The Run Game doesnt matter

[Matts4313]

On 6/11/2019 at 4:07 PM, DaBoys said:

I just googled "winning the rushing battle." And it produced this: (but I have no idea where the numbers come from. I didn't write it.)

https://www.footballperspective.com/winning-the-rushing-battle-and-winning-the-game/

Since 1950, how successful were teams that won the rushing battle? Those teams won 72.9% of the time. That number is 72.7% since 1970, 71.9% since 1990, 71.3% since 2002, and 70.5% over the last 10 years. And the numbers are nearly identical, of course, if we ask the question the other way (among teams that won, how often did they win the rushing battle?).

 

Did you even read your own article? Those are the same guys I quoted page one. And they even explain in that article you quoted the reason there isnt a correlation:

Quote

Now, there are obviously key factors that drive both of these results: number of carries and leading late in games. The number of carries a team has is highly correlated with how many rushing yards a team gains. And the number of carries a team has is highly correlated with what the score margin is late in the game. And, finally, the score margin late in the game is highly correlated with how often the team wins the game.

 

[DaBoys]

15 minutes ago, Matts4313 said:

Did you even read your own article? Those are the same guys I quoted page one. And they even explain in that article you quoted the reason there isnt a correlation:

 

 

Team that is winning late –> is team that runs more late in games –> is team that finishes with more runs –> is team that finishes with more rushing yards –> is team that wins.

But what if we flip the script and look at games where that’s not true. Specifically, I’m thinking of all games where the team that wins the game was losing at the end of the third quarter. In that universe, we have a much more even environment to examine the rushing game. For example, since 1950, there have been 2,085 games where a team was losing after three quarters and won the game. On average, those teams trailed by 5.4 points after three quarters, but of course won every game.

Now, what percentage of the time do you think the winning team — that is, the team that trailed after three quarters — won the rushing battle?

This isn’t just a rhetorical question. I want you to think about it. On average, over these two thousand plus games, the winning team trailed by 1.5 points after the first quarter, (4.6 to 3.1), by 3.8 points at halftime, (12.0 to 8.2), 5.4 points after three quarters (17.1 to 11.7), and then was ahead by 4.2 points (23.7 to 19.5) after the fourth quarter.

Knowing this, how often do you think the team that won also won the rushing battle?

I’ll give you another minute to think about it.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.

The answer is 54% since 1950, 53% since 1970, 52% since 1990, 52% since 2002, and 53% over the last 10 years. On average, the winning team (since 1950) had 30.95 rushing attempts for 123.25 yards (3.98), while the losing team had 28.63 attempts for 114.01 yards (3.98).

Over the last 8 years, the winning team has rushed 27.36 times for 111.15 yards per game, compared to the losing team having 25.58 carries for 108.71 yards per game. But most notable, perhaps, comes in terms of first downs, where the winning team had 6.15 and the losing team 5.71.

[Matts4313]

2 minutes ago, DaBoys said:

The answer is 54% since 1950, 53% since 1970, 52% since 1990, 52% since 2002, and 53% over the last 10 years. On average, the winning team (since 1950) had 30.95 rushing attempts for 123.25 yards (3.98), while the losing team had 28.63 attempts for 114.01 yards (3.98).

This lines up with literally every other piece of data. Its a coin toss. Again, showing the low correlation of running to winning. Your own article proves you wrong. 

[DaBoys]

So even when losing after the 3rd quarter ends, by a margin of ~5.4 points, in the absolute worst situation to even attempt a run. The teams that DO comeback and win the game are winning the rushing battle 54% of the time. 

73% of the time in normal wins and 54% of the time when trailing late and making a comeback.

Edited June 13, 2019 by DaBoys

[DaBoys]

2 minutes ago, Matts4313 said:

This lines up with literally every other piece of data. Its a coin toss. Again, showing the low correlation of running to winning. Your own article proves you wrong. 

That's only when losing late in the 4th quarter. Absolute cherry picking. 

And it still doesn't drop the percentage under "most of the time."

[Matts4313]

4 minutes ago, DaBoys said:

So even when losing after the 3rd quarter ends, by a margin of ~5.4 points, in the absolute worst situation to even attempt a run. The teams that DO comeback and win the game are winning the rushing battle 54% of the time. 

73% of the time in normal wins and 54% of the time when trailing late and making a comeback.

So your argument is that running 1.5 (the difference in your data) more times in the 4th quarter improves your win rate by 4%?

Or could it possibly be that teams threw the ball, took the lead, and then ran the clock down? As the argument in the article I provided (by the same people) suggest?

You do realize you are quoting a source that is the major source for the fact that running doesnt help you win?

[DaBoys]

It shows that winning the rushing battle accompanies winning the game somewhere between 54%-75+% of the time depending on the circumstances.

That tells me that winning teams run the ball. Which contradicts the most laughable thread title "Running doesn't Matter."

