NFL: Why Rushing Yards Equating To Victories Is A Myth

[AUTiger7222]

I was just reading this blog post about why RBI's in baseball is not a very good stat in judging how good a hitter is and the author made this example to make his point.

Quote:Now, lets add one further analogy, and apply it to the sports world. Rushing yards and team victories. One common statistic that you’ll often hear NFL announcers spew out nearly every game is something along the lines of “Team X’s record when they rush for over 150 yards is (insert very good record), so obviously they need to make it a mission to get (running back’s name) his yards, no matter what!” Seems to make sense, when the team rushes for a lot of yards, they almost always win, so they should try to rush the ball a lot. How can you even argue that point? Well, what do teams do when they have sizable leads in the fourth quarter? They run the ball in order to drain the clock. What do teams do when they’re trailing in the fourth quarter? They pass the ball in order to score while taking as little time off the clock as possible. Thus, it’s often the case that winning is causing rushing yards, and losing is causing a lack of rushing yards, instead of the other way around. The team is running because they’re winning, not winning because they’re running.

I don't know how many times I have posted on here that very same thing when people try to say the Falcons win because of a good rushing game.