The Red Zone Post - 2009 Edition - Part 1

^{- Posted by Derek -}

Another year, another post about the red zone.  If you're into the history of things (or just have a lot of time to kill), you can check out some previous posts covering the red zone here, here and here.  Or just read last year's version of today's post here.

I'm going to start with a lot of descriptive stuff, and then maybe at the end we can "figure it all out."

As usual, the base red zone statistics are from Pro Football Weekly.  Unfortunately, I can't link to them any more.  They just redesigned their site (as in within the past few days) and I can no longer find the red zone stats.  I'm not sure if they're now behind a paywall or they just took them down completely, but either way, you'll have to trust the numbers below.  Luckily I grabbed them before they disappeared.

Here's the historical trend:

 

Bottom line:  the Eagles were somewhat improved last year in terms of touchdown percentage, but still not where they used to be.  The TD% ranks from 2003 to 2008 go 3rd, 3rd, 12th, 10th, 24th, 22nd.  Not a great trend.

It's a little hard to make an eyeball comparison for the Pass TD / Rush TD numbers, since the quantity of red zone possessions has changed so dramatically over the years.  So here's the same table above in percentage terms:

Now that's a bit more illuminating.  For all the issues the Eagles had running the ball last year, the rush TD numbers are in line with what we saw from 2005 to 2006 (when the Eagles were a top 10 or 12 RZ offense).  It actually appears to be the passing TD numbers that are down.

To be clear, I don't think there exists one "best" way to score in the red zone.  If you're a power rushing team, you might as well bull your way into the end zone.  If you're the Cardinals, spread everyone out and run picks all day with/for Boldin and Fitzgerald. 

Another way of saying the same thing is that we all understand the 2003 season was really weird.  That was the year of the three-headed monster rushing attack, the likes of which we haven't seen before or since with Andy Reid.  Even with the revamped offensive line and new fullback Leonard Weaver, it doesn't seem likely we'll see another season with that kind of running emphasis any time soon. 

So if you carry Reid's 60/40 pass/run split to the red zone ... and you aim for touchdowns on about 60 percent of the trips ... you end up with about 36/24 in terms of pass TDs and rush TDs. 

The Eagles were closer to the rushing part of that equation.  (With the final note being that two rushing TDs came from McNabb and one from DeSean.)

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Of course, the actual scoring of the touchdown is just the last bit of the red zone offense.  Which is to say, you could be great at converting those second-and-goals from the two-yard-line, but not so good at running the ball in the red zone to get yourself to that position.

This, in fact, seems to be the situation the Eagles found themselves in (oh, except for the being "great" at running anywhere bit).  And it's yet one more piece of evidence for why playing the 2008 season without a real fullback was a truly colossal blunder.

For this section, I'm relying on the FO game charting stats I've been referencing recently.  I've pulled out every red zone play to see what I could find.  Here are some eye-opening red zone rushing statistics (only running back rushes counted):

  

If you're a plain vanilla kind of guy, the first chart is for you.  It demonstrates rather conclusively that the Eagles' only competent rushing attack came with single backs and that the shorter the yardage needed, the worse the offense did. 

With that said, there's an issue with those numbers.  Westbrook managed two longer runs out of single back sets -- a 17-yarder on first-and-10 and a 16-yarder on second-and-four.  Those two runs pretty dramatically change the averages, so in the second table I've taken them out. 

I think the nice thing about that table is that it shows how few options the Eagles had in short yardage situations.  Yes, they could stick with the single-back sets on first-and-10, but on second-and-four, that wasn't really an option.  It was better than running Hunt or Klecko out there, but still not that effective.

Now I know what some of you are thinking right now:  "Well of course the average goes down in short yardage, because on first-and-10 you're trying to get as many yards as possible and on third-and-one you're trying to get, well, one.  He's stealing a base."

It's a good point, but the same issues show up if you look to see if they did, in fact, get that yard on third-and-one:

That's a listing of all 19 short yardage, multiple back, red zone rushing plays the Eagles ran last year.  Of the 19 plays, the Eagles "won" seven, in the sense that they picked up enough yards for a first down or touchdown.  But four of those wins came on first and goal at the one yard line.  Everywhere else, things were pretty abysmal.

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UPDATE:  I just realized, thanks to ATG, that these individual numbers below lump together regular and postseason play.  So the charts are still useful for a sense of the entire season, but it messes up the percentage table down below.  It also explains why we're showing more touchdowns from the tight end position here than in the next section.

For the next section, here's an update on a chart I did last year:

That's getting a bit large to take in all at once, so here are the summary tables:

Once again -- and this is something I didn't think of last year -- it's important to put this into percentage terms, to get a better handle on production per red zone trip.  So that last table shows that in 2004, wide receivers caught touchdown passes on 19.1 percent of red zone trips.  In 2008, the corresponding figure was 12.7 percent.

UPDATE: So here's where the error compounds.  Counting just the regular season, the tight end number would be about as bad as last year, especially if you don't give Herremans tight end credit.  This actually makes more sense, so it's good to see.  Here's a revised version of that last chart:

Now, again, 2004 isn't the best comparison, in the opposite way that 2003 is tricky.  The Eagles had an incredible red zone passing attack that year, but those figures probably aren't the "ideal."

The biggest question, I think, is what's up the tight ends.  Twelve TD catches from that position (the 2004 number) seems like an awful lot.  For comparison, let's take a look at the 2008 tight end numbers leaguewide (note: these are all TE TDs, not just those in the red zone):

So yeah, 12 would be a lot.  We could see seven though.

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Unfortunately, with that, I think I'm going to have to call it a night and make this a two-parter.  I could rush out the McNabb and "how they were stopped" stuff, but I'd rather do that right.  So Part II on Tuesday.