I included Rhodes in pulling my data, but at the end of the day there wasn't anything significant to pull from his stats for that one year, so I'm not going to report them below.

I used ESPN split stats, which go back to 1993. They break down the passes and runs through an incredible number of situations. Holmgren and Sherman had six seasons each in the stats period, and McCarthy 5. So McCarthy's total numbers will be lower than Holmgren/Sherman, but the ratios should be comparable.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: All three coaches maintained a pass/run ratio 60/40 or below. Pass run ratios did not increase above this level until falling behind in a game. There was some running to put games away, but the impact was less than you might have expected. And McCarthy has the highest pass ratio when tied/in the lead, an indication he is the LEAST conservative of the three coaches (for those saying he has no killer instinct).

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There has been a perception that McCarthy does not run the ball as much as Sherman and/or Holmgren. That perception is not supported by the statistics. Both Sherman and Holmgren had an overall 56/44% ratio. McCarthy's ratio was 57/43%, the difference is not statistically significant.


I also looked at the stats by month (Sep-Dec). The main difference is Sep, where McCarthy starts the season off with a 61% pass ratio, compared to Sherman/Holmgren's 56%. Doesn't sound like much, but it leads to a significant difference in attempts per game.

To normalize the stats, I divided McCarthy's stats by 5 and multiplied by 6, and he still ended up running 200 times less than Holmgren in Sep (476-673). The rest of the year (Oct-Dec), McCarthy's stats were similar to S/H.

That 200 rushes equates to a difference of between 8-9 rushes per game (6 years x 4 games in an average month). So for whatever reason, McCarthy starts out the first month of the season with significantly fewer rush attempts than his predecessors (or himself for the following months).

Sherman was the most consistent across the months, with Holmgren running at the highest clip in Dec.


The win/loss split did not provide the info I was hoping on the question of whether a team was running more because they were winning or winning because they were running more.

So I looked at ratios from 1st half/2nd half of games, as well as by quarter. Holmgren's ratio dropped more in the 4th qtr than I would have expected, and McCarthy's didn't drop as much as I expected.

Sherman was again the most consistent, with a 56/44 (1st half) and 57/43 2nd half. He showed almost no tendency to run at the end of the game to salt away a victory. Holmgren was the opposite, passing at the highest ratio in the first half (60/40), and lowest in the 2nd half (52/48), with his 4th qtr totals actually dipping to 47/53. McCarthy was in between the two, with a drop in the second half from 59/41 to 55/45 (53/47 in the 4th quarter).

So, there's some evidence of running to put the game away at the end, but the impact was less than you might think--4th qtr averaging 4% lower pass ratio over all three coaches.


Those who complain that McCarthy has no killer instinct and gets conservative when he has a lead might want to skip this next section.

McCarthy was the LEAST conservative of the coaches (at least as indicated by pass/run ratios) when both leading a game or tied. McCarthy when leading maintains a 52/48 ratio, and when tied 59/41. Sherman was the most consistent (and conservative), with a 48/52 ratio when ahead and 53/47 when tied. Holmgren was between the two with a 49/51 ratio when ahead and 57/43 when tied.

The biggest thing I took from these stats were that when tied, all three coaches maintained a ratio below 60/40. It wasn't until they were losing that the ratios increased above 60/40. That would tend to indicate to me that the desired ratio is below 60/40.


I also looked at stats to see what the mix for each coach was in a close game--when we were 1-7 pts ahead, tied, or 1-7 pts behind. In the close games, the highest ration was 60/40 (McCarthy--the least conservative again!), with Sherman the most conservative (56/44).

There was a slight difference in ratios between tied and winning by 1-7, but it was only 2% on two of the coaches (Holmgren 55-57%, McCarthy 57-59%) and 3% for Sherman (50-53%).

There was a large increase in pass ratio for all three coaches when the Pack fell behind. Holmgren went from a 57% pass when tied to 76% when behind by 1-7, Sherman 53% to 72% when behind by only 1-7, and McCarthy had the smallest change from 59% to 67%.

