RedDawg wrote:
Anyone who understands statistics knows that Harrison's last two games have skewed their season ranking significantly. Especially his KC game.
An important note is that Cribbs' rushing yards are almost entirely out of wildcat, which takes absolutely no pressure off the QB when he is under center.
Week 1 - J. Lewis 57, Cribbs 6, Davis 5. TOTAL = 68 (62 from RBs)
Week 2 - J. Lewis 38, Harrison 8, Cribbs 4 TOTAL = 50 (46 from RBs)
Week 3 - Harrison 52, Davis 10 TOTAL = 62
Week 10 - J. Lewis 36, Cribbs 34, Jennings 18 TOTAL = 88 (54 from RBs)
Week 11- J. Lewis 75, Jennings 36, Cribbs 16 TOTAL = 127 (111 from RBs)
Week 12- J. Lewis 40, Jennings 5, Harrison 3 TOTAL = 48
Week 13- Cribbs 38, Harrison 35, Jennings 28 TOTAL = 101 (63 from RBs)
Then it explodes.
Week 14 - Cribbs 87, Jennings 73, Harrison 9 TOTAL = 169 (82 from RBs)
Week 15 - Harrison 286, Jennings 18 TOTAL = 304In a statistical analysis, an extremely aberrant data point like the KC game is frequently thrown out in the interests of accuracy. Maybe a math guy can jump in here, but that game is so far off the average - someone talk about standard deviations or something!
I stand by my statement, but amend it to "most of the year, Quinn had a barely NFL quality rushing attack behind him." The only game beside KC where the RBs had 100 yards was Detroit, and Quinn had an oustanding game with a 20/33 for 304, 4 TDs and no INTs. Important to note that Quinn sucked against KC though.
This really points out how BAD Jamal Lewis was, and how playing him really hurt our offensive production. Would like to see what it would have looked like this year if Harrison had been the starter out of camp...
Please don't go down this road unless you are equally willing to throw out aberrantly poor performances as well as consider the fact that many, if not all, teams' statistics are skewed by a small number of outstanding games as well.
Further, excluding the games Quinn did not start necessarily eliminates an important controlling point, ie: maybe the running game is so dreadful in large part BECAUSE Quinn is so dreadful. Note that this wouldn't really be expected, considering the equally or greater dreadfulness of Derek. But lo, the Browns managed games with 146, 171, and 164 with Anderson at QB.
Barring an exhaustive statistical analysis, which would include drawing distribution curves, calculating variance and standard deviations (yes, RedDawg, I do know quite a bit about mathematics and data analysis

), I also noted that the average rushing gain for the Browns is 4.2, or right exactly smack dab in the middle of the pack. We could adjust for Cribbs, although if we do that then we would need to go through all of the data and adjust for all wild cat packages, as well as QB scrambles, end arounds, reverses, and assorted trick plays. Of course, completely eliminating these also eliminates the advantage a QB gains from having big plays or productivity in the running game apart from drawing the defense a bit closer, ie: better scoring opportunities.
I'm not making the argument our running game was top 10, only a fool would think so. But I would consider it within a standard deviation of the average, or average to slightly below average. And I agree Jamal Lewis sucked. I agreed with that a year ago.
One final note: I'm sure we can both agree that a running game can make a passing game look better/worse, and vice versa. Which one do you think has had the more adverse effect on the other for the 2009 Cleveland Browns? Gotta be the passing game hamstringing the running game, right?