2010 Colts Statistical Review: RB Success Rate - Offense

by mgrex03 on May 10, 2011 7:55 AM EDT in 2010 NFL Season In Review

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to take a look at our Winning Stats, and compare the 2010 Colts to the previous 10 years, to see exactly what they did better than before, and where we could see some improvement in 2011. I'm going to start with RB Success Rate, a Football Outsiders brain-child. You can see how they formulate RB Success Rate, and you can check out my initial look at RB Success Rate, and how many wins it leads to.

With all the talk last week about Colts Vice Chairman Bill Polian ripping on "stat geeks" when talking about the Colts run game, I felt this was the perfect stat to start with. As you'll see once we get into the offensive numbers over the past 10 years, Polian's ire should have been focused on people using the incorrect stat when referencing the run game. The better stat, as you'll see, is RB Success Rate. It takes into account the situation, providing a better reference than just the straight Yards per Carry. For example, a 2 yard run on 3rd and 1 is much better than a 12 yard run on 3rd and 15. In Yards/Carry world, the opposite is true.

I'll start with a macro view of the stat, looking at the totals for the past 10 years, with an average from 2001-09 and from 2006-09 for a more recent look, since the team is pretty different from the 2001 incarnation. Then, I'll break it down into each of the four downs, and look at just the 4th quarter, to see where exactly the Colts struggled and need to improve.

Here's how the offensive numbers look for RB Success Rate over the past 10 years:

Year	Offense
Year	Actual	Rank	Adjusted	Rank
2001	50.1%	4	49.6%	7
2002	45.7%	18	45.5%	18
2003	46.8%	13	46.6%	13
2004	51.7%	4	50.7%	4
2005	55.7%	1	53.9%	1
2006	55.6%	1	54.5%	1
2007	52.8%	2	51.7%	4
2008	48.5%	7	49.0%	7
2009	47.7%	9	48.9%	6
2010	46.3%	15	46.2%	12
Avg '01-'09	50.6%	1	49.7%	7
Avg '06-'09	51.4%	1	51.0%	5
Avg '10	46.3%	15	46.2%	12

A couple things to notice:

2010 was the second worst year, in both actual stats and adjusted stats, behind only 2002 over the past 10 years. Edgerrin James was coming off of a knee injury from 2001, and started two rookies on the Offensive line (Ryan Diem and Rick DeMulling).
The Colts, over both 2001-09 and 2006-09, were the best team in terms of RB Success Rate in the league. What does that tell you? That the Colts actually have been fairly successful running the football, or at least successful at accomplishing what they have to with the running game. 2010 was a pretty big dropoff, falling back into the middle of the pack, being merely average. Possibly the difference between 10-6 and 12-4?
Clearly the Colts wanted to address these shortcomings, using three of their five draft picks (you could actually argue four of six because of the trade up for Ben Ijalana) on improving parts of the running game. I'd even guess the Colts used these exact numbers while preparing for the draft. This should have screamed at them that something just wasn't right in 2010.

While looking at the season totals can give us some trends, it doesn't do a very good job telling us exactly where the Colts struggled. That's where we look at the totals by down to find out what was really going on. I've also included the Fourth Quarter numbers, to get a better sense of those late drives that Polian suggested have also struggled:

Year	First Down			Second Down			Third Down			Fourth Down			Fourth Quarter			Total
Year	Conv	Att	Pct	Conv	Att	Pct	Conv	Att	Pct	Conv	Att	Pct	Conv	Att	Pct	Conv	Att	Pct
2001	128	257	49.8%	61	133	45.9%	27	44	61.4%	3	3	100.0%	52	109	47.7%	219	437	50.1%
2002	94	224	42.0%	70	141	49.6%	30	60	50.0%	4	8	50.0%	59	117	50.4%	198	433	45.7%
2003	113	230	49.1%	67	162	41.4%	22	44	50.0%	7	11	63.6%	68	139	48.9%	209	447	46.8%
2004	125	250	50.0%	78	138	56.5%	15	33	45.5%	1	3	33.3%	55	129	42.6%	219	424	51.7%
2005	142	263	54.0%	86	142	60.6%	25	50	50.0%	6	10	60.0%	71	142	50.0%	259	465	55.7%
2006	140	264	53.0%	82	139	59.0%	18	28	64.3%	0	1	0.0%	75	132	56.8%	240	432	55.6%
2007	122	244	50.0%	76	142	53.5%	31	52	59.6%	5	5	100.0%	72	142	50.7%	234	443	52.8%
2008	87	194	44.8%	61	120	50.8%	27	46	58.7%	2	5	40.0%	50	102	49.0%	177	365	48.5%
2009	106	227	46.7%	48	98	49.0%	16	33	48.5%	3	5	60.0%	49	117	41.9%	173	363	47.7%
2010	95	226	42.0%	63	120	52.5%	21	42	50.0%	2	3	66.7%	51	111	45.9%	181	391	46.3%
Avg '01-'09	117	239	49.1%	70	135	51.8%	23	43	54.1%	3.4	5.7	60.8%	61	125	48.8%	214	423	50.6%
Avg '06-'09	114	232	49.0%	67	125	53.5%	23	40	57.9%	2.5	4	62.5%	62	123	49.9%	206	401	51.4%
Avg '10	95	226	42.0%	63	120	52.5%	21	42	50.0%	2	3	66.7%	51	111	45.9%	181	391	46.3%

