Wednesday, Bill Callahan spent his first practice as the Redskins interim head coach setting a new tone from his predecessor Jay Gruden. In hopes of having a different approach and outcome on Sundays after a 0-5 start to the season. One of those areas of change will be the run game.
Callahan told the media Wednesday following practice, that the team will focus on being a run team. He’ll be focused on “rush attempts” over actual yards per carry. He stressed “It’s an identity I believe in.”
The Redskins enter Week 6 averaging 68.8 yards per carry. That’s 27th out of 32 teams in the league. They’re averaging 17.6 rushes per game. Only the Dolphins, this Sunday’s opponent, has less rush attempts per game.
Meanwhile, the Redskins are averaging 3.9 yards per carry. According to Callahan, all he is focused on is getting those rush attempts up to attempt maintaining balance.
Coincidentally, he believes rush attempts and pass completions usually spell out winning football.
Not here to break down the analytics to declare that is fact or not. But, typically teams who are already up on the scoreboard tend to run the football a bit more to chew away the game clock. Usually teams who abandon the run game are chasing the scoreboard.
The Redskins run offense has struggled mightily. If you remove non-running back rushing attempts and yards, the Redskins running backs are averaging a dismal 2.9 yards per carry.
It will be interesting to see how this new philosophy of Callahan’s pans out in games. Can the Redskins move the football on the ground behind a makeshift offensive line that is actually better built to protect the pass than run the football?
I think the context of when they run the ball matters though. If you get to the 4th Q with a lead, then you can go from 15 rushes to 25 rushes easily, but those extra 10 rushes won’t win the game, they’ll kill the clock. It was the passing that got the lead— Mark Bullock (@MarkBullockNFL) October 9, 2019
Bill Callahan, who is the team’s offensive line coach, apparently believes so. And right now that’s all that matters until, well, it doesn’t pan out.
There’s no better team to try out the approach than the Dolphins, who allow a league-worst 175.8 rushing yards per game.
