ciscoholgate
Winning is a Habit
Hello fellow Phin Fans!
I am bored waiting for the season to actually start, so I decided to do a write up and statistical analysis of the Dolphins rushing attack this past offseason.
I am a very big supporter of establishing a good running game. This helps out the other facets of the game such as the deep ball from play action and it keeps our defense on the sideline to rest.
Just be warned this is a very long post. Let's begin:
Just a reminder the Phins averaged 118.6 yards on the grounf which was good enough to net us as 11th best in the NFL while also averaging a solid 4.2 yards per carry. I also did not count any kneel downs by Pennington, but I did include his scrambles. This accounts for the numbers not matching up with the actual stats for the Dolphins rushing game.
What I did was I broke down every run this past season. I looked at where the ball was rushed (behing the LT, LG, C, ect.) and how many yards the rush went for. I broke it down into seven different spots. I received my information from NFL.com and used the play by play sheets to find out where the run went and how many yards it gained. Here are the spots and a brief description of what constituted a run in that spot.
LT - A rush behind the LT (Jake Long or anyone else).
LG - A rush behind the LG (Justin Smiley or anyone else at LG after his injury).
C - This is a tricky scenario. NFL.com has a lot of rushes listed as "rush down the middle". What I understand this to be is a rush off C between either LG/C or C/RG. This caused a larger number of runs to count for the C, but it is a good indication of how our coaches attack a defense.
RG - A rush behind the RG (Ikechuku Ndukwe and others).
RT - A rush behind the RT (Vernon Carey and possibly Jake Long in the Wildcat).
LE and RE - A rush outside of the LT or RT (can constitue successful block by either the LT or RT hooking, a pulling guard, a fullback, or a WR).
These are how I catagorized each block and made grouping the rushes more understandable. Here are the results:
Rush behind LT - 118 yards on 37 carries and 1 TD, 4.2 ypc.
Rush behind LG - 162 yards on 41 carries and 1 TD, 4.0 ypc.
Rush behind C - 502 yards on 119 carries and 6 TD, 4.0 ypc.
Rush behind RG - 201 yards on 50 carries and 2 TD, 4.0 ypc.
Rush behind RT - 254 yards on 57 carries and 1 TD, 4.6 ypc.
Rush outside LT - 365 yards on 62 carries and 6 TD, 5.9 ypc.
Rush outside RT - 302 yards on 54 carries and 1 TD, 5.6 ypc.
Like I said the breakdown consists of the rush going directly behind a specific player. Although it looks like Jake did not get a lot of rushes or yards off LT, it looks like the Phins ran outside of his side very often and with great success.
It seems obvious why Carey is a top RT. His run blocking is very good and had the best yards per carry stat on the front line. I also broke it down for inside versus outside rushes. I comstituted an inside rush as a rush behind the C, the LG, and the RG. An outside rush was constituted as a rush off T and outside the T. Here are the stats:
Inside rush (LG, C, RG) - 865 yards on 210 carries and 9 TD, 4.1 yps.
Outside rush (LE, LT, RT, RE) - 1039 yards on 210 carries and 9 TD, 4.9 ypc.
It seems our FO did a very good job of keeping the rushes balanced by attacking the inside and outside equally. It seems we had much more succes on the edges than our interior. Hopefully Grove and the return of a healthy Smiley and Thomas can help that.
I also broke down the rushing attack by quarter to see how effectively we established the run. Here it is:
1st Quarter - 517 yards on 112 carries and 3 TD, 4.6 ypc.
2nd Quarter - 506 yards on 92 carries and 6 TD, 5.5 ypc.
3rd Quarter - 372 yards on 84 carries and 4 TD, 4.4 ypc.
4th Quarter - 509 yards on 132 carries and 5 TD, 3.9 ypc.
It seems our OL was very good at establishing the run early in the game and this more than likely helped Pennington and our D out. The most rushes were in the 4th Quarter, which is a good sign because it means we were running clock to preserve a victory.
I also have a look at which side of the line produced a better rush. Here is a breakdown of the Left side of the line versus the Right side of the line:
Left Side (LE, LT, LG) - 645 yards on 140 carries and 8 TDs, 4.6 ypc.
Right Side (RE, RT, RG) - 757 yards on 161 carries and 4 TD, 4.7 ypc.
It looks like the right side of the line had just a little more success and even had 17% more rushes than the left side. It can also be seen that the Left side produces twice as many TDs as the Right side.
These stats can be broken down in a lot of different ways. How much of an affect did the running back have? How much of an affect did the Wildcat have? I used all the information availible to me to get a better average to see how effective each of our linmen were.
Overall I have to say the OL did a very solid job of establishing a good running game to make things easier for Pennington and the defense. It seems later in the game the OL struggled to get the running game going. This can be atributed to either the opposing defense making adjustments, or the coaches decided to run the ball more with a lead and the defense knew it was coming. I tend to lean towards the latter.
I might do a breakdown of the running backs comparing what rushing downs they were most effective and who they rushed best behind, but we shall see. Let me know what you think.
