I also combined the three rushing categories and ranked them by the average, like CHFF does in its Hog Indexes.

 

My goal was to produce a list of the greatest rushing teams with stats that show a direct correlation to winning.

 

Spreadsheet, tab 7 (note buttons for sorting) ranks 1,194 Super Bowl era teams. The top 25 in each category look like this:

 

 

YPPA placed more teams in the Super Bowl overall than any other category, I’ll tip my cap to that.  But in every other category – Super Bowl win percent, number of playoff teams, overall winning percent—the  teams with the most overall Rush Attempts relative to other teams in the league the year they played have the greatest winning correlation. 

 

Teams ranked by Average Yards Per Rush Attempt, the category CHFF uses as evidence of the ineffectiveness of the running game, placed last. 

 

A guy can really have fun with this spreadsheet … such as using it to dispel the myth that Rush Attempts is not a good measure of running success because it’s a byproduct of passing success. If that were true, you’d see many of the top 25 YPPA teams among the list of top 25 Rush Attempts teams.  But there are only two (the ’72 Dolphins and ’69 Cowboys). 

 

In fact, out of 1,194 teams ranked, the top 25 teams in terms of Rush Attempts have an average YPPA rank of 272.  These are not the same teams we’re talking about.

 

Of course, there is some truth to the assertion that many of these rushing teams were very effective passing teams. 

 

Just like many of the great passing teams were very effective running teams.

           

 

Not saying this is the definitive list.  For one thing, it only goes back to 1966.  But at least it’s the start of a conversation, and it’s a hell of a lot better than the abomination you call the Greatest Ground Attacks in NFL History.  You need to “take it behind the woodshed to be shot”. 

For the sake of argument, let’s go with CHFF’s premise that rushing attempts come later, after a team has built a lead by passing.⁶  So what?  If a component is critical to the functioning of something—if you don’t see victories without lots of rushing attempts—does it really matter what comes first or second?  This article proved that without significant rushing attempts teams lose more than they win whether they pass well or not.  That makes rushing the football critical to winning.   

 

It’s unfortunate that a website supposedly dedicated to uncovering NFL truths lost its  way over either an apparent unwillingness to complete the detailed game by game research necessary to uncover them or was seduced by the media attention that comes with boldly going against popular logic (which I have no problem with, provided it’s based in fact). 

 

Must the readers of CHFF continue to be subjected to statistical generalizations or oversimplifications about the running game week after week because the site owner has a thirst for fame (did someone say beer?) and a crooked hair for Merrill Hoge?

 

CHFF once said “there are a lot of folks out there who believe that pure rushing attempts is a great measure of ground game efficiency…..We’re not going to have that debate today.” 

 

Well, I’ve been waiting, and as CCR once sang, someday never comes.⁷

 

Then again, why go through the trouble of all that painstaking research when it’s easier to come up with a bold sacred-cow-busting premise, travel the radio talk-show circuit and reap the spoils of the media chumps you otherwise claim to despise? 

 

After all, there are other revolutionary observations to write about such as how much better games are on TV than in person⁸ or that next mailbag to write where you publish fawning letters from readers like Mike Stickles⁹ juxtaposed with a few cherry-picked negative letters seemingly tailor-made for you to pick apart point by point, making you appear greater still.

 

CHFF once said, “Pound the ball at the opposition, enforce your will upon them at the line of scrimmage and good things will follow.  It makes sense.  It really does.  But everywhere we look, we find little evidence to support this theory.” 

 

You didn’t look in the right place: the box scores. 

 

You owe Jeff Chadiha an apology.

 

***

Footnotes: