or RG3 improving the YPC, but Flacco?
Since he is not only our QB, but our most efficient RB as well, maybe he is "finally earning his money"

[callahan09]

OK, I wanted to take a look at how often we're getting stuffed (no gain or loss of yardage) on rush attempts.

For this analysis, I am subtracting kneeldowns, as they shouldn't really count.

 

When subtracting kneeldowns from the number of stuffed rush attempts, the Ravens have 52, five more than any other team.  The next most is 47, from San Francisco, but that's a team that has run the ball 46 more times than we have.

 

We also rank worst in the league in percentage of rush attempts that get stuffed for a loss or no gain, at 28.7%.

 

Here's the breakdown of each team:

 

BAL 56 - 4 kneeldowns = 52 / 185 - 4 kneeldowns = 181 --> 28.7%

NYG 33 - 1 kneeldowns = 32 / 113 - 1 kneeldowns = 112 --> 28.6%

JAX 42 - 0 kneeldowns = 42 / 153 - 0 kneeldowns = 153 --> 27.5%

ATL 32 - 3 kneeldowns = 29 / 116 - 3 kneeldowns = 113 --> 25.7%

DET 50 - 7 kneeldowns = 43 / 179 - 7 kneeldowns = 172 --> 25.0%

TEN 51 - 5 kneeldowns = 46 / 190 - 5 kneeldowns = 185 --> 24.9%

WAS 39 - 1 kneeldowns = 38 / 164 - 1 kneeldowns = 153 --> 24.8%

TAM 39 - 1 kneeldowns = 38 / 160 - 1 kneeldowns = 159 --> 23.9%

NWE 51 - 9 kneeldowns = 42 / 195 - 9 kneeldowns = 186 --> 22.6%

CLE 38 - 5 kneeldowns = 33 / 156 - 5 kneeldowns = 149 --> 22.1%

STL 39 - 7 kneeldowns = 32 / 155 - 7 kneeldowns = 148 --> 21.6%

NOR 39 - 8 kneeldowns = 31 / 152 - 8 kneeldowns = 144 --> 21.5%

CAR 50 - 9 kneeldowns = 41 / 202 - 9 kneeldowns = 193 --> 21.2%

MIA 30 - 6 kneeldowns = 24 / 120 - 6 kneeldowns = 114 --> 21.1%

SFO 55 - 8 kneeldowns = 47 / 235 - 8 kneeldowns = 227 --> 20.7%

CHI 38 - 7 kneeldowns = 31 / 166 - 7 kneeldowns = 159 --> 19.5%

SEA 56 - 12 kneeldowns = 44 / 240 - 12 kneeldowns = 228 --> 19.3%

HOU 38 - 0 kneeldowns = 38 / 198 - 0 kneeldowns = 198 --> 19.2%

PIT 25 - 1 kneeldowns = 24 / 128 - 1 kneeldowns = 127 --> 18.9%

ARI 34 - 7 kneeldowns = 27 / 154 - 7 kneeldowns = 147 --> 18.4%

MIN 24 - 2 kneeldowns = 22 / 124 - 2 kneeldowns = 122 --> 18.0%

BUF 50 - 8 kneeldowns = 42 / 243 - 8 kneeldowns = 235 --> 17.9%

OAK 29 - 2 kneeldowns = 27 / 165 - 2 kneeldowns = 153 --> 17.7%

DEN 45 - 13 kneeldowns = 32 / 200 - 13 kneeldowns = 187 --> 17.1%

NYJ 38 - 1 kneeldowns = 37 / 219 - 1 kneeldowns = 218 --> 17.0%

CIN 39 - 7 kneeldowns = 32 / 198 - 7 kneeldowns = 191 --> 16.8%

PHI 41 - 6 kneeldowns = 35 / 224 - 6 kneeldowns = 218 --> 16.1%

DAL 25 - 4 kneeldowns = 21 / 147 - 4 kneeldowns = 143 --> 14.7%

KAN 38 - 10 kneeldowns = 28 / 203 - 10 kneeldowns = 193 --> 14.5%

GNB 29 - 7 kneeldowns = 22 / 165 - 7 kneeldowns = 158 --> 13.9%

IND 31 - 6 kneeldowns = 25 / 198 - 6 kneeldowns = 192 --> 13.0%

SDG 27 - 4 kneeldowns = 23 / 201 - 4 kneeldowns = 197 --> 11.7%

TOTAL

1251 - 171 kneeldowns = 1080 / 5648 - 171 kneeldowns = 5477 --> 19.7%

 