GO PHINS!
I am bored waiting for the season to actually start, so I decided to do a write up and statistical analysis of the Dolphins rushing attack this past offseason.
I am a very big supporter of establishing a good running game. This helps out the other facets of the game such as the deep ball from play action and it keeps our defense on the sideline to rest.
Just be warned this is a very long post. Let's begin:
Just a reminder the Phins averaged 118.6 yards on the grounf which was good enough to net us as 11th best in the NFL while also averaging a solid 4.2 yards per carry. I also did not count any kneel downs by Pennington, but I did include his scrambles. This accounts for the numbers not matching up with the actual stats for the Dolphins rushing game.
What I did was I broke down every run this past season. I looked at where the ball was rushed (behing the LT, LG, C, ect.) and how many yards the rush went for. I broke it down into seven different spots. I received my information from NFL.com and used the play by play sheets to find out where the run went and how many yards it gained. Here are the spots and a brief description of what constituted a run in that spot.
LT - A rush behind the LT (Jake Long or anyone else).
LG - A rush behind the LG (Justin Smiley or anyone else at LG after his injury).
C - This is a tricky scenario. NFL.com has a lot of rushes listed as "rush down the middle". What I understand this to be is a rush off C between either LG/C or C/RG. This caused a larger number of runs to count for the C, but it is a good indication of how our coaches attack a defense.
RG - A rush behind the RG (Ikechuku Ndukwe and others).
RT - A rush behind the RT (Vernon Carey and possibly Jake Long in the Wildcat).
LE and RE - A rush outside of the LT or RT (can constitue successful block by either the LT or RT hooking, a pulling guard, a fullback, or a WR).
These are how I catagorized each block and made grouping the rushes more understandable. Here are the results:
Rush behind LT - 118 yards on 37 carries and 1 TD, 4.2 ypc.
Rush behind LG - 162 yards on 41 carries and 1 TD, 4.0 ypc.
Rush behind C - 502 yards on 119 carries and 6 TD, 4.0 ypc.
Rush behind RG - 201 yards on 50 carries and 2 TD, 4.0 ypc.
Rush behind RT - 254 yards on 57 carries and 1 TD, 4.6 ypc.
Rush outside LT - 365 yards on 62 carries and 6 TD, 5.9 ypc.
Rush outside RT - 302 yards on 54 carries and 1 TD, 5.6 ypc.
Like I said the breakdown consists of the rush going directly behind a specific player. Although it looks like Jake did not get a lot of rushes or yards off LT, it looks like the Phins ran outside of his side very often and with great success.
It seems obvious why Carey is a top RT. His run blocking is very good and had the best yards per carry stat on the front line. I also broke it down for inside versus outside rushes. I comstituted an inside rush as a rush behind the C, the LG, and the RG. An outside rush was constituted as a rush off T and outside the T. Here are the stats:
Inside rush (LG, C, RG) - 865 yards on 210 carries and 9 TD, 4.1 yps.
Outside rush (LE, LT, RT, RE) - 1039 yards on 210 carries and 9 TD, 4.9 ypc.
It seems our FO did a very good job of keeping the rushes balanced by attacking the inside and outside equally. It seems we had much more succes on the edges than our interior. Hopefully Grove and the return of a healthy Smiley and Thomas can help that.
I also broke down the rushing attack by quarter to see how effectively we established the run. Here it is:
1st Quarter - 517 yards on 112 carries and 3 TD, 4.6 ypc.
2nd Quarter - 506 yards on 92 carries and 6 TD, 5.5 ypc.
3rd Quarter - 372 yards on 84 carries and 4 TD, 4.4 ypc.
4th Quarter - 509 yards on 132 carries and 5 TD, 3.9 ypc.
It seems our OL was very good at establishing the run early in the game and this more than likely helped Pennington and our D out. The most rushes were in the 4th Quarter, which is a good sign because it means we were running clock to preserve a victory.
I also have a look at which side of the line produced a better rush. Here is a breakdown of the Left side of the line versus the Right side of the line:
Left Side (LE, LT, LG) - 645 yards on 140 carries and 8 TDs, 4.6 ypc.
Right Side (RE, RT, RG) - 757 yards on 161 carries and 4 TD, 4.7 ypc.
It looks like the right side of the line had just a little more success and even had 17% more rushes than the left side. It can also be seen that the Left side produces twice as many TDs as the Right side.
These stats can be broken down in a lot of different ways. How much of an affect did the running back have? How much of an affect did the Wildcat have? I used all the information availible to me to get a better average to see how effective each of our linmen were.
Overall I have to say the OL did a very solid job of establishing a good running game to make things easier for Pennington and the defense. It seems later in the game the OL struggled to get the running game going. This can be atributed to either the opposing defense making adjustments, or the coaches decided to run the ball more with a lead and the defense knew it was coming. I tend to lean towards the latter.
I might do a breakdown of the running backs comparing what rushing downs they were most effective and who they rushed best behind, but we shall see. Let me know what you think.
GO PHINS!