A couple things here too, as I'm just going to focus on the pink rows:

The Colts were awful on First Down in 2010, beating out only 2002 (again), but this time it was only .08% better. It was way, way below their historical averages. FO's Aaron Schatz pointed this out last week, just how bad the Colts were on First Down running the ball. This chart clearly agrees with Schatz. If you want something to point at that says the Colts struggled running the ball, this is where they stunk last year. League average since 2001 is 45.5%.
Second Down looks to be right at their historical average, and over 50% is a very good number. This was clearly not the problem with the Colts running game. League average was 44.4%, so running the ball on second down doesn't need to concern anyone.
Third Down may be a little lower than their historical average, but I'm not going to complain too much about a 50% success rate, especially when the league average was 48.5%. Just because they didn't hit their ridiculous historical average doesn't mean they struggled. Sure it wasn't as good as before, but I won't complain about it.
We also can see a drop in the Fourth Quarter, down a few percentage points from historical averages. League average has been 45.5%, so 2010 was an average years for the Colts, when they are usually quite a bit above average. The Colts really struggled at this in 2009, although I feel some of that came from big leads where they Colts were running the ball up big late, and not having "successful" runs. The Colts didn't have that luxury in 2010.
The Colts were also slightly below average in number of attempts in 2010, which is what I remember seeing with my eyes. I'm not sure what to attribute that to, other than a lack of confidence in the running game.

Coming up later this week is the defensive numbers, which aren't anywhere near this pretty.

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Comments

Whilst it provides a useful baseline for a judgement..

I don’t particularly like the percentages given as the criteria for a start. They seem arbitrary and ignore several frequently occurring situations which I don’t think are redressed in the figures.

Also: “For example, a 2 yard run on 3rd and 1 is much better than a 12 yard run on 3rd and 15.”

The above is true, but consider why anyone would run on 3rd and 15 if they needed to win the game. They wouldn’t. We especially wouldn’t. That would be a play where ball security and clock management take priority, thereby skewing your statistics, because the run was selected in bad faith, if you follow. I can name occasions where we have been running the ball/clock from the 3rd quarter (Giants last year I believe?) which would skew the efficiency statistics due to the 4th quarter adjustment.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the work and it provides a baseline from which to complement the statistics with what you’ve seen with your own eyes.

Rec’d.

Antoine Bethea - the most underrated safety in the NFL.

by Ben Savage on May 10, 2011 8:18 AM EDT reply actions

To clarify something that I didn't say in my first attempt as well

I think that the further you get from first down, the less useful RB success rate is due to the variance of the situation. It does however highlight our incredibly poor performance on first down without prejudice.

Antoine Bethea - the most underrated safety in the NFL.

by Ben Savage on May 10, 2011 8:21 AM EDT up reply actions

Well, this for me verifies what Bill Polian said.

Kudos to him for being right.

by James Broschat on May 10, 2011 2:28 PM EDT reply actions

He wasn't 'right,' please re-read

As you’ll see once we get into the offensive numbers over the past 10 years, Polian’s ire should have been focused on people using the incorrect stat when referencing the run game. The better stat, as you’ll see, is RB Success Rate. It takes into account the situation, providing a better reference than just the straight Yards per Carry.

The whole stupid point of this thing was that there are no ‘stats geeks,’ and that Bill Polian was just being needlessness stupid in insulting people like Aaron Schatz, who was himself saying that people need to look at RB success rate instead of yards per carry.

Nevermind that ‘stat geeks’ like Ken Dilger, Joe Stasniak, and Colts owner Jim Irsay all quoted as Colts run game has has sucked from 2008-2010. Even Charlie Johnson went on the radio today and talked about how the team isn’t very good running the ball consistently. I highly doubt any of those guys are talking about RB success rate.

Bottom line was Polian was insulting people who actually where saying the same thing he was, which is why we rightly called Bill out on his foolishness. I really wish fans would stop thinking in terms of ‘right’ and ‘wrong,’ and think a bit more critically. Polian clearly was not right to take needless shots at Schatz, and fans who think otherwise just don’t know what they are talking about. It’s difficult to take them, and their opinions on such things, seriously when they defend such idiocy.

SB Nation's Indianapolis Colts blogger at Stampede Blue and editor of SB Nation Indiana.

by Brad Wells on May 10, 2011 3:33 PM EDT up reply actions

I have not once defended 'such idiocy'

But how long will it take you to figure out that YOUR READERS DON’T WANT TO HEAR ALL YOUR COMPLAINING.

Your complaints can be 100% justified logic – but that doesn’t constitute it as Indianapolis Colts football news. You go so far out of your way (and out of the way of relevant articles) to bash Polian every chance you get. So not only do readers not care what you think of him as a person, but we constantly have to sift through it on a daily basis.

by kmbryant09 on May 11, 2011 9:47 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs