Winning vs. Rushing yards allowed on defense

[*SHRacerX*]

(06-08-2020, 01:18 PM)Au165 Wrote: There is a difference between correlation versus causation so you have to be careful with things like this. Lapham always used to spout off a horrible stat about Bengals "win x percentage when they run 25 times or more in a game". What that fails to contextualize is that if you are winning you most likely are running to bleed clock not that necessarily that running put you in that position to win. The inverse is true as well in that if you are winning, and especially by a greater margin, most teams will need to abandon their run to try and catch up. By the other team abandoning their run you have artificially improved your rushing defensive statistics.

Not saying that good run defense isn't tied to team success, but we have to go a lot deeper into situational stats and other stats that are adjusted for game situations to know if it a circumstance of being up versus simply good defense.

This is what happened in 2015.  The Bengal's offense was balanced and was rolling.

The same thing can be said about the Bengal's pass defense in 2019.  Teams didn't have to pass the ball.  Running it was working, and was lower risk...even with our LB corps.  They finished 22nd against the pass, but that ranking just shows how poor they were at stopping the run.

I often talk about "balance" as it relates to an offense.  It isn't intended to say that you need to have even snaps of rushes or passes, as we know some teams passes are just extensions of their rushing attack.  However, this stat really popped out to me:

In 2019, the Bengal's opponents rushed the ball 504 times, while the Bengals rushed the ball only 385 times. 

The same year, the Bengal's opponents threw the ball 499 times, while the Bengals threw the ball 616 times. 

Now before you dismiss this as simply "being behind", the Bengals didn't trail as much the first week in Seattle and had a very lopsided run/pass mix (51 vs 19).  One thing that I was actually impressed by our coaching staff last year was they seemed to change the rushing attack scheme and become more balanced down the stretch as Mixon really took off.  That gives me more hope for this season.