06-20-2019, 10:37 AM
(06-19-2019, 09:26 PM)Joelist Wrote: If our line ranked well in that area then the formula has problems because that is the exact area we stunk royally at. It's been years since we could trust our line to do the blocking job to let us pick up 3rd and 3 or so consistently for the first down. In fact they haven't even been trustworthy at 3rd and 2 or 3rd and 1. It may seem like an isolated stat but it is a critical indicator of your rush offense - if you can reliably pickup 3rd and 1-3 on the ground the world opens up for your offense in terms of ability to close out games and defenses not being able to sell out to either pass or run.
Last year Bengals converted the first down 75% of the time when they ran the ball on 3rd or 4th with 2 or fewer yards to go. That ranked 9th in the league. League average was 70.5%
Teams almost never run the ball on 3rd or 4th and 3. All teams combined only did it 85 times last year, and a large portion of those were QB scrambles.
