After the Colts lost, 38-31, to the Buccaneers on Sunday, all the talk was about the offensive game plan put together by Indianapolis head coach Frank Reich and his staff. At one point in the game, Carson Wentz attempted 26 straight passes without handing the ball off, and when you have a running back like Jonathan Taylor, that doesn’t seem like the optimal plan. And while Taylor did gain 83 yards and scored a touchdown on 16 carries, most of that action came in the fourth-quarter drive in which Taylor scored his four-yard touchdown, tying the game at 31. In the first half, Taylor gained 25 yards on eight carries, while Wentz completed 16 of 24 passes for 197 yards, three touchdowns, and no interceptions against Tampa Bay’s depleted secondary.
This was the Colts’ first offensive play of the game — in which Taylor tried to bounce it outside, and super-tackle Vita Vea came out of nowhere to erase the threat. Between Vea and Tampa Bay’s run blitzes, as great as Taylor is, it was going to be a tougher slog on the ground than through the air.
“We were rolling,” Reich said after the game. “We were rolling. We scored 21 points. We tried to run it in the first quarter, this is the number one run defense, and we weren’t getting anything. We tried throwing in the second quarter and started having a lot of success. Carson (Wentz) was hot. Called a bunch of RPOs that got to throws because they were throw reads. We come out in the third quarter, we move the ball well in the third quarter. We moved down there twice, we’re moving it well. So, I’ll go back and look at it.
“Felt comfortable that we were executing and moving the ball. We had a few mistakes here and there. Respect to their defense. They stopped us in the run early and then we were able to get it going late. Each drive we were looking at trying to mix it up where we could. Call a couple RPOs early then you get a couple situations where you’re behind the sticks and then thirdly, like I said, Carson was hot. Felt like we were playing well there. That’s just the way it’s going to be sometimes.”
After looking at the tape Monday, Reich was even more definitive about his plan.
This is fantastic. Frank Reich is one helluva coach. https://t.co/RQYJuT6rAS
— Luke Easterling (@LukeEasterling) November 30, 2021
If you’re on the side that has Reich pegged as an idiot for refusing to run more against a Buccaneers defense that has been just about impossible to run against consistently — especially when defensive Vea is healthy — you must think that Bill Belichick is an idiot, too. In New England’s 19-17 Week 4 loss to the Bucs, the Patriots ran the ball exactly eight times for a grand total of one yard.
“The running game is great if it’s effective,” Belichick said last week, as he was preparing for the Titans, who allowed the Patriots to run 24 times for 105 yards and a touchdown. “Everybody likes to call running plays, but if you’re gaining a yard, two yards, how many can you call. You can’t just be second-and-10, second-and-9, third-and-8 all day. The running game’s great if you’re making yards, and if you’re not making yards, then it’s hard to keep going. I think it’s really a factor of production, and certainly having balance in that your attack makes it difficult for the defense to just stop one thing. You don’t want to be a one-dimensional team, unless you’re just so, so good at it that even though you’re one dimensional, it’s unstoppable. That’s hard to do in this league.
“As long as we can run the ball productively, I’m sure we’ll keep calling them. Whatever point that doesn’t happen, like the Tampa game, you can’t just keep calling runs and being 3rd-and-8 every down. That’s disheartening to play offense that way. Backs want to run the ball. Line wants to run the ball. If we do it well, then we’ll keep running it. If we don’t, then we’re going to have to do something else.”
While Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy will never be mistaken for Belichick in a strategic sense, he made a similar set of calls in Dallas’ 29-31 Week 1 loss to Tampa Bay in which the Cowboys ran 14 times for 52 yards. That was with Ezekiel Elliott and Tony Pollard, Dallas’ outstanding one-two running back combo. Why was McCarthy so reticent to call run plays?
Ask Pollard, who got himself woodshedded by defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh on this play.
Ndamukong Suh can pick up an NFL RB like a misbehaving child. Took Pollard to timeout.pic.twitter.com/mrju29iLEU
— Stuart Feiner (@StuartFeiner) September 10, 2021
No Zeke, no problem: Cowboys are right not to run the ball against Buccaneers
The Buccaneers currently rank fifth in Football Outsiders’ Defensive Adjusted Line Yards metric, They’ve allowed the league’s second-fewest running back yards per carry, and they’re above the league average in run-stopping no matter the field situation. So before we crown any coach an idiot for refusing to run against the Buccaneers, it would be good for us to dive into some situational football theory, and examine the idea that not every defense is the same.