Todd Gurley is off to one of the hottest starts in NFL history. After rushing for a league-leading 623 yards and nine touchdowns — plus 247 receiving yards and two more TDs through the air — Gurley has accumulated the fifth-most adjusted yards47 from scrimmage through six games since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger, joining former Rams greats Marshall Faulk and Eric Dickerson near the top of the list. The Rams are 6-0 on the young season, and Gurley’s breakneck performance is often cited as a catalyst for the team’s success. He has even been in the early discussion for league MVP.
But is that really warranted? Does the Rams offense truly run through Gurley, or should we be giving head coach Sean McVay more of the credit?
One approach to answering that question is to look at how McVay’s scheme affects Gurley’s performance. So far this year, the Rams have run nearly every offensive play from what is called the “11” personnel: one running back, one tight end and three wide receivers. According to charting from Sports Info Solutions, the Rams have run 95 percent of their offensive plays from this package — 32 percentage points more than the league average of 63 percent. And while heavy utilization of three wide receiver looks isn’t new to McVay — the Rams ran 81 percent of their plays out of “11” in 2017 — 2018 is a massive outlier. McVay appears to have concluded that the deception afforded the offense by lining up with the same personnel package each play is greater than the constraints it places on his play calling.
The Rams rarely stray from their favorite look
NFL teams by the share of their plays run in each of the three most popular personnel packages, 2018
| Personnel package | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Team | 11: ONE RB, ONE TE, three WRs | 12: ONE RB, TWO TEs, TWO WRs | 21: Two RBs, one TE, two WRs |
| L.A. Rams | 95% | 2% | 0% |
| Green Bay | 77 | 14 | 1 |
| Miami | 77 | 8 | 1 |
| Seattle | 77 | 9 | 5 |
| Indianapolis | 72 | 18 | 3 |
| Cleveland | 70 | 16 | 1 |
| Jacksonville | 70 | 10 | 6 |
| Cincinnati | 69 | 20 | 2 |
| Washington | 69 | 17 | 0 |
| Oakland | 68 | 13 | 7 |
| N.Y. Giants | 67 | 23 | 4 |
| Tampa Bay | 67 | 14 | 7 |
| Arizona | 66 | 19 | 4 |
| Denver | 66 | 13 | 11 |
| Buffalo | 64 | 20 | 10 |
| Chicago | 64 | 20 | 10 |
| Houston | 62 | 34 | 0 |
| Minnesota | 62 | 23 | 9 |
| Detroit | 61 | 10 | 5 |
| Pittsburgh | 61 | 15 | 7 |
| New Orleans | 60 | 13 | 12 |
| Carolina | 59 | 14 | 8 |
| Kansas City | 59 | 22 | 9 |
| Dallas | 57 | 18 | 6 |
| Atlanta | 56 | 14 | 13 |
| L.A. Chargers | 56 | 17 | 10 |
| Philadelphia | 54 | 36 | 0 |
| Tennessee | 53 | 35 | 2 |
| N.Y. Jets | 52 | 24 | 0 |
| New England | 49 | 9 | 28 |
| Baltimore | 48 | 26 | 1 |
| San Francisco | 40 | 8 | 41 |
| Average | 63 | 17 | 7 |
There are other benefits from repeatedly giving the opponent the same look, however, and they affect Gurley’s performance in important ways. When a team can spread a defense out laterally across the field, it opens up the middle and makes running the ball easier. Running backs with at least 20 carries averaged 4.75 yards per carry against six men in the box from 2016 to 2018.48 That’s well over half a yard higher than the average of 4.09 yards per carry when that same group of runners faced seven defenders near the line of scrimmage. Against eight-man fronts, the average gain falls to 3.59. Facing a loaded box makes running much more difficult.
McVay is no rube. He likely realizes that if you are going to run in the NFL, you should do so against a light box. Even better, this is something he can control. An offense exerts quite a bit of influence over how many box defenders it faces by how many wide receivers it chooses to deploy. When offenses play three wideouts, NFL defensive coordinators will typically match body type with body type and send a nickel defensive back in to cover the third receiver, leaving six defenders in the box.
As a consequence, Gurley has faced more six-man fronts on his carries than any other running back in football since McVay took over as head coach of the Rams. It has paid serious dividends. So far this season, Gurley is crushing it against those fronts, averaging 5.5 yards per carry. But against a neutral seven-man front, he’s been below league average at just 3.7 yards per attempt.
Gurley thrives when there are fewer defenders
Number of carries and yards per carry against a standard defense of six men in the box, 2017-18
| Player | No. of carries | yards per carry |
|---|---|---|
| Todd Gurley | 202 | 5.12 |
| Kareem Hunt | 113 | 4.91 |
| Lamar Miller | 112 | 4.42 |
| LeVeon Bell | 103 | 4.45 |
| Melvin Gordon | 101 | 4.73 |
Gurley is basically the same back he has always been since he came into the league. If you use broken and missed tackles as a proxy for talent,49 you can see that Gurley makes defenders miss when running against six-man fronts far less than expected. He thrives, like most running backs, when he’s allowed to hit open holes and get to the second level relatively unscathed.
So Gurley is the beneficiary, not the proximate cause, of the Rams’ offensive resurgence under McVay. Gurley has been put in a position to succeed and has taken full advantage. Crucially, while the Rams have benefited from being smart in their offensive schemes and decision-making, it’s likely that many teams could emulate them and achieve similar success on the ground. Spreading a defense out and running against a light front is not a particularly novel idea. The commitment shown by running 95 percent of your plays out of a formation that encourages that result, however, is quite innovative. McVay pushes winning edges better than any coach in the NFL — and he, not his running back, is the principal reason that the Rams are currently the toast of the league.
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