The most efficient rushing team in the league, the Baltimore Ravens, still only averages -0.03 EPA per rush play. Averaging across the whole league, the average rushing play is -0.09 EPA and the average dropback play is 0.06 EPA.
Taken at face value, teams should abandon the run and just pass. This of course would be too simplistic as one could argue that the threat of a run helps unlocking the passing game and improves the EPA.
However, another way to look at this is perhaps EPA is just a flawed metric and is either too simplistic or is missing a key nuance in its modelling. Perhaps there’s a flat EPA adjustment we need to apply to all plays that would make rushing EPAs positive? Perhaps too much weight is given to the explosive pass? Perhaps we need to adjust the era data from when teams rarely played two high safeties to counter today’s passing league?
Nevertheless, I wonder if more and more OCs in the league are using EPA and other advanced analytics and coming to the conclusion you might when looking at this data that passing is far superior to running and ending up with too many teams trying to pass it on too many downs, abandoning the run and putting too much pressure on their average QB?
what? i mean yea it’s a “flawed” metric but coaches have been running the ball more, not less in the last couple seasons. EPA is only flawed if you misunderstand what you’re looking at—it tells us, in a certain sense, how many points a team is earning from play-to-play. It is more meaningful than just counting yards, because it accounts for down-and-distance and that sort of thing. You could just as easily ask “teams are gaining 6.0 yards on pass attempts but only 4.2 yards on rush attempts, is Yards/attempt a flawed statistic?” and you’d be just as wrong. It tells us exactly what it’s telling us both times. The point is, both with rushing and with passing, is that coaches understand that football isn’t just about scoring as many points as possible on every single play, just in the same way it’s not about scoring as many yards as possible on every play. teams are rushing a lot, and EPA just gives us more information to understand the game.