Why the obsession with passing?

SalishHawkFan":a7hfx6av said:

Time for Mythbusters:


Myth 2: We are a run oriented offense. Fact is, we pass more often than we run and if we opened up the passing game even more, then yes, we basically would be abandoning the run. Holmgren's offenses were more balanced than this years Hawks.

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Time for more Mythbusters, but this time, with actual facts instead of bullcrap:

We ARE a run-oriented offense. This season, we have passed the ball 175 times and run it 227 times. That's a ratio of 43.5 pass/56.5 run.

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/t ... a/2012.htm

Last season, we had 509 passing attempts to 444 rushing attempts, resulting in a 53.4/46.6 pass/run ratio.

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/t ... a/2011.htm

Holmgren only had 2 seasons where he ran the ball more than passing it, with the most run-heavy team being the 2005 squad, when the ratio was 47.7 pass/52.3 run.

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/t ... a/2005.htm

In other words, Holmgren NEVER had a Seahawks team that ran as much as the 2012 Seahawks. Overall, his team ran the ball 4481 times versus 5184 passes over the 10 seasons he was coach. That's a ratio of 53.6/46.4 pass/run - or almost EXACTLY what we had last season.

So, no, we do not pass more often than we run, and we would not even be close to abandoning the run if we passed more. And Holmgren's offenses fluctuated quite a bit, but in the end they averaged out about the same as what we saw from Pete Carroll's team last year - and if we passed more, this team would have a chance to be just as balanced (if not more) than any Holmgren-coached Seahawks team.

manders2600":2kfpaefr said:

Tech Worlds":2kfpaefr said:

The Radish":2kfpaefr said:

Or have a very short career.

Doub Farrar did some study on this subject years ago and found running backs with more than 250 or so carrys a year tended to have very short NFL careers. Can't think of the kid from Texas with the huge legs that was a monster but lasted a very short time.

And the guy from KC, Christian Okouya? Another killer runner with a very short career.

We need to not run him to death, that's why I'm glad to see we have a good "second option" and/or change of pace back.

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It ws 370 carries in a single season that Farrar claimed to be the magic number of when running backs fall off the cliff.

There have been several backs in the NFL that have defied this magic number though so I dont think it is a fact. Eric Dickerson, and LT are two backs that carried over 400 times during seasons and still performed the next years.

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Ladanian Tomlinson never carried 400 times in a season, and only carried over 350 time once, in 2002, his second season in the league.

http://espn.go.com/nfl/player/stats/_/i ... -tomlinson

http://www.nfl.com/player/ladainiantoml ... 78/profile

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ok my mistake. It was a long time ago that I did the research. 2007 or so, so the names are a bit hazy. But the bottom line is that all running backs dont fall off the cliff when running the ball a ton.

kidhawk":1d31os93 said:

Sgt. Largent":1d31os93 said:

kidhawk":1d31os93 said:

They do it because they are bringing along a 3rd round draft choice rookie at a pace they have designed for long term success. They are betting that we can stay competitive with our defense while getting Wilson built into the long term answer we've been waiting for. Whether that bet pays off is yet to be determined

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I'm not saying let's run the Patriots complicated no huddle offense with five wideouts. All I'm saying is lets be less predictable so that Wilson isn't running for his life seemingly every third down cause everyone and their mom knows we have to pass.

You can bring along a rookie QB and still pass the ball with short safe passes on 1st and/or 2nd down.

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I think most people can agree we need to do a better job of mixing up the play calling...similar to how we have such success doing just that in our opening drives (that set of scripted plays that most teams start games with). I wasn't really saying we should continue on this path or necessarily saying I like it, only explaining why it is that we are doing it. Personally, I think a 55% throwing to 45% passing would be a perfect balance for our offense. If our running game wasn't so good, I could see going to 60/40, but that's really as far as the separation needs to go to have a good offense IMO

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So a perfect balance in your estimation is to abandon the run altogether? JK. I get what you were trying to say.

I'm sure Bevell likes stats and aims for a balanced offensive attack that leans slightly toward the run game. We are pretty close to his ideal run to pass ratio (We are at approximately 56% run/44% pass). However, we can't say that with our run/pass ratio we are unpredictable on offense. Besides the early play scripting and the late pass-happy heroics we have been in run-first playcalling mode. What makes it problematic is our power run game isn't getting us into the endzone as often as we'd like (we have 2 rushing TDs in 7 games).
In contrast our unpopular passing offense has produced 8 TDs. So as much as people put down our passing offense the completion percentage (60%) and per pass yardage (7 ypp) is better than average even while we are last in the league in passing attempts (25 attempts/game). It is a very viable option to open up the passing more so we can get the running game going as well.

