Often times, the argument is made that a strong passing attack takes pressure off of a RB, or that a strong RB opens up the passing game for success. This study takes a look at the correlations between team rushing and passing statistics, as well as between the team's feature RB's statistics and the passing game. Let me sum up the results rather briefly, and then you can look over the table and see for yourself.
1. Teams that throw more often run less often. Duh. (see #8 and #14)
2. The 2nd strongest correlation is between passing yards/attempt and rushing TDs. YPA is a pretty good measure of efficient passing, but I really have no idea how that translates into a lot of rushing TDs. (see #23)
3. That's it. Seriously. Everything else shows a pretty weak correlation. #1 RB does correlate well to YPA, but Marshall Faulk and the Rams (2000 and 2001) have really skewed the data. (see #37 through #40)
The table below gives the information obtained from a linear fit of the data. A positive slope indicates a positive relationship between the two variables. The R^2 value represents how close the fit is. A value of 1 is a perfect fit, and a value of 0 is no fit at all. For our purposes, we'd like to see something of at least .05 to .10 to consider some sort of relationship.
Abbreviations used: att = attempts, comp = completions, comp % = completion percentage, YPA = yards per pass attempt, YPC = yards per rushing attempt, #1 RB FP = team's #1 RB by fantasy points (6 pts for TDs, 1 pt. per 10 yards), #1 RB PPG = #1 RB by points per game, with a minimum of 8.
My theory on why we don't see stronger relationships: The players make the stats. Some teams have talented RBs but horrible QBs, some teams have great QBs and WRs, but terrible RBs. The talent of the players far outweighs the opportunities created by defensive mismatches. It may be true that great RB does open up the passing game, but if the players in the passing game aren't good, they won't put up great numbers.
| # | Independent (x-axis) | Dependent (y-axis) | slope +/- | R^2 | restrictions |
| 1 | comp | YPC | - | 0.026 | |
| 2 | att | YPC | - | 0.066 | |
| 3 | comp % | YPC | + | 0.004 | |
| 4 | yards | YPC | - | 0.006 | |
| 5 | ypa | YPC | + | 0.030 | |
| 6 | TDs | YPC | + | 0.029 | |
| 7 | comp | rush yds | - | 0.148 | |
| 8 | att | rush yds | - | 0.260 | |
| 9 | comp % | rush yds | + | 0.000 | |
| 10 | yards | rush yds | - | 0.054 | |
| 11 | ypa | rush yds | + | 0.057 | |
| 12 | TDs | rush yds | + | 0.004 | |
| 13 | comp | carries | - | 0.173 | |
| 14 | att | carries | - | 0.273 | |
| 15 | comp % | carries | - | 0.000 | |
| 16 | yards | carries | - | 0.070 | |
| 17 | ypa | carries | + | 0.045 | |
| 18 | TDs | carries | - | 0.002 | |
| 19 | comp | rush TDs | - | 0.004 | |
| 20 | att | rush TDs | - | 0.051 | |
| 21 | comp % | rush TDs | + | 0.051 | |
| 22 | yards | rush TDs | + | 0.014 | |
| 23 | ypa | rush TDs | + | 0.180 | |
| 24 | TDs | rush TDs | + | 0.009 | |
| 25 | comp | #1 RB FP | + | 0.001 | |
| 26 | att | #1 RB FP | - | 0.017 | |
| 27 | comp % | #1 RB FP | + | 0.071 | |
| 28 | yards | #1 RB FP | + | 0.013 | |
| 29 | ypa | #1 RB FP | + | 0.093 | |
| 30 | TDs | #1 RB FP | + | 0.037 | |
| 31 | comp | #1 RB PPG | + | 0.002 | miminum of 8 games played by RB |
| 32 | att | #1 RB PPG | - | 0.017 | miminum of 8 games played by RB |
| 33 | comp % | #1 RB PPG | + | 0.080 | miminum of 8 games played by RB |
| 34 | yards | #1 RB PPG | + | 0.016 | miminum of 8 games played by RB |
| 35 | ypa | #1 RB PPG | + | 0.109 | miminum of 8 games played by RB |
| 36 | TDs | #1 RB PPG | + | 0.038 | miminum of 8 games played by RB |
| 37 | ypa | #1 RB PPG | + | 0.214 | minimum 15 PPG |
| 38 | ypa | #1 RB PPG | + | 0.282 | minimum 16.8 PPG |
| 39 | ypa | #1 RB PPG | + | 0.086 | minimum 15 PPG excluding 2000 AND 2001 RAMS |
| 40 | ypa | #1 RB PPG | + | 0.047 | minimum 16.8 PPG excluding 2000 AND 2001 RAMS |
| 41 | att | #1 RB PPG | + | 0.006 | minimum 15 PPG |
| 42 | att | #1 RB PPG | + | 0.137 | minimum 16.8 PPG |
| 43 | ypa | #1 RB PPG | + | 0.001 | maximum 10.6 PPG |