The Ringer seems to think so . . . and certainly the numbers back this up. The article says they run him too much between the tackles when outside runs would be more productive. For what it's worth . . . Link - ( New Window )
is what opened up his game, vision, and shook him loose.
It's about creating a tick of hesitation in the defense, misdirection, keeping them on their heels, etc. PS has to get a feel for where to point the rush attack as a game develops.
is why they don't run more screen passes for him, instead of all those swing passes with nobody blowing for him. My recollection is that he's been excellent on screen passes this year but that we've run very few of them.
guy is threatening to break the all time rookie total yardage record....yet we are using him incorrectly.
'Incorrectly' is probably bad word choice. 'Non-optimally' would be more accurate assuming that the numbers aren't really skewed by the early season C-RG issues.
is what opened up his game, vision, and shook him loose.
It's about creating a tick of hesitation in the defense, misdirection, keeping them on their heels, etc. PS has to get a feel for where to point the rush attack as a game develops.
This is right. They coached him to run more north south and his numbers and production shot up big time.
Of Barkley early in the season that he had a tendency to run outside by default. The coaches made a concerted effort to get him more inside runs. How can one really argue with the results, especially of late?
is what opened up his game, vision, and shook him loose.
It's about creating a tick of hesitation in the defense, misdirection, keeping them on their heels, etc. PS has to get a feel for where to point the rush attack as a game develops.
This is right. They coached him to run more north south and his numbers and production shot up big time.
He also didn't have defenders flying through untouched.
I also wonder how they chart certain plays. Lets say a run is designed to go outside, but there's an unblocked LB/S on the edge. If Barkley cuts that play up the middle (between the guards) and just drives forward for 2-3 yards (a positive play under the circumstances), do they chart that as "between the guards" or as an "outside run"? You get 10-20 runs like that (~1.5 per game) and it could significantly skew the results.
saying "non-optimally" is misleading. I'm also not sure the numbers are correct running between the tackles vs. outside of them as two of Barkley's long runs started inside and ended up going to the outside, while he's lost yardage more frequently on outside runs vs. inside runs.
On his 25 runs for losses, 16 vs. 9 have been outside the tackles, including his longest losses of 7, 6 and 5 yards.
is what opened up his game, vision, and shook him loose.
It's about creating a tick of hesitation in the defense, misdirection, keeping them on their heels, etc. PS has to get a feel for where to point the rush attack as a game develops.
This is right. They coached him to run more north south and his numbers and production shot up big time.
He also didn't have defenders flying through untouched.
I also wonder how they chart certain plays. Lets say a run is designed to go outside, but there's an unblocked LB/S on the edge. If Barkley cuts that play up the middle (between the guards) and just drives forward for 2-3 yards (a positive play under the circumstances), do they chart that as "between the guards" or as an "outside run"? You get 10-20 runs like that (~1.5 per game) and it could significantly skew the results.
I think this exactly right. The amount of penetration the defense was getting early in the season was just unacceptable. He was getting re-routed almost immediately after getting the ball in most of the early games. There was another article where the charted the amount of negative or zero yardage run plays pre and post bye I think it was. The percentage was far to high to begin with(I think over 30%), and that number was cut in half post bye. Limiting the defensive penetration has been key as well.
saying "non-optimally" is misleading. I'm also not sure the numbers are correct running between the tackles vs. outside of them as two of Barkley's long runs started inside and ended up going to the outside, while he's lost yardage more frequently on outside runs vs. inside runs.
On his 25 runs for losses, 16 vs. 9 have been outside the tackles, including his longest losses of 7, 6 and 5 yards.
Well, assuming the numbers are correct, how is saying his usage is suboptimal misleading? His yards/carry is higher on outside runs, therefore if you increase the percentage of outside runs, you'd improve the efficiency of the offense (at least up to a point). You might get a few more negative runs, but those should be baked into the averages which means you're also getting a lot more long runs.
I'd wager their chances of scoring are substantially higher on drives that include a long run (20+) than they hurt by a single negative run.
he's talked about those kinds of moves before - he's making sure that nobody dives from behind and trips him before entering the end zone.