Tech Worlds":2s9s04sm said:

manders2600":2s9s04sm said:

Tech Worlds":2s9s04sm said:

It ws 370 carries in a single season that Farrar claimed to be the magic number of when running backs fall off the cliff.

There have been several backs in the NFL that have defied this magic number though so I dont think it is a fact. Eric Dickerson, and LT are two backs that carried over 400 times during seasons and still performed the next years.

Click to expand...

Ladanian Tomlinson never carried 400 times in a season, and only carried over 350 time once, in 2002, his second season in the league.

http://espn.go.com/nfl/player/stats/_/i ... -tomlinson

http://www.nfl.com/player/ladainiantoml ... 78/profile

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ok my mistake. It was a long time ago that I did the research. 2007 or so, so the names are a bit hazy. But the bottom line is that all running backs dont fall off the cliff when running the ball a ton.

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Certainly, it is possible for Lynch to continue at the pace he is and not fall off a cliff next year, but it is highly unlikely.

Given that he will be entering his seventh season, and having the number of attempts he will have had both last year and this year, along with his punishing yards-after-contact, it would be a pretty safe bet to assume less production the following season.

Again, it's not out of the realm of possibility that he would have a decent year in 2013, but the odds would be stacked against it. The odds would be a bit better if he were younger, and if he were not getting so may yards-after-contact.

It was never said that the backs would fall off a cliff. It said that backs carrying this many times consistently didn't have long careers.

Dickerson did really well from 83-89 but injuries slowed him a lot after that. I was never a Dickerson fan but agree he was a great running back.

I still hate the fact he is credited with being the player with the most yards per season outright. OJ Simpson broke 2,000 yards during the time of 14 game seasons. Dickerson did NOT go over 2,000 until his 15th game and tho he had more total yards it took him more games.

I am impressed with his breaking OJ's record of most games in a season with 100 yards or more rushing. Jim Brown had 7, OJ broke that with 8, and Dickerson had either 9 or 10 as I recall.

But he did hit the end rather quickly like our own #37 did. He started having injury problems after his 4 season but managed to play his way through them. The point was that most backs that were used as much as him had pretty short careers because they just plain used their bodys up. I think Dickerson got longer cause he too was one of those guys that didn't go looking for contact at the end of plays like Lynch does.

Plus his break away speed got him out of many tackling zones. With the steller front line he had at Rams he frequently was in the open field with little or no contact and heading downfield and then out of bounds.

Lots of this was memory tho I have to admit I did check some of his career stats online.

:les:

Flyingreg (spelling) pretty much nailed it. You can't only use the backfield and deep passes and expect to throw 50% of the time. Right now we can effectively execute every running play in Bevell's play book but we are not even close on offense.

This is something that worries me going forward. The Niners changed their scheme in the second half to press more outside and deep and pretty much ignoring the short middle of the field. They figured out Wilson has good vision down field and is very effective throwing deep but struggles to see the short middle of the field.

For this offense to take the next big step we will have to use the whole field. That actually opens everything up. It draws safeties in creating opportunities deep and backs the LB's off the LOS because the ball lands behind them when they cheat up. It also opens the edges and sets up the screen play. Right now we can't even execute a screen because teams are playing us more outside than in.

This next game we are going up against a good defense who is #1 in the red zone and #1 in not giving up passes over twenty yards. It is a team who is primed to be torn up by a QB that can dink and dunk and mostly get the ball out fast. If we can't take advantage of that it will make foe a long game.

Essentially though our passing woes are due to not being able to execute a big part of the passing playbook. The big question is will we figure out how to abuse the middle before teams figure out how to shut us down like the Niners did in the second half.

Russ Willstrong":k0pbylq6 said:

Salish,

We are a run-oriented offense and No we don't pass more than we run. What you said might have held true for preseason but I wonder where you've been the last seven games.
If it helps for you to go back and review the play-by-play for all seven games for your 'mythbusters' posts then have at it. Just make sure your abacus isn't missing beads while you do so. LOL.
There are simpler ways of checking team stats.

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You know what I did? I looked it up on ESPN and accidently read the opponents pass attempts instead of our own. Usually I use Yahoo and it's not set up that way. My bad. For the season we have 175 pass attempts (not 256 as I mistakenly read) and 227 rushing attempts. So about 60-40 run/pass.

Yet, reading the play by plays, it is hardly run, run, pass. Which is a consistent bitch fest around here that gets tiring to hear when it isn't true. We pass quite a bit on first down, second down etc. The only real pattern that's emerged is that on the first play of a drive we almost always hand off to Lynch. After that, it's anybody's guess.

