Raiders running the football against the Eagles.

by Imp on Oct 19, 2009 12:37 AM EDT

Me, being a sadistic idiot, went to check out stats from the Eagles-Raiders game. Something there that popped out at me. Justin Fargas had 87 rushing yards. The way he was running the second half, I thought he had 100+ yards easily.

Nope. Then I seen how many rushing attempts he had. 23 attempts. That makes his yard per carry a 3.78 average. And he had that pointless 20 yards run with 4 seconds left in the first half. Take it out and he would have 67 yards on 22 attempts, a YPC of *3.04*

A 4.0 average is considered mediocre. For most of the game, Fargas was running it with a 3.0 average.

Michael Bush wasn't much better. 22 yards on 6 carries for an average of 3.67 average. He wasn't much of a factor on the game.

Yet, put their total together. 29 carries for 109 yards, an average of 3.76. That's not running it well. Thing is, they didn't need it to run well, they just need to run it. And it payed off.

Early in the 3rd quarter, Raiders have it with it being fourth and inches. They did a play action, every Eagle went after the running back. Louis Murphy was wide open. Russel threw a bad pass and Murphy was unable to catch it. Yet, the play action worked.

Then, a reoccurring play came from the Raiders. A play action to the back and Russel dumps it off to the fullback Gary Russels. They ran it 5 times for 55 yards, including a 13 yard gain on third down on Raiders' final drive. They went after the running back everytime.

What's my point? My point is: you don't need to run it well, you just need to run the football. And why am I saying this?

Because Brian Westbrook ran it 6 times total. Six. Times.

We just need to run the bloody football, even if it works and if it doesn't. Especially how much Andy Reid loves to call a play action even after we threw it 40 times...

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the play action really baffled me.

no one bit on it…and why would they?

"it's like i tell my ex-wife, i never drive faster than i can see, and besides it's all in the reflexes." -Jack Burton, Big trouble in little China

by snowhill82 on Oct 19, 2009 12:47 AM EDT reply actions

how well the raiders ran the ball on our d-line got lost by how bad our offense played. they pushed our d-line around all day

by eaglesinmd on Oct 19, 2009 12:49 AM EDT reply actions

Thank you, Imp. You also get a rec from me. Not only did Westy ran it just 6 times, he averaged almost 10 ypc and finished with 50 yards. Yet, Andy kept calling long ball play action pass plays. How the fuck would play action work if the defense knows you are going the pass?? I’m getting tired of trying the explain this to people. Andy Reid is not gonna change his methods and we need a coaching change.

Felix is better than Brian. You can call me FIBTB.

by Route36 on Oct 19, 2009 12:53 AM EDT reply actions

And when should we make this change? Now?

I’m guessing you can’t find one example of an NFL team reaching the postseason after making a mid-season coaching change. He coaches how he coaches, true. But that’s been pretty lucrative for us for the past ten years. We are loaded with talent, 3-2 and yet to play a single NFC East game. This season is still wide open and we could end up 11-5 easily. Let’s wait for the off-season before we write Reid off. It took Cowher 13 seasons right? Do we need to run the ball more? Yes, yes we do. But I’m not willing to trade everything else Reid does right so that we can get a coach who will run the ball.

by NOLACuse on Oct 19, 2009 11:50 AM EDT up reply actions

Speaking of 6 carries

They went for 50 yards. That’s more than 8 yards per carry. Take out his long run of 25 yards, and you still have 5 carries for 25 yards, or 5 yards per carry. That is successful running…why not stick with what’s working?

And don’t be fooled by the statistics that say we ran the ball 14 times. Two of those were by McNabb after realizing there were no open guys to pass to. I don’t count those as run plays, because Andy wanted a pass.

That makes 12, count them…1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 called running plays the whole game.

"What did it feel like? That collision, I didn't feel nothing, because he was pretty much defenseless. It was like running through a cardboard box. Seriously. Cardboard box."- Sheldon Brown on his pounding of Reggie Bush in the '06 Playoffs

by jalarsen1 on Oct 19, 2009 11:42 AM EDT reply actions