What team is successful with NO rushing attack?

[LanderPoke]

The Buffalo Bills. Other than josh, they can’t run the ball worth a crap. And guess what? It doesn’t matter. They are a win away from the super bowl.

Cowboy football will go nowhere until we can at least have an average passing attack.

Everyone understands this, but bohl

 

[laxwyo]

The Buffalo Bills. Other than josh, they can’t run the ball worth a crap. And guess what? It doesn’t matter. They are a win away from the super bowl.

Cowboy football will go nowhere until we can at least have an average passing attack.

Everyone understands this, but bohl

The running game is the only thing that separates the bills from the chiefs and the packers and it’s probably why the bills won’t win the SB

 

[DVDA]

The Ravens did quite a bit last year with a heavy running focus. Running vs passing isn't the issue. Good play callers find success and bad ones get extensions at UW.

 

[OrediggerPoke]

In 2020, the Bills were 20th out of 32 teams in rushing (3rd in passing). To say the Bills had no rushing attack is not true. The Steelers, on the other hand, were dead last in every rushing category and they were exposed by the Browns because of this.

BTW, the top 3 teams in rushing offense in the NFL made the playoffs. The Texans were second in passing and I don’t recall watching them in the playoffs. The fact of the matter is that what matters for winning teams is whether you consistently move the ball (not how you do it). Being one dimensional is problematic because the other team can gameplan against that more easily resulting in a potential inability to move the ball.

 

[Cornpoke]

It's going to continue to be a passing league until they let DB's play and be jam receivers again. Other than the T. Titans w/Derrick Henry, no team is centering the offense around a power running game. College football has become much the same. It used to be the running game would open up the passing game. It is now the other way around. Army, AF, Navy are the exception and are able to do it with a dedicated gimmicky offense that defenses aren't used to preparing for.

The days of lining up in the I-formation and dominating games with power football are gone. There are just too many advantages to a passing game - QB's and WR's have simply gotten better. The RPO QB is the future. Along with flag happy refs and targeting calls which can result in ejected defensive starters is even more incentive to rely on the passing game. Strong safeties are no longer able to threaten the slot receiver with a big hit across the middle. Defenders can no longer go after a QB the way the used to- hitting the QB requires a very small window and specific area where you are able to hit the QB, or the flag comes flying. For better or worse - football is now a finesse game.

With that being said can a power offense now be uniquely effective as defenses become built to defend the spread/passing game? Maybe. And I think we can all agree if UW was just slightly better in the passing game and 3rd down efficiency they would have a few more W's.. Running a power offense doesn't limit the defense the way a passing offense does. The cards are stacked against a defense when a team drops back to pass so I say play the odds!

 

[ragtimejoe1]

If you can pull it off, physical teams that line up and smack you while having a competant to good passing attack are by far the hardest teams to stop. A strong rushing game is a hallmark of many of the great teams.

My theory is that college has evolved because 2 of the hardest defensive positions to recruit talent are rushing d linemen and corners. Those positions are critical to stop the spread, rpos, etc. Run stopping d linemen and lbs are a little more common so rush ds are easier to assemble.

I agree with Bohl's philosophy if he can put together the horses to pull it off AND assemble a competant passing game that is a threat at multiple levels (short, medium, and some deep). Without both, his offensive approach is incompetent like we've witnessed.

 

[307bball]

One-dimensional is always going to be tough to be the best. Even the best one-dimensional "gimmick" offenses (AFA) have a ceiling. Fill a bucket with championship football programs, both pro and college, from the past 25 years and there are probably only a handful of them that have a glaring inability to move the ball with either the pass or the run. The vast majority will be excellent at a few areas and well-balanced in others.

 

[bullbugle307]

There's a good comparison to be made between us and the Ravens. They have a good defense, and a good running game. But they struggle to beat good teams when it matters consistently because they don't have a good enough passing game. I shouldn't even really compare our running game to theirs though because ours is over rated. It looks good on paper because of a few good plays that make the averages and total yds look good, but it often times fails to move the ball consistently, fails to win TOP, fails to put the ball in the end zone, and utterly fails against teams with good defenses. Hell, a team doesn't even need good players on defense, just a good coordinator, as we saw with NM this year.

I agree that the Bills lack of a run game and questionable defense will make going all the way, or even getting past the Chiefs difficult. But the fact that they're even in the hunt is largely due to their passing game. If Bohl can't get our passing game up to snuff and improve our ability to consistently move the chains, we've seen his ceiling. And that came with loads of NFL talent on our roster, which we currently don't have and probably won't have anything like that again anytime soon.