TwistedHusky":2wwaigyf said:
Go look up the top rushing teams in the league and then see if it has any correlation to winning - especially in the playoffs.
So looking at the teams that made the conference championship games in the past 3 years:
2018 Conference Championship
Rams: Rushing offense 3rd | Passing offense 6th | Total offense 3rd - (Balanced)
Saints: Rushing offense 9th | Passing offense 10th | Total offense 8th - (Balanced)
Patriots: Rushing offense 5th | Passing offense 5th | Total offense 4th - (Balanced)
Chiefs: Rushing offense 15th | Passing offense 3rd | Total offense 1st - (Pass heavy)
2019 Conference Championship
Titans: Rushing offense 3rd | Passing offense 25th | Total offense 15th - (Rush heavy)
Chiefs: Rushing offense 22nd | Passing offense 4th | Total offense 4th - (Pass heavy)
Packers: Rushing offense 15th | Passing offense 14th | Total offense 17th - (Balanced)
49ers: Rushing offense 2nd | Passing offense 21st | Total offense 8th - (Rush heavy)
2020 Conference Championship
Bucs: Rushing offense 25th | Passing offense 3rd | Total 9th - (Pass heavy)
Packers: Rushing offense 8th | Passing offense 9th | Total 2nd - (Balanced)
Bills: Rushing offense 24th | Passing offense 4th | Total 4th - (Pass heavy)
Chiefs: Rushing offense 16th | Passing offense 1st | Total 1st - (Pass heavy)
So in the last 3 years, for teams that made it to the title games:
Balanced offense: 5
Pass heavy offense: 5
Rush heavy offense: 2
Of course, this doesn’t consider a team’s defense for that year. For example, the Bucs were pass heavy, but it was their defense that won them that SB. Pass-heavy Mahomes and that offense had no answers.
The best way to build a football team is Balanced. And then create your game plan based on match ups. If a team sucks at run D, you run on them. If they suck at pass rush / pass D, you pass on them. Rams, for example, should have been run on in that playoff game. But they made the fatal error of using a pass heavy game plan that day, that was poorly executed.
So, it's not really about running OR passing more. It's about balance and match ups.