This needs to be hung on Zac Taylor's office wall

[Whatever]

(12-06-2023, 11:37 AM)KillerGoose Wrote: I think people are getting a little too bent out of shape with the eight carries line. Cincinnati only ran 40 plays, excluding a kneel at the half. They ran the ball 20% of the time, a notable deviation from their standard 34% of the time. In order to get down into that range, you would bump Mixon's carries from eight to 13. The defense has to account for the possibility of running the ball if a RB is on the field. They can't just disregard him, even if the team isn't running the ball often. Those run fits still have to be played. It's why RPOs and playaction just work, whether your running game is performing well or not.  

Frankly, there's a decent amount of false causality in this thread. They didn't score 30 because they ran the ball 30 times.  They ran the ball 30 times because the run game was effective.  If we ran the ball 30 times last week against Pittsburgh, it would've been pretty ugly.