After the Jacksonville Jaguars' first preseason game against the New England Patriots, I wrote how we might need to pump the brakes instead of being pumped up. And after playing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, that storyline remains much the same.
So here is a quick update on how the run game has fared so far this preseason.
Success rate
Doing a better job of distributing credit for scoring points and winning games is the goal of DVOA, or Defense-adjusted Value Over Average. DVOAbreaks down every single play of the NFL season, assigning each play a value based on both total yards and yards towards a first down, based on work done by Pete Palmer, Bob Carroll, and John Thorn in their seminal book, The Hidden Game of Football. On first down, a play is considered a success if it gains 45 percent of needed yards; on second down, a play needs to gain 60 percent of needed yards; on third or fourth down, only gaining a new first down is considered success.
Good for explaining success rate, and giving me enough words to publish this article. Here is how we've done so far:
It wasn't great before, and it took a bit of a hit against the Buccaneers.
Yellow Zone TD%
The Yellow Zone is the area from the opponents 10-yard line to the goal line, and YZ TD% is a measure of how well a team runs near the goalline. This area of our stat remains unchanged from Week 1:
Running Back Rating
Quarterbacks have a rating stat, so I made one for running backs. Grant is still riding the coattails of his insane Week 1 showing, and overall the team has moved from "Elite" to "Above Average" in just one week. It should also be noted that 79.2 is basically as low of a rating as you can have without the aid of fumbles. Our depth in this regard does not look good.
That's all, folks!