Doesn't even look like a "hurdle". No doubt the one last week was out of joy, but pointing to this one as a "celebratory hurdle" and evidence that he's having more fun than in college is off, imo.
only statistically sound if the average of running outside is static.
Basically the premise is - that outside runs are going longer for average, so we need to run more outside. That's using stats to dictate a strategy instead of building a strategy around a defensive scheme.
I'm sure most backs have a better average running wide, Why? Because the further you get to the edge, the fewer defenders you encounter.
It's really no different than saying a team has more 20+ yard plays that average, so they need to keep throwing the ball deep to be optimal.
but let me say this -- I love watching Barkley rip it up the gut -- it's a ting of booty!
The best part of the article:
Quote:
Above are two of Barkley’s 50-plus-yard rushing touchdowns this fall, clips that should offer a pretty strong indication that the Giants made a smart pick by taking him second overall in the 2018 draft. After all, 50-plus-yard rushing touchdowns are rare. No NFL player has notched more than two in a season since Adrian Peterson in 2012, when the then-Vikings star eclipsed 2,000 yards rushing and was named league MVP. There have been only 18 50-plus-yard rushing touchdowns during the entire 2018 season.
Barkley has four of them, along with a 57-yard receiving score. Entering Week 15, he has 1,753 yards from scrimmage (second in the league) with 13 total touchdowns (fourth). He’s the NFL’s most explosive player.
Charts are poor evidence - picking three random games Â
he's talked about those kinds of moves before - he's making sure that nobody dives from behind and trips him before entering the end zone.
Doesn't even look like a "hurdle". No doubt the one last week was out of joy, but pointing to this one as a "celebratory hurdle" and evidence that he's having more fun than in college is off, imo.
Agree, pretty sure there's some college clips where he does the "hurdle" too.
only statistically sound if the average of running outside is static.
Basically the premise is - that outside runs are going longer for average, so we need to run more outside. That's using stats to dictate a strategy instead of building a strategy around a defensive scheme.
I'm sure most backs have a better average running wide, Why? Because the further you get to the edge, the fewer defenders you encounter.
It's really no different than saying a team has more 20+ yard plays that average, so they need to keep throwing the ball deep to be optimal.
That's not the way stats work.
Hence why I asked in one of my first posts if these trends were static or if they've been running more (or less) to the outside as the season has progressed.
I disagree that you can't use these stats build your strategy, or more accurately to tweak your strategy. If you're successful at something, anything, you should use it more. It's not that difficult.
And your deep pass analogy isn't apples to apples since the turnover rate and sack rate likely change on deep throws, whereas the fumble rate is likely constant whether you run inside or outside. Not a perfect measure since a lot changed, but I think everyone would agree we threw (and completed) more deep passes with Gilbride at OC then McAdoo. By your logic, that should lead to a higher average, but if you look at adjusted net yards/attempt (adjusts yards/attempt to account for sacks/ints/TDs), Eli's numbers are slightly better under McAdoo even including last year with Beckham injured and a shit OL.
When was the last time the Giants had a RB that actually run well to the edges and beat the defenders? Only guy I saw do it a few times was David Wilson.
is so large and this article barely scrapes the surface of providing any evidence to back it.
Eli is clearly most effective in play-action. Drawing teams in to the LOS through play-action is best done with a credible threat of a run inside the tackles.
Is it wrong to run it often? What about if it's successful? 4.6 YPC is pretty darn good for inside runs. As pointed to in the article, it's better than Gurley (4.3) or Gordon (3.5). If he's better at inside runs than those guys, why wouldn't they continue to feature those runs?
Also, a season-long statistic like his inside/outside split fails to account for changes made mid-season. It would be a much more interesting article if he showed whether that's a split that has continued, grown, or shrunk as the season has gone on. I'd be much more likely to accept the claim if he showed a correlation between the split and the MUCH more productive offense later this season.
Looks like he was going over some charts, noticed some anomalies, and decided to write an article about it.
