Denver’s Terrell Davis is on pace for a 2,000-yard season.
Detroit’s Barry Sanders became the first back ever to pop two 80-yard touchdown runs in one game.
The 11 100-yard games in the NFL last weekend were the most of any week this season. Runners are on pace for the most 100-yard games (139) of any year since the 1970 merger.
Four of the leading rushers–Davis, Sanders, Minnesota’s Robert Smith and Oakland’s Napoleon Kaufman–are averaging more than 5 yards a carry, a figure only Sanders reached last season.
Why are feet back in football?
Arms are one reason. Defenses designed to pressure passers, especially the latest trend to zone blitzes, are vulnerable to runs.
“When you see an eight- or nine-man front, if you catch a crease, it’s see-you-later time,” Pittsburgh running back Jerome Bettis said.
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Zone blitzes drop linemen into zone coverage while linebackers and defensive backs blitz.
“Instead of having people with quickness converging on the ballcarrier, you’ve got defensive linemen trying to make a tackle in the open field,” Miami coach Jimmy Johnson said. “The No. 1 thing you talk about offensively to defeat the zone blitz is run the football.”
Teams aren’t rushing more, just better. The league average is 28 runs a game, same as last year. But there are more long runs.
Body shapes are another reason. To protect passers, teams have drafted, groomed and encouraged fat offensive linemen. To rush passers, teams have relied on trim, quick defensive linemen to speed around the fat guys. On running plays, coaches believe fat guys can flatten thin guys.
“Offensive linemen are getting bigger, and defensive linemen are getting smaller,” Vikings coach Dennis Green said. “It’s harder to pass block those fast defensive linemen than to run block.”
Common sense is another reason. Teams can’t win if they can’t pass, but one-dimensional teams don’t win, either.
Nobody knows this better than Johnson, who is struggling in Miami with the most prolific passer in history, Dan Marino.
“I know in order to have success we’re going to have to be effective running the football,” Johnson said.
The Steelers won’t win until young quarterback Kordell Stewart becomes a more consistently dangerous passer. But he doesn’t have a chance without the threat of handing off to Bettis.
“We knew we were going to have to start strong with our running game because of Kordell’s youth and inexperience at quarterback,” Bettis said.
The San Francisco 49ers lost their first game and standout receiver Jerry Rice, and have won eight in a row. They are now the fourth-leading rushing team and 22nd passing team.
“We decided it was in our best interest to improve our running even with Jerry Rice here because defenses were teeing off and rushing the passer and making it difficult for Steve (Young),” coach Steve Mariucci said.
So the 49ers traded for big guard Kevin Gogan, signed free-agent running back Garrison Hearst and drafted big tight end Greg Clark.
“We needed to have defensive fronts playing both run and pass,” Mariucci said.
Minnesota’s Green cites the “cumulative effect” of a running game–“even if you’re not getting yardage, you take a little sting out of the pass rush,” he said.
Green came from Bill Walsh’s 49ers offense, in which short passes were used as a complement to the running game, not necessarily as a substitute for it.
“People are starting to remember no matter how good you are, you’ve got to be able to run the ball,” Green said. “People who became somewhat infatuated with what is called the West Coast offense didn’t understand, or no one bothered to tell them, Bill Walsh’s best years came when he had 1,000-yard rushers in the backfield.”
First Wendell Tyler, then Roger Craig, then Ricky Watters under coach George Seifert helped propel the 49ers’ Super Bowl teams.
Denver has the best record in the AFC the last two years because quarterback John Elway finally is able to hand off to somebody. Davis is on pace for the most carries in a season.
The final factor is patience–coaches can run out of the I-formation, the one-back formation or split-back formations, but they can’t run out of patience.
Bobby Ross, Detroit’s new coach, correctly argued it didn’t make any difference whether Sanders had a fullback, a chambermaid or nobody at all in the backfield with him. But Ross had to remind himself to keep giving Barry the ball.
Sanders spoke of the Lions’ new mindset. “We are going to run the ball regardless of what happens in the first two quarters, and regardless of what they’re doing on defense. We’re going to continue to run and see what happens and make them stop us, and sooner or later, something big will open up.”
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