SalishHawkFan":84w9z1ar said:

Russ Willstrong":84w9z1ar said:

Salish,

We are a run-oriented offense and No we don't pass more than we run. What you said might have held true for preseason but I wonder where you've been the last seven games.
If it helps for you to go back and review the play-by-play for all seven games for your 'mythbusters' posts then have at it. Just make sure your abacus isn't missing beads while you do so. LOL.
There are simpler ways of checking team stats.

Click to expand...

You know what I did? I looked it up on ESPN and accidently read the opponents pass attempts instead of our own. Usually I use Yahoo and it's not set up that way. My bad. For the season we have 175 pass attempts (not 256 as I mistakenly read) and 227 rushing attempts. So about 60-40 run/pass.

Yet, reading the play by plays, it is hardly run, run, pass. Which is a consistent bitch fest around here that gets tiring to hear when it isn't true. We pass quite a bit on first down, second down etc. The only real pattern that's emerged is that on the first play of a drive we almost always hand off to Lynch. After that, it's anybody's guess.

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I heard Hugh Millan say on the radio that we go run, run, pass more then any team in the league.

I think he said 25 percent of the time or something like that. Either way he said we led the league in doing it.

Tech Worlds":32rkrwwn said:

SalishHawkFan":32rkrwwn said:

You know what I did? I looked it up on ESPN and accidently read the opponents pass attempts instead of our own. Usually I use Yahoo and it's not set up that way. My bad. For the season we have 175 pass attempts (not 256 as I mistakenly read) and 227 rushing attempts. So about 60-40 run/pass.

Yet, reading the play by plays, it is hardly run, run, pass. Which is a consistent bitch fest around here that gets tiring to hear when it isn't true. We pass quite a bit on first down, second down etc. The only real pattern that's emerged is that on the first play of a drive we almost always hand off to Lynch. After that, it's anybody's guess.

Click to expand...

I heard Hugh Millan say on the radio that we go run, run, pass more then any team in the league.

I think he said 25 percent of the time or something like that. Either way he said we led the league in doing it.

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The frequency of which we call run, run, pass isn't that big a deal as much as the type of runs we call. I understand that Lynch was built for our straight-up-the-gut running game but the Niners reminded us that traps, counters, delayed draws can take advantage of fast defenses and beat blitzes. Throw in play-action and we might just surprise ourselves. Like some of you have been saying an injury to Lynch is a real possibility if we don't lighten his load--it only takes one bad play. As much as we argue about the QB situation it would be more problematic to enter the playoffs without Lynch in the backfield.

manders2600":1yo8ya6x said:

Certainly, it is possible for Lynch to continue at the pace he is and not fall off a cliff next year, but it is highly unlikely.

Given that he will be entering his seventh season, and having the number of attempts he will have had both last year and this year, along with his punishing yards-after-contact, it would be a pretty safe bet to assume less production the following season.

Again, it's not out of the realm of possibility that he would have a decent year in 2013, but the odds would be stacked against it. The odds would be a bit better if he were younger, and if he were not getting so may yards-after-contact.

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Marshawn is only 26 years old. I'd say that he has 3-4 more good years.

The things I would like to see are more runs/ at least have a RB in the back field on 3rd and 4 and shorter and more 2 TE 2 WR 1 RB sets.

I would love to see them come out and run the ball 4-6 times for + yardage in said set and then run an out and seam with the TEs and deep comeback and slant with the WR. We could really benefit from a few 6 yard passes running in a more balanced set.

I'd like to see a Quarter-by-Quarter play breakdown.
We ARE a run-focused offense at the moment, and the only reason our pass attempt are remotely close to our rushing attempts is because we've had to abandon the run late in games to score points as we've been behind as time winds down.

The Arizona game alone we dropped back 23 times and rushed just 5 times in the 4th quarter, all this means that to have a balanced pass/run ratio we must have rushed far more in the first 3 quarters.

SuperBowlXLChamps":1gxpzjso said:

Why does everyone think we need to go out and basically abandon the run (like the rest of the league) and air it out? I have no problem being 55% Run plays and 45% Pass plays. If Wilson doesn't throw those picks in the Rams game and we don't have all those WR drops in the 49ers game we easily could have won one if not both of those games. I really don't have much of a problem with the playcalling, it's the execution. Throwing more times just increases the chances of turnovers.

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it's a passing league. You can't win jack without an effective passing game. Doesnt mean you need to abandon the run, just be able rely on it when it's time to run. But the focus of offenses in todays NFL is clearly the pass game.