Let’s begin by travelling back in time to 2010. It was a strange and awful period in the human existence when you may or may not have woken up feeling like P. Diddy.
It was also the final year before swift rule changes that made passing in the NFL about as easy as breathing. At the time Dan Marino still held the single-season passing record of 5,084 yards, a mark that had stood since 1984. Now? Marino’s mark has been passed five times since 2011.
The NFL is a passing league, a statement of fact you hear repeatedly every Sunday. That’s reflected strongly where it all begins each spring during the draft. A running back hasn’t been selected in the first round since 2012. That running back was Trent Richardson, and he was just inactive for two playoff games.
Yet next week we’re going to watch a Super Bowl featuring the league’s best rushing offense on one sideline. On the other will be an offense that can take your neighborhood convenience store cashier and turn him into a 100-plus yard beast.
It will be an odd sight in this era of passing followed by passing, and even more passing. The Seattle Seahawks churn out rushing yards through both brute force and deception. In the NFC Championship Game running back Marshawn Lynch posted a franchise record 157 yards on the ground. Toss in his receiving yards, and Lynch has 539 yards from scrimmage over his last five playoff games.
The Seahawks averaged a league high 172.6 rushing yards per game this season and 5.3 per carry. Much of that came from quarterback Russell Wilson, who produced the best fifth-best single-season rushing total at his position with 849 yards.
Seattle’s offensive identity is rooted in that pounding and grinding. It sets up a quick-strike passing game as defenders bite on play action. Wilson attempted the third most passes off play action during the regular season (143), according to Pro Football Focus.
Then there’s the Patriots, and how Bill Belichick uses his evil scheming whenever all PSI levels are to his liking. In October he yanked Jonas Gray off the street, and the undrafted 24-year-old out of Notre Dame then ran for 201 yards and four touchdowns in Week 11.
The running back carousel in New England continued due to Stevan Ridley’s torn ACL and MCL. LeGarrette Blount was brought back for his second stint with the Patriots in late November. All he did during the AFC Championship Game was run for 148 yards and three touchdowns.
The draft will remain a barometer for how much front offices value running backs, and how much of an investment general managers are willing to put into the position. In some sense the two teams competing in this year’s Super Bowl represent opposites of the dollar argument.
One corner has a team that paid Lynch $6 million this season, and he’ll account for a cap hit of $8.5 million next year. In the other is a team plugging in the aforementioned bargain scrap heap finds.
There’s a middle ground somewhere between those ideologies. But for now the importance of a strong running game is abundantly clear, and eventually the paychecks will follow.
