thebandit27 Posted February 13, 2014 Posted February 13, 2014 And they could not punch the ball into the end zone. I don't know why this notion keeps getting perpetuated...it's not really true: By and large, the Bills' Power Success (defined by the NFL as "Percentage of rushes on 3rd or 4th down with 2 or fewer yards to go that achieved a first down or TD. Also includes rushes on 1st-and-goal and 2nd-and-goal from the opponent's 2-yard line or closer) was average: 88% to the left (3rd in the NFL) 62% up the middle (20th) 55% to the right (25th) Total 65% (14th) The Bills scored 15 rushing TDs in 2013... 13 of them came in the red zone (Spiller's 54-yarder against Cleveland and his 36-yarder against ATL were the outliers) 12 of those 13 came from inside the 10 10 of those 12 came from inside the 5 5 of those 10 came from inside the 3 Furthermore, the teams with the highest red zone scoring percentage (TDs only) were Denver, Cinci, Dallas, Detroit, & KC...they ranked 17th, 27th, 8th, 22nd, and 5th in YPC. As a corollary, the teams with the highest YPC were Philly, Minnesota, Washington, Green Bay, and KC...they ranked 13th, 18th, 20th, 26th, and 5th in red zone scoring percentage (TDs only). http://www.nfl.com/s...qualified=false http://www.teamranki...one-scoring-pct To me, this doesn't speak to any correlation between power running and punching the ball into the end zone. What wins games is being able to control the line of scrimmage and control the clock with the offense in both passing and running. The Bills were one of the worst teams in the NFL in that regard as they were #28th in the league in sustaining drives. 214 drives, and 53 were 3 downs and out. What wins games is scoring points. That's why 10 of the top 12 scoring teams made the playoffs, while none of the bottom 13 scoring teams got in.
Recommended Posts