On the Sunday Night Football game between the Cleveland Browns and the Los Angeles Rams on September 22, 2019, Head Coach Freddie Kitchens decided to go for it, facing 4th and 9 just inside Rams’ territory and a one TD deficit. Without commenting on the decision to not punt at all (as well as not challenging a potential pass interference call earlier in the series), Kitchens decided on a rushing play, a shotgun draw to Nick Chubb. Chubb was tackled well short of the line to gain. Now whether quarterback, Baker Mayfield, was given multiple options to call at the line of scrimmage was an idea soon deafened by 10 million simultaneous “face-palms” by Browns’ fans, watching across the world. It was also rendered moot when Kitchens stepped in front of the media assault, asserting in a laissez-faire southern drawl:
“Bad call …. Yes, I wanted that call. … It just didn’t work. It was a bad call.”
Twitter geniuses (known for being more concerned with their rage than their correctness) quickly took to the red meat. Apparent game theory experts pelted the internet with physical threats and (the MOTHER of all coaching insults in Cleveland) comparisons to Tyronn Lue. When I saw the play occur, I thought something different…
“Is there a chance that calling a run there is correct?”
After some emotional ceremonious cake eating following every Browns’ loss, I set out to see what data I could draw from spots similar to this. Now, nearly everyone (except the commentators who call the last games of the Browns’ 0-16 seasons) know that passing is a much better offensive decision than running, on average, mostly due to the Patriots’ success with it. Simply, the average pass play significantly outgains the average rush play per attempt. This situation was a little different though. Getting the first down was of higher importance than gaining an average number of yards. I decided to check how often the offense succeeded in getting a first down on 3rd or 4th down with 8 to 10 yards to go during all of 2018. What I found:
2018
Rushing 1st down: YES= 38%
Passing 1st down: YES= 31%
I checked my work to see if I read it right… Rushing converted 7% more often than passing?? I decided to run the same downs and distance for 2017:
2017
Rushing 1st down: YES= 35%
Passing 1st down: YES= 29%
Not only was rushing more effective in these situations, this year, it also gained more yards than passing per attempt (7.3 to 7.0)! (Passing outgained rushing by 0.5, despite not getting more first downs in 2018.)
2016 showed another slight increase in first down efficiency. I decided to post my results on Twitter in defense of the honorable Freddie Kitchens! After doing so, I received a request to disregard blowouts. We’re already working with a narrow sample size, but I decided to disregard the trials in games where either team was leading by 16 (two scores) or more. Despite the smaller size, these yielded similar results:
2016
Rushing 1st down: YES= 34%
Passing 1st down: YES= 31%
2017
Rushing 1st down: YES= 39%
Passing 1st down: YES= 29%
2018
Rushing 1st down: YES = 38%
Passing 1st down: YES = 31%
I’ll spare you the rest of the data, but attempts to control more for non-blowout games made rushing look EVEN BETTER. I theorized that, in blowouts, the losing teams are able to get first downs even easier (and usually passing); whereas the winning teams are more concerned with not fumbling on 3rd and 9 than getting 9 yards. In a close game, where it really counts, rushing on 3rd and 9 is even better than usual!
So let’s ask the obvious question…. what the hell is going on?? While passing yields more yards per play, it seems that in those do-or-die spots like 4th and 9, rushing has a higher chance of just not failing entirely. There are no incompletions; there are no interceptions. Also, it could be as simple as the defense not expecting it. Now, what I am NOT able to account for are passing plays that turn into running plays when the quarterback scrambles. The data did not seem to show a correlation between success rate and mobile quarterbacks though… what a rabbit hole this would be to go down.
More importantly what an interesting boon for Head Coach Freddie Kitchens’s prospects. Thought it’s unclear if he can run a successful offensive scheme this year (or if Baker Mayfield can even see over the linemen), the one thing he seems to have done right, this game, is the one thing everybody thought he did wrong.