They are still learning how to use him most productively. Â
the thing that stands out the most, is the amount of green (runs of 5+ yards) on the charts for the other 3 guys relative to Barkley. Considering Barkley has a higher ypc than any of those 3, but a lower % of runs for 5+ yards, tells me those RBs benefit from strong OLs more than Barkley.
I'd also guess Barkley's charts for the last 4 weeks have a higher % of green than those from the first 9 games.
RE: Would the Giants be better than 5-8 right now.... Â
worse, definitely. Maybe a better long term outlook? We don't know yet. Barkley was a super solid pick, the correct pick. We could not afford to miss at 2, we did not.
RE: Would the Giants be better than 5-8 right now.... Â
Whoever wrote this has not played or coached one down of organized football in his/her life, that I am sure of. You can't go backwards and see what worked and use that as a model of what to do moving forward in the running game. If your options are cut in half you tip your hand to the defense. He may be more productive on outside runs, BUT, almost none of the runs that became outside runs were designed that way. That's point #1, it's not where the yards are gained but where the play is designed that ultimately determines "type" of play. Secondly, if you stop running in the A and B gaps altogether you free up LBs and Ss to cheat to the outside gaps and you get a really crowded edge. No football coach on earth would ever abandon the inside runs because some hipster fuckface no nothing looked at some numbers and crunched them. It works because we use him everywhere, the runs are blocked and designed to sometimes feign where he's going and if you cut out inside runs you are absolutely hand cuffing your ability to be strategic. Garbage article, garbage analysis and garbage "writer" trying to use analytic data after the fact to eliminate a huge portion of why this offense has worked since the bye.
This type of reductive reasoning is great for cutting wasteful spending, or conserving energy or patterning traffic flow, but offensive football is a dynamic diverse organism that has to be able to do everything it's capable of to sustain itself.
Whoever wrote this has not played or coached one down of organized football in his/her life, that I am sure of. You can't go backwards and see what worked and use that as a model of what to do moving forward in the running game.
Isn't that exactly what scouting is? Looking for other teams tendencies and then trying to take them away?
Quote:
... almost none of the runs that became outside runs were designed that way. That's point #1, it's not where the yards are gained but where the play is designed that ultimately determines "type" of play.
Agree 100%. Especially when the RB has the cutback ability of SB. I think it was one of his runs against the Skins where the OLB had perfect technique on him and he gave a slight move inside before cutting outside and the LB barely got a hand on him.
Quote:
Secondly, if you stop running in the A and B gaps altogether you free up LBs and Ss to cheat to the outside gaps and you get a really crowded edge. No football coach on earth would ever abandon the inside runs because some hipster fuckface no nothing looked at some numbers and crunched them.
That's not what he's saying. The point is that they should run outside more, not that they should do it exclusively. And they should increase the % of outside runs until the efficiency (average) of those runs begins to balance the efficiency of inside runs.
There's no doubt this article is flawed from premise Â
To execution, as FMiC and Joey in VA and others noted.
The most "efficient" backs in the NFL this year according to NextGenStats, this writer's source, are right now a bunch of guys largely producing garbage with the exception of Adrian Peterson who's ranked 11th at the moment. Only one or two of their top 10 "efficient" backs ate averaging over 4 ypc!
Really this article is click bait and nothing more.
Truth is also that Barkley, prolly more than any RB since Sanders, runs wherever the hell he sees daylight...
Because he can.
So even if he posits to run MORE outside until the average balances, he's still wrong. The play selection in the run game has been damn near perfect since the bye because of the balance. It's like a boxing match, you can't just throw haymakers all day or hooks all day, you have to work the body to keep the opponent honest. This about being more difficult to defend by showing a lot of runs out of similar looks. I'm sorry but I disagree with his premise 100%.
is that there definition of "efficient" blows. It's more useful as a measure of an OLs performance than a RBs. It's not remotely a measure of a RBs actual efficiency.
is that there definition of "efficient" blows. It's more useful as a measure of an OLs performance than a RBs. It's not remotely a measure of a RBs actual efficiency.
