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Article: The Absence of Ricky

ckparrothead

ckparrothead

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I won't subject you guys to a shameless plug of the site I write for, but I did want to share with you my latest piece...

The Absence of Ricky Should Not Be Minimized

by Chris Kouffman


The Dolphins were dealt a significant blow recently when it was announced that Ricky Williams had lost his appeal of a failed December drug test. Immediate fan and local media reaction has been predictably bifurcated. Some would paint the development as the end of the world while others would sell this snake oil as “addition by subtraction.†The truth of the matter is that the loss of Ricky Williams will have a significant negative impact on the Dolphins offense, whether the fans like it or not.

According to the major local and national media organizations, most of whom cite sources that would not be identified due to their clearly being responsible for violating Ricky Williams’ right to confidentiality under the NFL’s drug rehabilitation program, Williams tested positive for an amphetamine-like stimulant. Williams and his attorney David Cornwell argued that the substance entered Williams blood stream by means of an herbal supplement that Williams ingested as part of his profession as a yoga instructor. The NFL did not buy it, and used the opportunity to throw the book at Williams. No doubt the decision reflects the NFL’s disapproval over Ricky’s past indiscretions.

The question on everyone’s mind is how this development will affect an offense that scored an average of nearly 20 points a game last season. The answer is intuitive. If you lose a significant player, the chances are you will lose a significant amount of your offense’s efficiency.

In this case the team will lose an element of consistency that it enjoyed in its ground game with the presence of Ricky Williams and Ronnie Brown. Even though the experimental “hippo†backfield (referring to the formation that features both Ricky Williams and Ronnie Brown in the same backfield) was a brutal failure, the Dolphins hit stride with a rotation element of two consecutive drives for each runner. In Ricky’s honor, one might refer to it lovingly as the “puff, puff, give…†backfield.

The rotation produced results with which few could argue. During the 12 post-suspension games Williams was free to offer his services to the Dolphins, the two backs averaged 134 total yards and just under one touchdown per game on an average of 28 touches. Together, they averaged 4.8 yards per touch.

As a comparison, during the four games that constituted the suspension imposed upon Ricky Williams by the NFL for his previous failed drug tests, a combination of Ronnie Brown and current backup Sammy Morris produced an average of 109 total yards per game on 24.5 touches. The two had only one touchdown between them during the stretch and averaged 4.3 yards per touch.

While the differences between those two sets of figures are neatly-wrapped and easily understood, they do not begin to describe the real difference between the two backfields. That difference lies primarily in consistency.

The narrative evidence goes like this: having two backs helps account for the proverbial ‘bad day at the office’. The reality of an NFL season dictates that nagging injuries will be suffered, and bad days as well as good will occur with regularity. With a backfield driven by a one-back system, a bad day from a runner could affect the offense regularly. With two talented runners in the backfield, the incidence of a truly bad day is diminished because the chances dictate that if one back is having a bad day, the other would not necessarily be having a similar bad day. This tends to produce a steady flow of production from your running back unit that is interrupted by the occasional odd hiccup during which both runners happen to be having a bad day.

On the other hand, upside may be capped by the rotation as well. If the chance of having a truly bad day is diminished, so too is the chance of having a truly good day. A strict rotation does not afford the coach much ability to ride the hot hand unless he breaks the rotation.

In the 12 game post-suspension sample, the output totals followed the narrative theory remarkably. The three worst yardage outputs were 58, 96, and 109 total yards. The three best outputs were 200, 176, and 175 total yards. The other six games ranged tightly between 124 and 142 total yards. The average deviation from the mean (or standard deviation, for statistical buffs) was 38 yards.

As a comparison, the following were the total yardage outputs of the combination of Ronnie Brown and Sammy Morris during the first four games of the season: 75, 63, 175, and 124 yards. The sample is not large enough to calculate a significant standard deviation statistic, but the eyeball test alone gives a fair idea of the volatility in the yardage outputs.

As a better comparison, we can look at the San Diego Chargers as a case study of what the one-back system looks like with a talented backup runner spelling the starter rather than rotating with him. The Chargers backfield featured the super-talented LaDainian Tomlinson as the lead man, with talented speedster Michael Turner backing him up. Together the two backs averaged 135 total yards on an average of 28 touches and well over one touchdown per game during the season. Touchdowns notwithstanding, the output is remarkably similar to the Ricky and Ronnie setup.

