The AFC South Needs to Pass to Win: Part Two of Kerry J. Byrne on the AFC South

Kerry J. Byrne is loud, opinionated, overweight, foul-mouthed and more than a little bit annoying.

I think that's why I like him so much.

The self-proclaimed Potentate of Pigskin, Byrne is the founder of ColdHardFootballFacts.com and partner in FootballNation.com. I'm not saying he's overweight, but here's a link to his driver's license photo.

I asked Kerry to weigh in (cough, cough) on the AFC South, and he went after it like a football-shaped sausage. There was so much stat-drenched goodness, I broke it into two parts. Check out the first installment from last week.

Here is Part 2 of his numbers-laden nuggets:

BR: The South has always been a division stacked with running backs: Chris Johnson, Mo-Jo, Foster. What should teams who build around the run keep in mind?

KB: They should keep in mind that building around the run is a recipe for failure and frustration. You can put Jim Brown and Barry Sanders in the same backfield. You’re not going to win anything if you don’t pass the ball efficiently on offense and make opposing passers ineffective when on defense.

Teams win with effective passing games and effective pass defenses. More importantly, teams have always won with effective passing games and pass defenses, even back in the 1940s and 1950s.

It’s the greatest myth in football that the NFL has changed to become a passing league. It has not. Teams certainly pass more. But passing is not more important. Look at the Bears of the 1940s, the Browns of the 1950s of the Packers of the 1960s. Hell, everybody thinks Vince Lombardi won because of old-school, three-yards-and-a-cloud fundamental football.

He did not.

The 1961, 1962, 1965, 1966 and 1967 champion Packers all ran and stopped the run with varying degrees of success. The 1962 Packers may have been the greatest rushing team in NFL history. But the 1965 and 1966 Packers ran the ball poorly, among the worst in the league each year.

However, Lombardi’s Packers consistently dominated the passing lanes: No. 1 in Passer Rating Differential (PRD) in 1961, 1962, 1965 and 1966. The 1967 team was No. 3 in PRD, but then dominated in the postseason: something like +54 in PRD in their three postseason games.

To bring it back to today’s AFC South: the Cold, Hard Football Facts really don’t care how well or how poorly a team runs the ball. The AFC South provides a perfect case study of why we don’t.

• Chris Johnson led the NFL with 2,006 yards and an awesome 5.6 Yards Per Attempt (YPA) average in 2009, one of the greatest rushing seasons in history. His team went 8-8 because it couldn’t pass the football effectively.
• Arian Foster led the NFL with 1,616 yards and 16 TD in 2010, with a great 4.9 YPA average. His team went 6-10 because its defense made every opposing QB look like a combination of Johnny Unitas and Joe Montana.  
• Maurice Jones-Drew led the NFL with 1,606 yards (and a nice 4.7 YPA) in 2011. His team went 5-11 because it couldn’t pass the football effectively.

You need to TRY to run. You need to maintain balance in your offense. For example, we contend that the 2010 Colts would have enjoyed much more success if they simply attempted more runs—even though they ran poorly.

But big picture: history, and the AFC South in recent years, tell us that great ground games and great running backs are so distantly related to victory that they can marry in all 50 states—even Indiana.

BR: Who do you think will have the best defense in the South in 2012?

KB: Houston. All the pieces are in place. Great scheme. Great young players. Great stats: No. 7 on our Defensive Hog Index; No. 4 at forcing Negative Pass Plays; No. 4 in scoring defense (17.4 PPG); No. 2 in Defensive Real Passing YPA (5.21 YPA); No. 2 in Defensive Real QB Rating (60.8); No. 2 in Defensive Passer Rating (69.0).

Jacksonville actually had a pretty solid defense in 2011, certainly miles ahead of its dreadful offense. But new staff… I don’t know. We’ll see. Tennessee we do not have a good read on right now. The Titans showed statistical flashes—No. 5 in Defensive Real Passing YPA, for example – but no consistency.

I am very concerned about the Colts defense. Obviously, losing Peyton Manning was devastating. But he didn’t play cornerback. And the fact of the matter is that even he would have struggled badly to win when a paired with such an ugly and inept defense.

The Colts posted a 103.4 Defensive Passer Rating in 2011 (31st). To put that into perspective, Manning himself has a career passer rating of 94.9 and even at his best topped 103.3 only twice, in 2004 and 2005. So, in other words, Indy’s defense last season made every opposing QB look like Peyton Manning at or close to his MVP best.

You cannot win that way in the NFL, no matter who’s at QB. So without dramatic improvements there in 2012 – which is possible, as Houston proved last season—Andrew Luck and Colts fans may be in for another long season before the ship finally turns.