It’s not running, it’s running well
In the first half, the Colts rushed 23 times. Of those rushes, 16 were “successful” — that is, they accounted for a positive EPA*. That comes out to a 69.6% SR on rushes. Last season, the average SR on rushes was just under 44%. Relative to last year, Indianapolis was successful at a rate that was 6.6 standard deviations above the mean. So while their longest rush was only 16 yards, they converted often enough to simply dominate their opponent.
The Giant-Brained Brian Burke (a.k.a. the boss of me) has found recently that, when it comes to rushing, it’s not so much yardage that matters, but a team’s success rate on rushing plays. Of course, yardage isn’t a bad thing, at all. If a team could get infinite yards on each of its runs — well, that’d be a strategy worth sticking to. But more important to winning, it seems, is a team’s ability to convert frequently.
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