Add to it that 5 of the last 8 superbowl participants had top five rushing teams and put this silly thread to rest.

 

Nobody claimed that only running matters. If that were true people wouldn't get upset with Dak. Because passing wouldn't matter. Everyone recognizes the need to have an efficient passing game. We scream for it. You are the only person here claiming 40% of the offensive snaps have zero impact on the game.

 

 

[The_Slamman]

The bottom line is that better than 70% of the time time, the team that wins the rushing battle wins the game.  That’s not a very hard stat to understand.  And to take it a step further, it’s implicit that the team that runs better in the forth quarter almost always wins the game.  The teams that are losing despite having a lead after 3 quarters are losing because they can’t run the ball and control the clock.  70% is 70%.  

[TVScout]

6 hours ago, The_Slamman said:

The bottom line is that better than 70% of the time time, the team that wins the rushing battle wins the game.

What is the percentage for teams who win the passing battle?

[DaBoys]

49 minutes ago, TVScout said:

What is the percentage for teams who win the passing battle?

Passing yardage and attempts are negatively correlated to winning. The team that has to throw more passes usually has more yards. The team that has more passing yards usually loses the game.

 

http://archive.advancedfootballanalytics.com/2007/07/what-makes-teams-win-part-1.html?m=1

Passing is much more important than running, and offense appears to be more important than defense. Turnovers matter a great deal, interceptions more than fumbles. Penalties matter too, but not like you’d think.

We've been told by NFL analysts for years that defenses win championships and that a solid running game is the key to winning. I'd agree that things appear that way. Teams with lots of passing yards aren't always winners, but teams with lots of running yards almost always are. But, as you're about to find out, appearances can be deceiving.

One way to measure the relative importance of passing vs. running, or offense vs. defense, is to measure their statistical correlations with season wins. For example, the correlation coefficient of a team's total rushing yards correlates with its number of wins in a season is 0.45. A correlation of 1.0 would be perfect correlation, while a correlation of 0.0 would indicate no relationship. So 0.45 implies that total rushing yards is a moderately strong indication of how many games a team would win.

In comparison, total passing yards correlates with wins at 0.31. Compared with total rushing yards, total passing yards is less important in terms of winning games. This is what most fans and analysts notice when watching games or glancing at team stats. But does this mean that passing is less important than running in the NFL?
 

Edited June 14, 2019 by DaBoys

[DaBoys]

Passings efficiency is a better tell. 

http://archive.advancedfootballanalytics.com/2007/07/what-makes-teams-win-part-1.html?m=1

Yards per pass attempt is merely pass yards divided by pass attempts. So we have a relatively weak statistic (0.31) divided by an even weaker one with a negative correlation with winning (-0.17). We would expect to have a fairly meaningless result, but we don't. Passing efficiency turns out to be strongly correlated with winning (0.61). And unless having a lead in a game ‘causes’ a team’s passes to be more successful, we can safely say that passing efficiency leads to winning

[DaBoys]

And that is Matts point. Is that passing efficiency is highly correlated to winning. He just chose to make his point in an extremely hyperbolic way by saying that the run game does not even matter. Which is asinine.

That's like saying a knockout punch is highly correlated to being knocked out so I guess body shots don't matter.

[plan9misfit]

2 hours ago, DaBoys said:

Passings efficiency is a better tell. 

http://archive.advancedfootballanalytics.com/2007/07/what-makes-teams-win-part-1.html?m=1

Yards per pass attempt is merely pass yards divided by pass attempts. So we have a relatively weak statistic (0.31) divided by an even weaker one with a negative correlation with winning (-0.17). We would expect to have a fairly meaningless result, but we don't. Passing efficiency turns out to be strongly correlated with winning (0.61). And unless having a lead in a game ‘causes’ a team’s passes to be more successful, we can safely say that passing efficiency leads to winning

One problem with that 0.61 number: anyone who has taken a statistics or quantitative analysis course knows that statistical relevance begins at 0.8. Meaning, that figure would not be considered statistically relevant and thus would not be viewed as having a high correlation to winning, either.

[DaBoys]

Just now, plan9misfit said:

One problem with that 0.61 number: anyone who has taken a statistics or quantitative analysis course knows that statistical relevance begins at 0.8. Meaning, that figure would not be considered statistically relevant and thus would not be viewed as having a high correlation to winning, either.

It's almost as if no single aspect of the game is solely responsible for winning....

Hmmmmm. Crazy

[plan9misfit]

2 hours ago, DaBoys said:

And that is Matts point. Is that passing efficiency is highly correlated to winning. He just chose to make his point in an extremely hyperbolic way by saying that the run game does not even matter. Which is asinine.

That's like saying a knockout punch is highly correlated to being knocked out so I guess body shots don't matter.

It’s more like saying that all other methods of boxing are meaningless and have no correlation to winning than a knockout punch. So jabs, body shots, counter striking, defense, etc., would have no relevance.