Washington Redskins: On Deciding to Run the Ball

Ashburn, Va. – It doesn’t seem that long ago that the Washington Redskins had the number one rushing offense in the league. Running back Alfred Morris has been such a consistent and prolific runner that, no matter whom the opponent, the common thought was that he’d be able to run the ball successfully. That hasn’t been the case in the past couple of games and folks are scratching their heads about why. Even in a situation where the team has fallen behind, the idea that the head coach would not rely on one of the best running backs in the league to get some necessary yards seems strange.

The Redskins flew to the desert yesterday to get acclimated to the time zone and get a little rest before they take on the Arizona Cardinals at 4:15 pm Sunday. Hopefully, if head coach Jay Gruden snoozed on the plane, he dreamed up some surefire ways to get Morris the ball early and often tomorrow afternoon.

It’s no mystery that teams generally pass the ball more than run it after falling behind in a contest. Yards are long and time is short and throwing the pigskin gets it down the field more quickly… usually. But, when you have a guy like Morris and even fellow running back Roy Helu, Jr., who are both very talented and complement each other extremely well, it seems unwise to not try harder to get those guys the ball more… even when the other team has more points on the board. Both of these players have shown that they can get chunk yards if the right play is called and executed.

In the Redskins’ first game against the Houston Texans, Morris’ longest run was 21 yards. Against the Jacksonville Jaguars, it was 23 yards. Versus the Philadelphia Eagles his longest run was 12 yards. When they played the New York Giants, his long 20-yard rush resulted in a touchdown. Last week his longest run was 11 yards but, because he only had 13 carries, that’s really no surprise. Still, in 2014, Morris has gained 10 or more yards eight times.  Recall that 10 yards = a first down in the NFL.

It’s not as if the coach and his offensive coordinator don’t know this and feel the pressure. They have been asked about it several times since the recent Seattle Seahawks game in which Morris’ average yards per carry (ypc) was 2.23 yards. Not good and not typical of this player.

“You need all 11 guys,” Redskins’ OC Sean McVay said today after practice when asked about getting back to running the ball, “and, for whatever reason it’s usually one break down somewhere and we’ve got to figure out a way to develop some more continuity. We can be a little more consistent about sticking with it and, y’know, Alfred can create a little bit better and we can do a better job up front. So I think everybody collectively has a hand in it and we’re optimistic and hopeful that we can run the football this week.”

Optimistic is one way to describe how the Redskins might feel about running the ball on Sunday. A different word for optimistic is positive according to Roget’s Thesaurus. Let’s hope the Skins’ staff is positive they can run the ball Sunday… and will. That would be a boon for the team. One definition for positive is:

Certain and not in doubt… conclusive and beyond doubt or question.

I’d say a strong running game definitely needs to be decisively planned by the coaching staff and only veered away from in the most dire of circumstances.

Whether or not teams to give up on rushing the ball when they have gotten behind in a game should be a direct result of who they have at the running back position or how strong their run game is. Ever since Morris got to the Redskins he has been a marquee player, almost as much a face of the franchise as injured starting quarterback Robert Griffin, III. In 2012, Morris’ rookie year, he ran for 1,613 yards… and that was on top of Griffin’s amazing 815 yards rushing. In 2013, the running back logged 1,275 yards on the ground. It’s not as if he isn’t a great ball carrier.

Gruden ran a West Coast offense while offensive coordinator for the Cincinnati Bengals last year. The Bengals passed the ball for 4,136 yards in 2013 but also rushed for 1,755. There’s no question that the he knows how to call a run game.

But this head coaching gig here in Washington is his first as such. He is a rookie. He now has many more responsibilities than just designing and calling plays. Gruden’s learning how to manage every facet of a team, a game, a staff and his life in his new and important position. That’s not an easy thing to do and, while he’s not come out and said, “I’m learning on the job,” he’s admitted a few times that he could and might call more runs in games.

Asked about how he handles designing the play calling to include the run while learning about simply being a head coach, Gruden said the learning how to coach and call a game isn’t just a process… that some of it is instinctual.

“Maybe at the point of attack our tight ends didn’t do a good enough job,” he also said this past Tuesday about why the run game didn’t work against Seattle. “Maybe the fullback lost on his first force block or what have you. It wasn’t everybody who was failing. It was maybe just one guy, and that’s the difficulty running the football against these teams with very good defenses.

“That’s just something that has to be a feel, but the big thing is we don’t want to go out there and ask Kirk [Cousins] to throw the ball 45 or 50 times a game either against that pass rush,” the head coach went on. “So, it was important for us to find some kind of mix… like some kind of balance. But unfortunately we couldn’t do it with the running game. Maybe we should have done more screens, more quick passing game. But they were crawling up on our receivers too doing a good job in that. So the best way to attack them was probably throwing the ball down the field and we had a couple shots which got our drives going, but they did a nice job of containing our running game and stopping the quick game, which in turn made the quarterback hold it. That’s a tough day. And they’ve given a lot of people tough days. [The Seahawks’ defense] gave Aaron Rodgers a tough day, they gave Peyton Manning a tough day and obviously they gave us one too.”

One thing constantly heard from running backs is that they need to get into a groove to really do a good job. The more they play, the better their rhythm. They see the field better and can get more yards. This is one of the reasons it is important to commit to the run early and often. That way the player can get those reps needed to charge his engine up and really get moving, get some yards and hopefully, some points on the board. Even if the Redskins get behind in a game, they should still try to run the ball. With the chunks of yards that Morris and Helu have proven they can get, it’s worth continuing to try to get them the ball.

The Arizona Cardinals have the fourth-ranked rushing defense in the league. One might believe that this means it probably isn’t the best week for the Redskins to try and get their rushing attack back on track. Except that, when given the chance to get going, Alfred Morris can run well against even the highest ranked run-stopping defenses. At least he did in 2012 against the number one ranked Tampa Bay Buccaneers and in 2013 against the Denver Broncos (seventh-ranked rushing defense that year). Against the Bucs his longest run was 39 yards. Versus the latter, his longest run was for 27 yards and a touchdown. Also in the game against the Bucs, Morris rushed the ball 21 times for 113 yards with an average of 5.3 ypc. The Redskins won that game. The latter game was lost but Morris ran for 93 yards on just 17 carries for an average of 5.4 ypc.

Thank you, Liz Clarke, for doing the math on this nice stat: when Morris rushes 14 times or fewer in games, the Redskins are 0-9. When he carries the ball 15-19 times, Washington is 3-8. And when he gets 20 or more carries in games, Washington is 11-5. That’s something.

There are definitely times when it makes more sense to throw the ball, to be sure. But as Jay Gruden gets more acclimated to running his football team and designing the game plans for the personnel he has, perhaps he will find that Alfred Morris is the type of runner that can carry the game on his legs… perhaps more so than quarterback Cousins’ throwing arm or DeSean Jackson or Pierre Garçon’s receiving arms. And perhaps this is the case even if the team has fallen behind. Perhaps Morris just has to get warmed up.

Hail.