...you have to establish that you are willing to attack inside the tackles first. This is one of those football truths they are disregarding in favor of blind stats. They are wrong.
with Barkley and include screens to him split wide. Isolate him on one side, quick screen, and he’ll dominate the DB.
He should get several a game and then decoy him and throw some to Engram on the other side.
Coach Shurmur says they design the game plan to the strengths of their players. Perhaps we don't see more of that because they think the screen is not one of Eli's strengths?
I agree with your principle though - We haven't seen a lot of SB outside - stacked for bubble screen or in isolation, and we don't see a lot of other more traditional passes in the flat (like a screen) to SB, where he would naturally be in a good position to dominate. You would have to imagine the defense cheating to that side opening the other side.
Coach Shurmur says they design the game plan to the strengths of their players. Perhaps we don't see more of that because they think the screen is not one of Eli's strengths?
It could also not be something that they have confidence in the OL being able to block. Screens have a certain level of technique required to pull off.
The team is trying to implement a whole new O. They are just starting to get it, and don't yet know how to utilize all of the weapons. Plus the OL is still problematic. It will take a while more to best know how to use all the weapons together effectively, and not just Barkley
RE: To be an effective running team outside the tackles... Â
...you have to establish that you are willing to attack inside the tackles first. This is one of those football truths they are disregarding in favor of blind stats. They are wrong.
+1. If everytime Barkley touches the ball its an outside run, the defense will be standing there waiting for him
But for the second half versus Philly, it seems like Â
Saquon’s at his best when he runs inside and then goes outside. He’s able to create angles that just don’t happen in the pros with his speed/size/cutting.
Speaks nothing to the inside run opening up outside opportunities Â
learning Its not like he started behind an Pro Bowl type
line the entire team is learning yet another new offense .
If Eli has always had a weakness in the touch pass in
running a screen game something we have had problems with
the other thing I would touch on is the types of plays
that get Barkley the ball while moving . We see very little in the screen game and too many plays to the sidelines .
where he has little room to use his elusiveness .
The O-line is weak up the middle when they do manage to open
a hole Barkley is a threat to take it to the house .
I sometimes question when they bring in Gallman who I like as a back and I get resting him but he should get 20 carries a game . I think next season the line will be shored up
and the Look the hell out . As great as Gurley is Barkley
is every bit as good and potentially better .
is that there definition of "efficient" blows. It's more useful as a measure of an OLs performance than a RBs. It's not remotely a measure of a RBs actual efficiency.
This.
Dead wrong, but carry on being wrong, this thread is full of incorrect assumptions. Barkley has made runs in spite of this OL, more often than not, he's an animal who makes this OL look better than it is. You and giants#1 deserve each other.
It's about creating a tick of hesitation in the defense, misdirection, keeping them on their heels, etc. PS has to get a feel for where to point the rush attack as a game develops.
'Incorrectly' is probably bad word choice. 'Non-optimally' would be more accurate assuming that the numbers aren't really skewed by the early season C-RG issues.
It's about creating a tick of hesitation in the defense, misdirection, keeping them on their heels, etc. PS has to get a feel for where to point the rush attack as a game develops.
This is right. They coached him to run more north south and his numbers and production shot up big time.
Quote:
is what opened up his game, vision, and shook him loose.
It's about creating a tick of hesitation in the defense, misdirection, keeping them on their heels, etc. PS has to get a feel for where to point the rush attack as a game develops.
This is right. They coached him to run more north south and his numbers and production shot up big time.
He also didn't have defenders flying through untouched.
I also wonder how they chart certain plays. Lets say a run is designed to go outside, but there's an unblocked LB/S on the edge. If Barkley cuts that play up the middle (between the guards) and just drives forward for 2-3 yards (a positive play under the circumstances), do they chart that as "between the guards" or as an "outside run"? You get 10-20 runs like that (~1.5 per game) and it could significantly skew the results.
On his 25 runs for losses, 16 vs. 9 have been outside the tackles, including his longest losses of 7, 6 and 5 yards.
Quote:
In comment 14218440 JonC said:
Quote:
is what opened up his game, vision, and shook him loose.
