I've been watching football since 1984, and the one phrase I need to understand is "(Insert Team Name Here) needs to establish the run". Can someone kindly explain to me what this means, and what is involved in achieving this? I mean, sure, every team in the NFL would like to be able to run the football. Generally, it is a safe way to get a guaranteed 3 or more yards per play if all goes well. But sometimes running the football doesn't work. Sometimes a team's offensive line isn't good enough, or the oppositions defensive line is better. Sometimes opposition defenses, like the Patriots yesterday, will load up the box to prevent any run games because they know the offense is not going to throw the ball? At what point is "Establishing the run" not worth it? How many downs have to be sacrificed before this can be soundly abandoned? How many two yard losses are worth establishing something that clearly is not working?
Establishing the run has a lot of advantages 1. It frees up the pass through play action and later just because they need to stack the box to stop the run 2. Since there are no "incomplete run" the clock keeps running. Higher TOP gives your opponent less chances and keeps your defense fresher 3. It is more physically taxing on a defense especially the DL so as the game goes on the run becomes 4, It slows down the opponent pash rush 5. It makes it easier to convert 3rd downs. 3rd and 4 and 5 become viable running situations 6. In general it limits turnovers 7. If you have established the run it makes the 4 min drill way more effective 8. It can demoralize an opponent 9. Allows for more gadget and trick plays That said, the Jets have it all backwards. They are trying to establish the run against 8 and 9 man fronts which lead to 22 rushes for 38 yards, The Jets actually need to establish the pass to be sucessful thwoing around 65% on first down. Even Romo said this like 20 times yesterday
Spot on. You establish the run but having some good first down passes completed when the stack the box
There are honestly people on television and on social media arguing that 22 attempts were not enough to firmly "Establish the Run"
Rex Ryan was saying the same thing this morning. Hard to establish the run with overloaded boxes and with running backs like Dalvin Cook who can’t break a tackle if his life depended on it.
Unfortunately the Jets need to establish the pass in order to run. Same concept though. Clearly the book is out on the Jets, stack the box until Zach beats you. In general, that doesn't happen.
Our QB doesn't scare anyone which allows defenses to key on the run. Our o-line isn't very good at all. Our OC is so predictable even the announcers know what play is coming pre-snap.
establish the run so they dont just drop back into coverage. But with us its the opposite. We need to establish the pass because Zach sucks. So they just stack the box against the run.
Football has a clock. Running the ball allows you to run the clock down. This leaves less time for the opponents O to run plays. When you throw an incomplete pass the clock stops until the ball is snapped. Since the Jets have the worst passing O in the league and complete a low percentage of passes, not running the ball gives the opponent more time which is actually more offensive plays. It also leaves our D on the field for more running clock time. Teams built on Defense and running the ball are really trying to take the air out of the ball to limit the amount of offensive plays of the opposition. If you happen to have a good QB and can run the ball, the run game forces defenses to use more players near the line of scrimage opening up the field behind them with less defenders. This creates a lot of spacing advantages for recievers. Sometimes you don't even need a good QB to exploit this. The Pats actually used the run game to set up a TD pass to an uncovered WR working in a very big space. He was uncovered because the Jets DB bit on the run fake and left a huge space for the WR to fill where there was no defender. There is a myth that you can't run on teams that are staking the box to stop the run. You actually can by matching up more blockers on defenders at the LOS. If you can get a back through a seam the back can be in uncovered space beyong the LOS and they generally can out physical a DB down the field. There was a time in the NFL where this was not establishing the run to set up the pass it was what you were. A running football team by design.
I wish he was still our coach. We could have had him for the last decade and he wanted to be here for the rest of his life.
