I believe the appropriate quote would be ... "lies, damned lies, and statistics." I cannot recall who said it originally many years ago, but it seems appropriate here.
There were several changes during that time period, including the real problem, our offensive linemen. Of note, the improved run performance seems to also coincide with replacing Anthony Steen at LG and Ju'Wuan James at RT. Another misleading element is the offensive "production" in garbage time. When the team NEEDS to sustain drives on the ground, we cannot. When the team is in a goal-line situation, we have not shown well. When you take out the occasional outlier like one huge run by Drake, our "production" looks very different! Comparing statistics of RB's who face 7 man boxes vs. RB's who face 8 and 9 man boxes is naïve. It is no coincidence that we are now winless in close games post-Ajayi and we were undefeated in close games with-Ajayi. While he certainly did not guarantee those wins, I do believe he was the difference maker in those wins.
The end goal from Gase was not to replace Ajayi with Williams or Drake. He could have easily done that by benching Ajayi, using him as a backup or situational player, and gaining at least a 4th for him when his rookie 5th round contract expired. The end goal was to improve the OL. That is a coaching flaw when you have the entire OL underperforming. Given the fiasco with our previous OL Coach, that is no surprise. Covering that up by scapegoating Ajayi is not really a good solution when your team sacrifices one of it's best assets.
If you view these statistics holistically, and conclude that we improved by discarding Ajayi for a song, then, IMHO, what you're really saying is that our failure at coaching the OL was covered up by squandering one of our best assets. To me, that's a bad course of action, and looks like a move of desperation rather than inspiration.
To me, this article reads like someone trying to put lipstick on a pig.