In the NFL, there’s a correlation between running the ball a lot and winning. At the end of any season, if you look up the teams that ran the ball the most, you’ll generally see that those teams won a lot. And if you look up the teams that passed the ball the most, you’ll generally see that those teams lost a lot. Giants General Manager Dave Gettleman knows this.
But Gettleman may not know why. The teams that run a lot don’t win because they’re running, they run because they’re winning. Running the ball is a safer strategy for winning teams that want to run out the clock late in games, because incomplete passes stop the clock. And passing the ball is a necessity for losing teams late in games, because passing the ball allows offenses to gain larger chunks of yardage more quickly.
Gettleman seemed to confuse correlation with causation when he noted the link between running and winning today.
“People say it’s a passing league, I get that,” Gettleman said, via SNY. “But you know that graphic on Sunday afternoon should not have been lost on anybody. The top four passing teams were not in the playoffs, the top four rushing teams were in the playoffs. I think -- don’t quote me -- but most of the teams were in the Top 12 I think in terms of rushing. So, again, it’s a physical, violent game. If you don’t build your team to do that late in the year when the weather is lousy and it’s mush out there, tough teams are going to win.”
Gettleman was right but for the wrong reasons: It’s true that the top four teams in rushing yards (the Ravens, 49ers, Titans and Seahawks) all made the playoffs, while the top four teams in passing yards (the Buccaneers, Cowboys, Falcons and Rams) all missed the playoffs. And it’s also true that most of the teams that made the playoffs were in the Top 12 in rushing yards this season. But none of that means that running causes winning.
In fact, analytics research has consistently shown that passing the ball effectively leads to winning games more than running the ball effectively does. Those teams playoff teams that ran the ball a lot often got the lead in the first place by passing the ball, then protected the lead by running the ball. And those losing teams that passed the ball a lot often tried to establish the run early in games, fell behind while doing that and then had no choice but to pass to try to catch up late in the game.
So while Gettleman may believe that by drafting Saquon Barkley he set the Giants up for years of success, what will matter far more to the Giants’ success in the future is whether quarterback Daniel Jones develops. The ideal situation for the Giants will be to become a team that takes a lot of early leads behind Jones’ passing, then runs out the clock to protect those leads with Barkley running a lot in the fourth quarter. If that happens, Gettleman will proudly note that the Giants keep winning games in which Barkley finishes with 20 or 25 carries, and he can celebrate the correlation between running and winning, even if he doesn’t fully understand the reasons behind it.