3rd/4th & Short -- Is It As Bad As It Might Seem?

I’ll take this opportunity to post some research I was doing on this very subject leading up to the Colts game.

First, I’ll point out some stuff from various comments above. There was mention of seeing this perceived trend through a prism of “recency.” This is a form of cognitive bias that has resonance at the source of the frequency (i.e. right after a 1 for 6 game) but dissipates with time and space. There was mention of injury on the oline, and I’ll point out that my research shows little effect in short yardage running from that influence. Basically, Polumbus has played well in Harris’ absence, and Hamilton’s early play was a combination of veteran excellence and remarkably incongruent brain farts. His inconsistency was his curse, and his low downs were matched with very high ups. The post Hamilton blocking from Hochstein has been a steady dose of ‘meh.’ Not too bad, not too good, but dependable and consistent

Moving onto the meat of the analysis. I ran a series of Sharpe’s (no not that one) ratios, in order to weigh the value of certain playcalls, roughly designated, for short yardage situations. I did this for multiple criteria on the Denver offense, including by player, by playcall, by direction of run, and by passing concept. I did a similar analysis of the Colt’s defense through 13 games, but focused on interior vs outside running and different passing concepts.

For those not familiar with a Sharpe’s ratio, it is essentially a means of analyzing risk by unit of return for an investment. It consists of dividing an average of a particular group of units by their standard deviation. The upshot is that when you compare the results of say, running left with Knowshon on 3 and 1 vs. using a passing concept that creates horizontal space between the defenders, you get a number for each. the larger number indicates better value for risk incurred.

Last point before the numbers, and that is to outline some criteria: I included distance up to and including 3rd and 4 in my consideration of short yardage, win/loss situations. this includes fourth down, which was penalized heavily for failing, just as turnovers form INTs would be (high risk). My baseline was zero, which basically represents zero net change and preserves the option of a punt or FG.

There really aren’t any surprises for Denver leading up to the Indy game, if you’ve been watching closely: the quick passing game is consistent and formidable, but was primarily a function of our redzone and goal-to-go offenses. With those plays removed (to account for a much higher risk tolerance) this portion of our short yardage offense is middling at best with a 0.234998 ratio. My research indicates that a fundamental concept of our offense is to use Marshall alone in space on the left side of the field in these situations. the playcalling leading up to these particular calls invariable places the ball appropriately on the hash marks and pulls cheating LBs ad safeties away from him. It has been 4/4 for scoring opportunities inside of 10 yards, and as a byproduct of this research, i find myself looking forward to seeing the eventual well-prepared opponent get schooled in whatever constraint play McDaniel’s has designed to take advantage of the team that spots this particular tendency of ours. So far so good….

With the quick passing game concept firmly in the service of setting up our redzone offense, I also looked at the more traditional “shotgun, scan the field” concept. These are opportunities where Orton is responsible for reads after the play has started. they were used frequently, especially for plays over 2 yards, and the lowest of any of our unadjusted ratios, very hit or miss: 0.2581989. This is generally a good score, but the risk is high and the reward was consistently low. We can execute this concept well, but it simply isn’t in the Broncos best interest to do so.

Again, these two points aren’t necessarily anything new. Most of the MHR fans don’t really expect fancy pass options. Their concern has been that we are not “running to the outside” more, including off the end and behind the tackles. And indeed our outside running attack clocks in at a whopping 0.707107. However, it should be noted that the sample size is not as impressive as the previous categories. But that being said, film review confirms that outside short yardage running is a strength that we execute very well when we try it. Finally, the much maligned short yardage interior running of the Colts game clocks in at 0.268543. There is a terrific sample size to draw from, there have been few critical mistakes (before the Colt’s game) and overall we have executed these plays well, as BShrout’s research indicates.

Before getting into the perceived anomaly of the playcalling, I’ll add some additional data: Knowshon was easily the best short yardage option ont eh roster, and when Hillis and Jordan’s negative runs were removed from the interior running ratio, it jumped to 0.467011, a massive increase in productivity. It indicates that Moreno is not necessarily a problem, though he has indeed been the back on the back on the field for a few interior running plays where the execution was poor. Also, the ratios for running behind Weigmann, Hochstein/Hamilton are generally quite poor, at 0.14 and -0.18. Clady is better, clocking in at .300375 while Kuper dominates in short yardage at 1.78885. Too often, however, the one cut has been designed to bend back away from Kuper’s stellar blocking. When the blocking scheme is more straight ahead, we seem to take advantage of his side more.

So then the question becomes, if our outside running game is more effective than our interior game, why not go to it more during the course of the game? this brings me to a point a friend of mine brought up as the game went along. He asked (as some of you have asked above), “Why do they keep running into the middle like that? It is like they expect something different to happen!!” My response? “What if they do?” As in, what if they DID expect something different to happen? And why would they expect it?

Now we get to the Colt’s defensive ratios.

The Colt’s have allowed an exceptionally low .264911 in outside running in short yardage situations: not a stretch of the imagination due to their team speed. the amoeba offensive philosophy (which has gotten us some great wins this year) will hardly try to challenge that when a much more passable 0.814345 is available to attack in the interior, where they have struggled to stop anyone all year.

And to be fair, Denver did adjust. When an interior run by Buck was stuffed, they twice tried to take Moreno to the outside, and twice failed before trying Moreno up the gut, but the Colt’s Dline penetration was unreal. Denver eventually switched over to passing in short yardage (using the Marshall setup I described above to twice convert, once for a TD, the second time because they were desperate for a first down late in the game) and their final attempt was also a conversion on a sneak. SO it wasn’t like they were blindly following a gameplan built on Indy’s weaknesses, but they also weren’t going to abandon it without forcing Indy to prove that they were up to the challenge of defending that interior running game, something they faltered at all season. To abandon the interior running game, is to abandon much of the time spent in practice preparing for the use of those plays, as well as an abandonment of many of the concepts that those running plays setup (and they can often set up concepts in the passing game even if they aren’t a roaring success.)

All in all I have a hard time finding much fault with the gameplan itself, which targeted a very specific weakness of the Colts. Credit to teh Colts for doing something they have managed to do all season: prepare well for the way team’s are most likely to attack them. They have had to win games a lot of different ways, including coming from 3 scores behind twice. Against the broncos, their special challenge was getting the ball back to their offense when we weree doing well on 1st and second down, and they managed to do it with inspired line play in the trenches. Kudos to them. For what it was worth, we got it figured out by the end of the game and converted our final two short yardage attempts. Unfortunately, 21 points is too many to spot to the Colts…