In case that's hard to read, it is showing the team name, then the number of rushes for loss or no gain minus number of kneel downs, then the total number of stuffed rushes excluding kneeldowns, then after the "/" it shows overall number of rush attempts minus number of kneeldowns and the total number of rush attempts excluding kneeldowns, and then finally the percentage of rush attempts that got stuffed.

 

As you can see, we are worst in the league, and significantly worse than the league average of 19.7%.

 

This isn't a place you want to be.

 

Looking at team records and comparing that to this list, you can see that teams that get stuffed a lot, don't win very often, and teams that don't get stuffed a lot, win pretty reliably.  There's definitely a correlation to it.

 

Overall, teams worse than average are 41-57 for a .418 winning percentage, and teams better than average are 65-49 for a .570 winning percentage.

 

But when you break it down a little more, since those numbers include teams that are very close to average being mixed in with the extremes to their respective side, we really see the clearer picture:

 

Teams that are more than 2% worse than average are winning at a low rate: 22-44, .333 winning percentage.

Teams that are within 2% of average are exactly average in winning percentage: 42-42, .500 winning percentage.

Teams that are more than 2% better than average are winning at a high rate: 42-20, .677 winning percentage.

 

We actually are winning at a higher rate (.429) than should be expected for teams in our category (.418 for all teams worse than average, .333 for teams more than 2% worse than average).

 

Teams that get stuffed over 25% of the time are just 5-21 for a .192 winning percentage, and we make up 3 out of 5 of those wins.  That category is just 2-17 for a .105 winning percentage outside of us.  Long story short, the futility of this running game is killing us.

[runamuk]

in the news articles this morning Osemele needs surgery on his back . Is it possible that Jensen is his replacement and his injury is contributing to these struggles as well. Pure speculation of course .

 

 

@ Callahan09-always enjoy reading your post

[callahan09]

Also, we average just 0.63 yards per attempt on 3rd and 1 rush attempts (that's worst in the league), and have converted for the first down just 37.5% of the time, compared to league average of 2.91 yards per attempt and a 67.9% success rate.

 

So to summarize what I've put out there in my last couple of posts, our running game is worst in the league in yards per carry, worst in the league in first down percentage on rush attempts, and worst in the league on percentage of runs that get stuffed for a loss or no gain.

[callahan09]

At the moment, we are earning 2.78 yards per attempt on the ground.  That rate would be the worst season for any team since 1953.

 

For a little perspective, that was the first season for the Baltimore Colts in the NFL, and before Johnny Unitas came into the league. 60 years.  Wow.

[berad]

At the moment, we are earning 2.78 yards per attempt on the ground.  That rate would be the worst season for any team since 1953.

 

For a little perspective, that was the first season for the Baltimore Colts in the NFL, and before Johnny Unitas came into the league. 60 years.  Wow.

 

We're straight garbage rushing. I've said many times that running feels like a wasted play. I bet Flacco buoys that figure, too.

[callahan09]

We're straight garbage rushing. I've said many times that running feels like a wasted play. I bet Flacco buoys that figure, too.

Yep.  If you exclude Flacco from our rushing stats, we have 194 attempts for 509 yards: 2.62 yards per attempt.

[donkeyking64]

Well, for years and years there was talk about how bad the passing game was. Never thought we'd see this day.

[mdrsharon]

now that the season is half over, we obviously need to make something change.

our run game is pathetic.

 

no holes for Ray to run through, this year the O line is just not getting it done. Flacco is not much outside the pocket - but we never give him a pocket.

 

when I watch other teams, they seem to make pathways for their guys to make big runs. We do not.

the line is way different this year, among other things, this team is just not meshing.

 

We need to find out the real reason why.