The difference lies in consistency. Where the Dolphins endured only two games with under 100 yards of output from their two backs, the Chargers had seven such games. The standard deviation from the mean for the Chargers’ pair was 66 yards, which nearly double that of the Dolphins’ pair.

On a strictly observational basis, the inconsistency was costly for the Chargers. There is little doubt among league personnel that the Chargers had the talent to make the playoffs. Of the Chargers’ seven losses on the season, six of those losses happened to be among the previously mentioned games in which Tomlinson and Turner combined for under 100 yards of output. When the extremely talented Tomlinson was hot, there was little doubt who would ultimately win the game. However, when he had naturally occurring bad days, the Chargers were left too exposed to his fortunes and dropped many close games.

The Dolphins clearly had the identity of overachievers in 2005, where the Chargers were known as underachievers. The dual backfield of Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams provided a rock of consistency to anchor the team’s efforts to achieve more than was expected. For the Chargers, their exposure to the up and down fortunes of their ground attack was a source of instability that weighed too heavily on their overall performance.

With the loss of Ricky Williams come the inherent dangers in depending upon one man for a significant portion of the team’s offense. This phenomenon is nothing new. It has been done before by many teams, including many that won championships. Nonetheless, it does not change the fact that the Dolphins have lost something with this decision by the NFL to suspend Ricky Williams for a full year. The upcoming NFL Draft should prove to be an opportunity to replace that lost weapon, though not necessarily by acquiring another runner.
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nice article thanks for sharing.
 
Good post as always CK....one thing about RB was that he was injured for part of the year. It also took a while for Ronnie to get up to speed and to learn the system (didn't he report to camp a little late because of contract negotiations?). If Ronnie can stay healthy we are fine. We only averaged about 20 points a game last year....I think this mainly due to Gus's poor completion percentage especially in the Red Zone. Losing Ricky will hurt but I think his loss is offset but us bringing in DC and other weapons.
 
Great post.

However, I wonder if the Brown/Morris stats need to be thrown out the window because they were Brown's first 4 games and he was feeling his way around the NFL.

But then again, that other guy from Auburn did okay in his first 4 games in the NFL. I guess my point is that Brown improved as a runner as the year progressed, and I do not believe the progress was due to the presence of the one-who-must-not-be-mentioned.
 
ckparrothead said:
I won't subject you guys to a shameless plug of the site I write for, but I did want to share with you my latest piece...
Click to expand...
Great post like always.
 
Good article CK...I agree that we will definitely feel the sting of losing a top five back.
 
Gardenhead said:
Great post.

However, I wonder if the Brown/Morris stats need to be thrown out the window because they were Brown's first 4 games and he was feeling his way around the NFL.

But then again, that other guy from Auburn did okay in his first 4 games in the NFL. I guess my point is that Brown improved as a runner as the year progressed, and I do not believe the progress was due to the presence of the one-who-must-not-be-mentioned.
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They do, and I didn't intend them to be a heavily weighted argument. They were just a quick point.

The best point was how Tomlinson did in San Diego because nobody could possibly argue that Tomlinson had a bad year...and yet, when you stop and look at it, the one-back system in itself is not terribly consistent and this can lead to losses. It did for the Chargers. I would be willing to bet that if you really looked at the Dolphins in 2000 and 2002, you would also see very very very similar results.

All I'm basically pointing out is that we are indeed losing something valuable...and we could genuinely consider replacing that lost value with something equally valuable.
 
Miami - Williams = Miami + Culpepper

Balance achieved.

Plus, look at the bright side. When we're coming off our AFC Championship game loss and people start to say we need that extra something to get us over the hump for the following 2007 season. . . . enter Ricky Williams, problem solved.
 
Gardenhead said:
Great post.

However, I wonder if the Brown/Morris stats need to be thrown out the window because they were Brown's first 4 games and he was feeling his way around the NFL.

But then again, that other guy from Auburn did okay in his first 4 games in the NFL. I guess my point is that Brown improved as a runner as the year progressed, and I do not believe the progress was due to the presence of the one-who-must-not-be-mentioned.
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I am with you.....because you also have to take into account that the first 4 games we also had a new system being developed and installed, a previously sucky offensive line growing and developing under a new coach, a new quarterback, etc....The entire team was not the same in the beginning of the season as the end of the season, not just the running game.
 
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