Again, my biggest takeaway was in a close game, the pass ratios for all three coaches were between 56 and 60%.


One thing I discovered was ESPN breaks out splits by formation for the years from 2007 on. They don't have the info for 2010 yet, so I just included 2007-2009.

The formations they listed were Shotgun, 2 RB split, 2 RB I-formation, and Single RB. Obviously, there are some issues since it doesn't seem to allow for GB's inverted Y formation with 3 RBs. They also added some splits for 4 WR sets, etc.

The below numbers don't add up to all of the runs/passes in 2007-2009, but I don't see how to figure out the other formation numbers. But even without that, I suspect something's wrong with the numbers, or McCarthy needs to change his play calling, because the splits from 2007-2009 indicated that the Packers did not pass a single time from a 2-RB formation (split or I-formation). Every single play from those formations were shown as a run. I would be shocked if McCarthy had a tendency like that, so I suspect that their formation numbers may have issues.

Good stuff, Macbob.

A few things to note, in the mid-90s we had significant leads in a lot of games. I remember blowing out quite a few teams, especially at home. Sad thing is Tom Brady this year beat Brett Favre's record for most consecutive wins at home.

Winning by a large margin gives you the luxury to run the ball more. We were best under Holmgren, thus more runs in the 2nd half by Holmgren yet more passes in the 2nd half under Sherman (Sherman had the worst Ds between Holmgren, Sherman, and MM).

The other important thing to remember are rule changes. Every year it seems like it's easier to pass the ball. So Mike McCarthy might as well take advantage of those rule changes. This year's big rule change is QB contact. I've seen so many ridiculous calls for unnecessary roughness or roughing the passer. The hit by Suh (Lions) against Cutler immediately comes to mind.

I'm one of the people by the way who said Mike McCarthy didn't have killer instinct, but he did against the Giants. I loved his aggressiveness in that game and want to see him continue to kick teams when they're down. The only beef with MM's game-calling was he didn't give Flynn any pass attempts. When you throw the #2 QB in there, have him throw some passes. I really wanted to see Flynn take one shot deep. He needs the practice, especially considering Rodgers has had 2 concussions this year and the rules for concussions have gotten very strict.

So 60/40, huh? As someone who studies trends, I think 10 years from now it will be closer to 65/35 as the NFL's greed wants higher scoring games and they'll make it increasingly easier to throw the ball every year. Defenders every year probably have nightmares thinking of what new rule will make their lives harder. Taking away the contact within 5 yards (which would make Al Harris types of DBs obsolete)? Increasing penalties for unnecessary roughness on QBs? Suspensions for head contact on QBs? Automatic penalties for even brushing a facemask on QBs? I mean, what next?

+1 Macbob. That's a lot of work you did. I think the want I wanted to see most was the one where you had winning vs tied vs losing. Of course you have to pass more when you're down and you can rush more when you're ahead. That's what I've been trying to say.

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Very interesting read, macbob.

+1

I agree with your memory on the blowing guys out in the 90s. I was just kinda shocked it resulted in a 47% passing and 53% running average in the 4th over the entire period from 1993-1998.



I hadn't thought about the impact of the D. Sherman definitely had the worst D of the 3 coaches.

Crud--now you're making my head hurt, trying to figure out if there's some way of looking at the score differentials for the teams between Holmgren/Sherman/McCarthy to see if it impacted Sherman's playcalling in the 4th. Having started New Years partying already isn't helping.

You could easily be right on rules changes increasing pass percentages. I'd hate if something like that signaled the end to the Jim Browns, Barry Sanders, Jim Taylors, etc. I'd hope the coaches would continue to see the value of throwing a curve ball at the D.



