And so, because I am a stubborn cuss who is convinced a good rushing attack must contribute to team success, I decided to check the correlation between rushing yards and winning percentage. My jaw literally dropped when I saw the correlation: a paltry 0.501!
In other words, there is virtually no substantive relation between a good running game and a winning record this season! Maybe all the experts who blather on endlessly how "good teams commit to the run" are flat-out wrong.
"mattresell" wrote:
When it comes to rushing and winning, I think you'll find a stronger correlation by simply looking at yards per attempt.
Rushing attempts would probably have a strong correlation, but you run into the problem of correlation not always equaling causation. Teams don't win because they have a high number of rushing attempts. Rather, teams have a high number of rushing attempts because they're winning. If you're up by 14 in the 4th quarter, you're likely to just pound the ball, thus inflating your number of attempts.
NOTE: Great thread idea. I think we should add a disclaimer that if you're not into statistical analysis, please just ignore this thread and let us have our nerd fun. I don't want this to become a thread debating the merits of statistical analysis.
"Nonstopdrivel" wrote: