Finding the Winning Factors - Yards per Carry

This week in the Finding the Winning Factors series, let's take a look at a very conventional stat:  Yards per Carry.  Everyone uses this stat to show how well a running game is, so let's find out if all the "experts" are right.  Here's the (simple) formula:

I went back to 2001 to see how teams do.  That means I'll be looking at 4,080 games over the past 8 years.  I did this calculation for every game, then found the overall average for a game.  I then went back and compared every game to this average, and found wins/losses based on being above or below average.

Let's get to the numbers:

• The Overall Average over the past 8 years is 4.13 Yds/Carry.  I figured it to be over 4, so this seems about right.
  
• I've finally found a stat that the Colts were not #1 in, as they finished 26th at 3.89 Yds/Carry.  Yikes.  But guess what?  The Colts are still better than the Patriots (barely). So who was #1 in the NFL? The Vikings at 4.64 Yds/Carry.  That's pretty good, and makes sense that it would be the Vikings.
• Defensively, the Ravens are #1 (again) at 3.45 Yds/Carry.  The Cowboys finishing 4th surprises me a little.  Who knew they stopped the run so well?  How about the Colts?  30th at 4.49 Yds/Carry.  Only the Rams and Chiefs have been worse.  But we knew all this already.  The Colts really haven't stopped the run.
  
• Now the important stuff:  How often do teams win when they are Above Average on Offense?  955-855-2, which is 52.8%.  This is the worst stat so far.  Who'd have thought that?  Having an Above Average defense produces a record of 1184-1082-2, which is 52.2%, pretty much the same as the offense. Anyone else like this, because I sure don't.
  
• When both the Offense and Defense are Above Average, their record is 548-448, or 55.0%.  This is not much better than just one side of the ball, and the worst we've seen so far (RB Success Rate was 59%)
• The best game since 2001?  Week 12 in 2008, where the Chiefs averaged huge 12.23 Yds/Carry against the Bills.  Guess what?  The Chiefs lost 54-31.  That game that was the lowest of the low in 2006?  6th best game at 8.93 Yds/Carry.  Unfortunately for the Colts, the defense was in 3 of the top 5 games, and 5 of the top 11.  Best game for the Colts offense?  Week 15 in 2001 against the Jets (29-28 loss), when they had 7.39 Yds/Carry.
• The worst game since 2001? Week 10 in 2007, where the Lions averaged -2.25 Yds/Carry against the Cardinals.  That is 8 carries, -18 yards.  The Lions had the 2nd worst game as well, at -0.30 Yds/Carry.  These were the only 2 games that had negative yards per carry.
• The only team that had less games where both sides were above average than the Colts was the Texans, and they had 1 less season.  Needless to say, the Colts didn't have this happen very often.  On the flip side, they had the most games where both sides were below average at almost 6 games per season.  But as we've seen, it really didn't matter in terms of wins.
• When the Colts defense was Above Average (held teams under 4.1 Yds/Carry), they had the best record in the league, winning 77.4% of the time.  This is slightly better than the offense when they are above average, as they won 73.9% of the time, good for 3rd best in the league.

So what did we learn today?  You shouldn't use Yards per Carry if you want to predict football games.  This further lends credence that a Above Average passing game is much more valuable than an Above Average running game.

After the jump you'll see the offensive and defensive numbers for each team, as well as Win/Loss records when going above/below the league average.  Click on the headers to sort.  Here's a link to the last 5 years worth of data.  There's not much of a difference, especially since it only took out 3 years worth of data.

Here are the Offensive and Defensive Numbers...

Here are the Win/Loss records of teams when they go above/below average:

And finally, Win/Loss records when the offense is above average, and the defense holds the other team below average