Yeah, the winning/tied/losing didn't tell me everything I wanted. That's why I took the additional look at when we were within 7pts (up or down) of the opponents--it took those blowouts out of the equation. I expected the numbers from tied/+7 (basically, pass ratios from 53-59%), but I hadn't expected how quickly the coaches abandoned that when we got behind by no more than 7, with Holmgren going to 76% passing and Sherman going to 72% passing. That one surprised me a lot.

Thanks for the kind words. I enjoyed digging into the numbers.

Happy New Year! I'll be travelling on Sun during the game and trying to find the game on the radio. We'll be stopping at the Vince Lombardi rest area on the Jersey Turnpike. We stop there every trip, headed in each direction. My wife puts up with it, but gives me a ribbing each time.

+1

An excellent read and even a greater research you put in this.

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Great topic, great job. I'd give +10 if I could, but here's +1.

Yes, it's nice to have leads like 34-3 ('96 game 1), 37-7 ('96 game 2), 28-3 ('96 game 3) going into the 4th Q. Really, do we need to pass with those leads? Heck, that's when you throw in your #2 QB. And those were just the first 3 games of the season.



LOL. Heh. Now you're seeing how much work it is to do all those stats. How I did it - www.pro-football-reference.com and go to every single year and every single game. It takes forever to do, but they have box scores of every game.



I'm not saying that the rule changes are a good thing. I'm just saying they are what they are and take advantage of them. Yes, the Jim Browns, the Barry Sanders, and the Jim Taylors would be obsolete nowadays. Heck, look at Adrian Peterson. Arguably the best athlete in the game today. I like him so much my wife bought me his action figure for Christmas. His best year was when Favre was leading the Vikings as a passing team so he can run for 18 TDs. Before and after that, the Vikings weren't a serious threat to make it very far. AP can have 2000 yards. They'll still be 6-10 without a QB.



Holmgren hates losing. He wants to win more than anything else. I gotta give him credit for that, but it blew up in his face in his 2nd SB when he lost it during half-time. I'm still not over that loss and I don't think I ever will be.



You too amigo. I'm hoping it turns out to be a good year to be a Packers fan after all. All these people on IR. The close losses. The almost missing of the Playoffs. It's been tough to be a Packers fan this year as everyone and their Grandma said we'd win it all.

We got the #2 D now. Let's see how far we can go with it.

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lol. You had said that once before. Both times it made me think of the commercial, and I couldn't help laughing:

[youtube]QYFmbWzIsxo[/youtube]




I like our odds against the Bears. We've got a difficult path through the playoffs. Vick and the Eagles at home (Vick could end up giving our D fits if they aren't disciplined in their contain); followed by Atlanta at home (who is 19-2 in their last 21 home games and who will have had 2 weeks to prepare); followed by Chicago or NO at home (I don't think there's any chance we'll end up facing the West division champion).

We will definitely have earned it if we make our way through that gauntlet. It will be difficult, but not impossible.

The last two games have me optimistic. Since the Detroit game, McCarthy's game planning has been terrific. Starting with winning the toss, defering to the second half on the opening kickoff, then calling an onsides kick. We would have beaten the Patriots--one of (if not the) top teams in the NFL (13-2), in their home stadium, with our starting QB standing on the sidelines--if any one of 4 or 5 plays had gone differently (Woody not dropping the INT, etc).

And we would have beaten ANYBODY this past week. NYG are not a slouch defensively, but we put up over 500 yds total offense against them.

I'd rather have the 5th seed path through the playoffs, going up against he West division 1st week and Bears second week. But we go to the playoffs with the schedule that we have, not the schedule that we'd like to have (my apologies to Don Rumsfeld). And if we play like we have the last two weeks, I like our odds against anybody.

Agreed. I'm liking MM's playcalling. I think the onside kick was fantastic and love his aggressiveness, how he kept pounding the Giants even after the game was already over. I hope to continue to see what we've been seeing.

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Im surprised sherman's numbers aren't different, i seem to remember him running the shit out of ahman green

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