DCOrange Posted March 27, 2018 Share Posted March 27, 2018 Football Outsiders published an article that came across my twitter timeline today. It basically suggests that a team's ability to run the ball has no impact on its success in play-action. It also suggests that play-action passing is super underutilized and points out that teams like Jacksonville and Philly ran it twice as often as the rest of the league during their playoff games against Pittsburgh and New England and obviously it worked out pretty amazingly for them. https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stat-analysis/2018/rushing-success-and-play-action-passing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Solomon Grundy Posted March 27, 2018 Share Posted March 27, 2018 2 minutes ago, DCOrange said: Football Outsiders published an article that came across my twitter timeline today. It basically suggests that a team's ability to run the ball has no impact on its success in play-action. It also suggests that play-action passing is super underutilized and points out that teams like Jacksonville and Philly ran it twice as often as the rest of the league during their playoff games against Pittsburgh and New England and obviously it worked out pretty amazingly for them. https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stat-analysis/2018/rushing-success-and-play-action-passing Lamar has one of the best playaction ball fakes I've ever seen. I'm just sayin 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thunderingsquid Posted March 27, 2018 Share Posted March 27, 2018 Interesting. I always thought it was underutilized here and Tyrod was really good on those plays when we did call it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foreigner Posted March 27, 2018 Share Posted March 27, 2018 What is the exact definition of play-action? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NextYear'sTheOne Posted March 27, 2018 Share Posted March 27, 2018 1 hour ago, Foreigner said: What is the exact definition of play-action? ...Fake a hand-off, drop back and pass. Or was that sarcasm?... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdonley1180 Posted March 27, 2018 Share Posted March 27, 2018 3 hours ago, DCOrange said: Football Outsiders published an article that came across my twitter timeline today. It basically suggests that a team's ability to run the ball has no impact on its success in play-action. It also suggests that play-action passing is super underutilized and points out that teams like Jacksonville and Philly ran it twice as often as the rest of the league during their playoff games against Pittsburgh and New England and obviously it worked out pretty amazingly for them. https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stat-analysis/2018/rushing-success-and-play-action-passing ????? if it has no impact.... how can it be considered underutilized? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCOrange Posted March 28, 2018 Author Share Posted March 28, 2018 4 hours ago, jdonley1180 said: ????? if it has no impact.... how can it be considered underutilized? You're misunderstanding it. 1. Running the ball has no impact on play-action passing. 2. Play-action passing > regular passing and with it being used only 20% of the time, it is underutilized. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrDawkinstein Posted March 28, 2018 Share Posted March 28, 2018 I never understood why we so rarely used play-action when we are known as a running team. Seems like a wasted opportunity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drunken Pygmy Goat Posted March 28, 2018 Share Posted March 28, 2018 8 hours ago, Foreigner said: What is the exact definition of play-action? Is this the new trolling? 33 minutes ago, DCOrange said: You're misunderstanding it. 1. Running the ball has no impact on play-action passing. 2. Play-action passing > regular passing and with it being used only 20% of the time, it is underutilized. I find it hard to believe that running the ball has no impact. When teams run the ball, the same play, multiple times out of specific formations, defenses notice, be it within their game or on film. When they see the offense line up in that same formation, the perception given is that it's a run. You would think there's some type of mental element to it. Also, if you're a terrible rushing team, defenses may not fear the run so much, and not sell out on the fake. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BADOLBILZ Posted March 28, 2018 Share Posted March 28, 2018 10 hours ago, DCOrange said: Football Outsiders published an article that came across my twitter timeline today. It basically suggests that a team's ability to run the ball has no impact on its success in play-action. It also suggests that play-action passing is super underutilized and points out that teams like Jacksonville and Philly ran it twice as often as the rest of the league during their playoff games against Pittsburgh and New England and obviously it worked out pretty amazingly for them. https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stat-analysis/2018/rushing-success-and-play-action-passing The answer to the author's question about why teams run the ball is often that they feel overmatched by the opposing passing game and therefore better off not fighting fire with fire. Bills were a prime example of this last season. They won 5 of their first 7 games despite utter garbage at WR and a miscast QB(who should have been operating out of a RPO offense)............mainly by limiting their defensive exposure and protecting the football. Passing is great but hyper conservative Jauron Ball if executed effectively will still win enough to keep you at least in the hunt for a wildcard in late November. I love play action..........but in an era where DE's can be 80-100 pounds lighter than OT's it's a lot of risk to ask a QB to turn his head away from the defense. That's what's great about RPO........I took some heat on this board for saying the Eagles would be fine in the playoffs with Foles after Wentz got hurt.....I knew what he could do out of the RPO.....which they had used to greatly prop up Wentz to that point......... and trusted Pederson would further adapt his scheme to Foles strengths. If the Bills had had a healthy Watkins in 2016 they might have finished in the top 2-3 teams in the NFL in scoring with non-franchise QB Tyrod Taylor. It's just a very tough to defense version of to traditional play action. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCOrange Posted March 28, 2018 Author Share Posted March 28, 2018 2 hours ago, Drunken Pygmy Goat said: I find it hard to believe that running the ball has no impact. When teams run the ball, the same play, multiple times out of specific formations, defenses notice, be it within their game or on film. When they see the offense line up in that same formation, the perception given is that it's a run. You would think there's some type of mental element to it. Also, if you're a terrible rushing team, defenses may not fear the run so much, and not sell out on the fake. That's what we've always believed, but the numbers suggest otherwise. There's nearly zero correlation between running effectiveness and play-action success or between running volume and play-action success. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GunnerBill Posted March 28, 2018 Share Posted March 28, 2018 4 hours ago, BADOLBILZ said: That's what's great about RPO........I took some heat on this board for saying the Eagles would be fine in the playoffs with Foles after Wentz got hurt.....I knew what he could do out of the RPO.....which they had used to greatly prop up Wentz to that point......... and trusted Pederson would further adapt his scheme to Foles strengths. If the Bills had had a healthy Watkins in 2016 they might have finished in the top 2-3 teams in the NFL in scoring with non-franchise QB Tyrod Taylor. It's just a very tough to defense version of to traditional play action. And the thing is the league is such a shotgun and pistol heavy league now - as Blokes demonstrated in another thread the other day. I think the reason traditional play action has died off a bit is that teams are in shotgun so often that it almost can be seen as tipping their hand when they go under centre. RPO is so effective because it allows teams to do play action out of their "normal" offense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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