It's about creating a tick of hesitation in the defense, misdirection, keeping them on their heels, etc. PS has to get a feel for where to point the rush attack as a game develops.
This is right. They coached him to run more north south and his numbers and production shot up big time.
He also didn't have defenders flying through untouched.
I also wonder how they chart certain plays. Lets say a run is designed to go outside, but there's an unblocked LB/S on the edge. If Barkley cuts that play up the middle (between the guards) and just drives forward for 2-3 yards (a positive play under the circumstances), do they chart that as "between the guards" or as an "outside run"? You get 10-20 runs like that (~1.5 per game) and it could significantly skew the results.
I think this exactly right. The amount of penetration the defense was getting early in the season was just unacceptable. He was getting re-routed almost immediately after getting the ball in most of the early games. There was another article where the charted the amount of negative or zero yardage run plays pre and post bye I think it was. The percentage was far to high to begin with(I think over 30%), and that number was cut in half post bye. Limiting the defensive penetration has been key as well.
On his 25 runs for losses, 16 vs. 9 have been outside the tackles, including his longest losses of 7, 6 and 5 yards.
Well, assuming the numbers are correct, how is saying his usage is suboptimal misleading? His yards/carry is higher on outside runs, therefore if you increase the percentage of outside runs, you'd improve the efficiency of the offense (at least up to a point). You might get a few more negative runs, but those should be baked into the averages which means you're also getting a lot more long runs.
I'd wager their chances of scoring are substantially higher on drives that include a long run (20+) than they hurt by a single negative run.
Doesn't even look like a "hurdle". No doubt the one last week was out of joy, but pointing to this one as a "celebratory hurdle" and evidence that he's having more fun than in college is off, imo.
Basically the premise is - that outside runs are going longer for average, so we need to run more outside. That's using stats to dictate a strategy instead of building a strategy around a defensive scheme.
I'm sure most backs have a better average running wide, Why? Because the further you get to the edge, the fewer defenders you encounter.
It's really no different than saying a team has more 20+ yard plays that average, so they need to keep throwing the ball deep to be optimal.
That's not the way stats work.
The best part of the article:
Above are two of Barkley’s 50-plus-yard rushing touchdowns this fall, clips that should offer a pretty strong indication that the Giants made a smart pick by taking him second overall in the 2018 draft. After all, 50-plus-yard rushing touchdowns are rare. No NFL player has notched more than two in a season since Adrian Peterson in 2012, when the then-Vikings star eclipsed 2,000 yards rushing and was named league MVP. There have been only 18 50-plus-yard rushing touchdowns during the entire 2018 season.
Barkley has four of them, along with a 57-yard receiving score. Entering Week 15, he has 1,753 yards from scrimmage (second in the league) with 13 total touchdowns (fourth). He’s the NFL’s most explosive player.
Doesn't even look like a "hurdle". No doubt the one last week was out of joy, but pointing to this one as a "celebratory hurdle" and evidence that he's having more fun than in college is off, imo.
Agree, pretty sure there's some college clips where he does the "hurdle" too.
Basically the premise is - that outside runs are going longer for average, so we need to run more outside. That's using stats to dictate a strategy instead of building a strategy around a defensive scheme.
I'm sure most backs have a better average running wide, Why? Because the further you get to the edge, the fewer defenders you encounter.
It's really no different than saying a team has more 20+ yard plays that average, so they need to keep throwing the ball deep to be optimal.
That's not the way stats work.
Hence why I asked in one of my first posts if these trends were static or if they've been running more (or less) to the outside as the season has progressed.
I disagree that you can't use these stats build your strategy, or more accurately to tweak your strategy. If you're successful at something, anything, you should use it more. It's not that difficult.
And your deep pass analogy isn't apples to apples since the turnover rate and sack rate likely change on deep throws, whereas the fumble rate is likely constant whether you run inside or outside. Not a perfect measure since a lot changed, but I think everyone would agree we threw (and completed) more deep passes with Gilbride at OC then McAdoo. By your logic, that should lead to a higher average, but if you look at adjusted net yards/attempt (adjusts yards/attempt to account for sacks/ints/TDs), Eli's numbers are slightly better under McAdoo even including last year with Beckham injured and a shit OL.
