NFL reasserts run game, will Detroit Lions draft follow suit?
NFL running trends and Detroit Lions coaching
Let’s turn the discussion to the kind of candidates that can help the Detroit Lions run game and try to match them to their probable draft position. Bevell has always featured a bruiser-style, power-runner, having used Adrian Peterson and Marshawn Lynch as his featured back in his prominent stops prior to Detroit. That’s not to say that he wouldn’t work with other kinds of players but it tells what kind of prospect will prosper easiest.
The NFL has drifted away from one-dimensional power-runners over the last twenty years but teams like the Baltimore Ravens, San Francisco 49ers, and Tennessee Titans have made it work and had a ton of success running the ball, often without just one player doing the heavy lifting. Power football is trending in the NFL despite the champions, the Kansas City Chiefs, ranking 23rd in that category.
Sixteen men surpassed the 1,000-yards mark in 2019 and the Detroit Lions seem destined to try to enter the upper echelon of running teams due to several factors, the New England Patriots style of football, Quinn’s stated mission of being a physical, balanced offense, and Bevell’s personal experience matching the other two.
For reference, Pro Football Reference recorded only seven men who surpassed the 1,000-yard mark back in 2015, twelve in 2016, nine in 2017, and nine in 2018. For the last decade, 1,000-yard runners have decreased from 17 in 2010 until spiking back up in 2019.
What has remained consistent is the increased reliance by NFL teams in passing plays where the NFL went from passing roughly 54 percent to 58 percent of their plays while running more than a thousand more plays per year, data from Pro Football Reference.
The volume of plays has increased to the point that both rush attempts and passing attempts have both consistently increased since 1991, although rushing plays have increased by a smaller margin, relatively. In 1991, the NFL attempted 12,279 runs versus 13,387 in 2019, an increase of nine percent; over the same period, pass plays increased by 28 percent.
What is most important is whether or not teams that are running the ball more are winning more to really assess the trend. If you sorted the teams that run more as a percentage, you’d see that only two playoff teams were in the bottom half of rush percentage for the 2019 season, the New Orleans Saints, and as mentioned above, the Kansas City Chiefs. Of note to offensive coordinators is the fact that six of the top seven made the playoffs.