OTL: NFL Becoming a Running League Again? Good News for Ravens, IF…

One of the things we as fans love the most about football, whether we realize it or not, is the strategy involved. There are so many moving parts on any given play that you could watch a replay five or six times and still not catch every nuance of what happened. Coaches are (or should be) acutely aware of what’s working from week to week as they follow the trends around the league, and from a macro level, we can sometimes see major changes to the game. In our skipper’s piece from yesterday, he highlighted a stat that stood out to a lot of analysts about what we seen through the first week of football.

The AVERAGE amount of passing yards on Sunday afternoon was 185.

YIKES! https://t.co/gtnCYJYqxw

— Marcus Mosher (@Marcus_Mosher) September 9, 2024

Tony’s concern with the lack of passing attack through Week 1 is that the NFL’s de-emphasizing of the preseason process often means an ugly and unpolished product on the opening weekend. He’s not wrong; chemistry does take time to develop, and the passing offenses are usually the last piece to really get their timing right. Still, that doesn’t mean that offense wasn’t there to be had at all. In fact, there were more total offensive touchdowns in Week 1 of this season (66) than there were in Week 1 of 2023 (61). What we may be seeing is the pendulum of the NFL’s driving force on offense shifting away from the passing game.

Week 1 NFL passing touchdowns

2019 : 61
2020: 52
2021: 61
2022: 51
2023: 37
2024: 33*

*Pending MNF

— Steve Palazzolo (@StevePalazzolo_) September 9, 2024

The NFL has always had ebbs and flows in terms of game script, but for a while, it looked like the aerial attack would be the bulk of what we would see for the foreseeable future. Between the spread offense’s rise in popularity in the 2010s and more rules that protected the quarterback, there was less incentive to run the ball except when truly necessary. That’s led to a downturn in huge slobber-knocking defensive ends and linebackers, with those positions now trending toward smaller, more athletic EDGEs and safety/iLB hybrids. Of course, when the game zigs one direction, coaching staffs need to learn to zag the other way to buck the trend and find success.

In response to the NFL becoming more pass-heavy in recent years, many have commented that eventually we would reach a point where it became more efficient to run than pass— and the pendulum would swing the other way.

My friends, we may be rapidly approaching that point. pic.twitter.com/Rxm5XIJnGl

— Jake Grossman (@jakegrossman0) September 9, 2024

Fortunately, the Ravens have been ahead of this trend for a while, and it looks like it’s coming around at exactly the right time. Not only did the Ravens lead the league in rushing yardage last season and record the 4^th-highest number of rushing touchdowns, but they’ve now started 2024 with the second-most rushing yards in Week 1, behind only the Houston Texans.

Baltimore’s 185 yards on the ground came during a game when Derrick Henry was getting very little push from the O-line on inside runs, but still managed to score a rushing TD against a pretty stout Chiefs defense. Lamar Jackson had the lion’s share of the rushing yardage, through scripted runs and scrambles alike as he scampered for 122 yards. Combine that with the fact that Lamar posted the 6^th-most passing yards in Week 1 despite the gameplan clearly calling for shallow passes and screens…

…and what you’re talking about is an offense that’s primed to take advantage of the league-wide shift toward the running attack. Of course, if that’s going to happen, it needs to be more than embracing these trends in theory; the coaching staff is going to need to implement them on Sundays.

Coach Harbaugh on the run game: pic.twitter.com/dtNr2ypBoE

— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) September 9, 2024

Coach Harbaugh seems non-committal to the idea of approaching gameday as a run-first ball club. I understand that you have to be a multifaceted offense, because the lack of an established passing game was what ended their seasons earlier in Lamar Jackson’s tenure here. Still, my plea would be that the 2024 Ravens are less about being driven by what the game and the opposing defense give them and more using your offensive strengths to force the issue and take control of the game from the get-go. I understand that not every game is going to go your way and that you may end up being forced to play away from your strengths, which is ok, because now we’ve seen that the receiving group for this squad is capable enough to make things happen. That said, if you have perhaps the greatest rushing QB that the sport has ever seen, paired with a running back who’s posted double-digit TDs each of the last six seasons and eclipsed 1,000 yards five of those years, the run game needs to be the heartbeat of this team. Getting the O-line into its rhythm will be a major part of that happening, but I’m begging on behalf of Ravens Flock…

It’s time. There’s never been a better time. Run the damn ball!

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