Eli is clearly most effective in play-action. Drawing teams in to the LOS through play-action is best done with a credible threat of a run inside the tackles.
Is it wrong to run it often? What about if it's successful? 4.6 YPC is pretty darn good for inside runs. As pointed to in the article, it's better than Gurley (4.3) or Gordon (3.5). If he's better at inside runs than those guys, why wouldn't they continue to feature those runs?
Also, a season-long statistic like his inside/outside split fails to account for changes made mid-season. It would be a much more interesting article if he showed whether that's a split that has continued, grown, or shrunk as the season has gone on. I'd be much more likely to accept the claim if he showed a correlation between the split and the MUCH more productive offense later this season.
Looks like he was going over some charts, noticed some anomalies, and decided to write an article about it.
This is another excellent point, imo.
I'd also guess Barkley's charts for the last 4 weeks have a higher % of green than those from the first 9 games.
The article also points out they have the worst, 2nd worst, and 3rd worst passer ratings in the NFL so I'm fairly confident they'd be worse. FWIW
SB can kill them either way. No need to over think it.
This type of reductive reasoning is great for cutting wasteful spending, or conserving energy or patterning traffic flow, but offensive football is a dynamic diverse organism that has to be able to do everything it's capable of to sustain itself.
Isn't that exactly what scouting is? Looking for other teams tendencies and then trying to take them away?
Agree 100%. Especially when the RB has the cutback ability of SB. I think it was one of his runs against the Skins where the OLB had perfect technique on him and he gave a slight move inside before cutting outside and the LB barely got a hand on him.
That's not what he's saying. The point is that they should run outside more, not that they should do it exclusively. And they should increase the % of outside runs until the efficiency (average) of those runs begins to balance the efficiency of inside runs.
The most "efficient" backs in the NFL this year according to NextGenStats, this writer's source, are right now a bunch of guys largely producing garbage with the exception of Adrian Peterson who's ranked 11th at the moment. Only one or two of their top 10 "efficient" backs ate averaging over 4 ypc!
Really this article is click bait and nothing more.
Truth is also that Barkley, prolly more than any RB since Sanders, runs wherever the hell he sees daylight...
Because he can.
This.
He should get several a game and then decoy him and throw some to Engram on the other side.
He should get several a game and then decoy him and throw some to Engram on the other side.
Coach Shurmur says they design the game plan to the strengths of their players. Perhaps we don't see more of that because they think the screen is not one of Eli's strengths?
I agree with your principle though - We haven't seen a lot of SB outside - stacked for bubble screen or in isolation, and we don't see a lot of other more traditional passes in the flat (like a screen) to SB, where he would naturally be in a good position to dominate. You would have to imagine the defense cheating to that side opening the other side.
Coach Shurmur says they design the game plan to the strengths of their players. Perhaps we don't see more of that because they think the screen is not one of Eli's strengths?
It could also not be something that they have confidence in the OL being able to block. Screens have a certain level of technique required to pull off.
+1. If everytime Barkley touches the ball its an outside run, the defense will be standing there waiting for him
Saquon’s at his best when he runs inside and then goes outside. He’s able to create angles that just don’t happen in the pros with his speed/size/cutting.
line the entire team is learning yet another new offense .
If Eli has always had a weakness in the touch pass in
running a screen game something we have had problems with
the other thing I would touch on is the types of plays
that get Barkley the ball while moving . We see very little in the screen game and too many plays to the sidelines .
where he has little room to use his elusiveness .
The O-line is weak up the middle when they do manage to open
a hole Barkley is a threat to take it to the house .
I sometimes question when they bring in Gallman who I like as a back and I get resting him but he should get 20 carries a game . I think next season the line will be shored up
and the Look the hell out . As great as Gurley is Barkley
is every bit as good and potentially better .
Quote:
is that there definition of "efficient" blows. It's more useful as a measure of an OLs performance than a RBs. It's not remotely a measure of a RBs actual efficiency.
This.