The most efficient rushing team in the league, the Baltimore Ravens, still only averages -0.03 EPA per rush play. Averaging across the whole league, the average rushing play is -0.09 EPA and the average dropback play is 0.06 EPA.
Taken at face value, teams should abandon the run and just pass. This of course would be too simplistic as one could argue that the threat of a run helps unlocking the passing game and improves the EPA.
However, another way to look at this is perhaps EPA is just a flawed metric and is either too simplistic or is missing a key nuance in its modelling. Perhaps there’s a flat EPA adjustment we need to apply to all plays that would make rushing EPAs positive? Perhaps too much weight is given to the explosive pass? Perhaps we need to adjust the era data from when teams rarely played two high safeties to counter today’s passing league?
Nevertheless, I wonder if more and more OCs in the league are using EPA and other advanced analytics and coming to the conclusion you might when looking at this data that passing is far superior to running and ending up with too many teams trying to pass it on too many downs, abandoning the run and putting too much pressure on their average QB?
what? i mean yea it’s a “flawed” metric but coaches have been running the ball more, not less in the last couple seasons. EPA is only flawed if you misunderstand what you’re looking at—it tells us, in a certain sense, how many points a team is earning from play-to-play. It is more meaningful than just counting yards, because it accounts for down-and-distance and that sort of thing. You could just as easily ask “teams are gaining 6.0 yards on pass attempts but only 4.2 yards on rush attempts, is Yards/attempt a flawed statistic?” and you’d be just as wrong. It tells us exactly what it’s telling us both times. The point is, both with rushing and with passing, is that coaches understand that football isn’t just about scoring as many points as possible on every single play, just in the same way it’s not about scoring as many yards as possible on every play. teams are rushing a lot, and EPA just gives us more information to understand the game.
This thread (and sub) do not apply brains to stats often enough. Suppose you want to catch fish.
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Keeping the lure still results in negative FPA (fish probability added).
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If you move the lure constantly, you will not catch very many fish.
Plays aren’t independent, and you can’t pretend they are. Poor assumptions lead to poor conclusions.
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League average rush EPA is negative because most teams don’t use the run game properly.
Historically there was the idea that you need to “run to set up the pass.” Smart teams now know that it’s basically the total opposite.
There’s also the idea of “3rd and manageable” where teams opt to run the ball on 2nd and 10 because they want to avoid 3rd and long. Again, running the ball on 2nd and long is a very negative EPA play, yet even today some teams still do it religiously, which tends to drag down the average.
It’s not that teams should abandon the run entirely. It’s that the run game should largely be used situationally (i.e short yardage and clock-chewing situations) as opposed to being the staple of a modern offense. Multiple teams every year still have positive EPA/rush. Even the most pro-pass, analytics-based people aren’t going to argue a team like Philly or Baltimore should abandon the run.
To paraphrase
All metrics are flawed but some are useful.
People just need to know the weaknesses of various stats and they are fine.
Does this look the same if you use success rate instead? That’s EPA but used situationally right? Like what’s the average success rate of run plays vs pass plays
In basketball, they always say the ball moves faster when you pass it rather than dribbling, that principal could be applied to football as well
Just as a curiosity, is this saying Detroit is the least efficient run team in the league? Because I gotta say that seems exceptionally hard to beleive
I was confused too because there is no way the Vikings’ run game is twice as good as the Lions, but I realized OP said this is averaged over the last 12 seasons.
Looking at just this season, the Lions are one of five teams with a positive epa/rush ranking third in the nfl behind the Ravens and Bills. Vikings are fifth from last place.
Yes
I think the real answer is EPA isn’t the end all be all of constructing a football offense or grading how a team does.
Long throws are the best plays in terms of EPA, but you won’t see a team lining up to throw it 20 yards minimum on every play
how is EPA currently calculated
Sounds like a you problem.
This is a made up stat. So yeah probably
There’s nothing inherently flawed about rushing being negative. Passing is more efficient than rushing, which is why teams pass more than rush. This has been known for many years. But both are useful, which is why both are used. Nothing needs to be changed with regard to EPA.
EPA can be skewed by a good play or two. I recall a sequence this year where Buffalo was backed up inside the ten, completed a 35 yard pass to Diggs and then proceeded to throw 3 straight incompletions and punt. The EPA for the long throw was like +2 and for the incompletions it was like -.7 or something so, although it was a pretty shit drive they still gained +1.3 EPA
Brother/sister, after the nerds were using it to defend Dorsey, I don’t want to hear about EPA ever again lmao.
It is a VERY flawed metric, zero consideration to situational football, to how the defense reacts when there is the threat of the run game (weird that Sunday we ran the ball a lot and then our receivers found room on their routes…).
perhaps EPA is just a flawed metric
boom, nothing else needs to be said. Basic statistics are the only thing that give a general idea of how teams are. Everyone wants to turn the NFL into Money Ball and it just isnt the case. There aren’t enough games for sample sizes, football is 90% “any given Sunday” every week