Michael Rothstein, ESPN Staff Writer 9y

Lions' run-pass ratios show Matthew Stafford's importance

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- One of the more tired clichés in the NFL over its history has been the need to strive for balance between run and pass.

Teams often say they want a balanced attack on offense. In today's NFL, that rarely works out. It is one of the things former NFL quarterback Todd Collins said has changed the most since he retired from the league following the 2012 season.

"It does seem like people are more enamored with the pass now," Collins said. "Some coaches say they want to be a balanced offense, that means equal number of rushes and passes, right?

"They say we strive for balance and you look at the numbers and it's like 20-80 or something like that."

The Lions haven't been that disparate, but Detroit has thrown the ball more than it has rushed it every season since 2001 according to ESPN Stats & Information. The closest the Detroit Lions have come to "balance" was in 2004, when Detroit ran the ball 407 times and attempted 505 passes.

In Detroit's more successful seasons, the Lions have trended much heavier toward the pass. In 2011, one of the two seasons Detroit made the playoffs this century, the Lions rushed the ball 356 times and had 666 passing attempts, completing 423 of them.

Last season, Detroit ran the ball 396 times and threw it 604 times, completing 365 passes. So while the Lions appeared to focus their draft on improving a run game that had its worst yards per carry since 2003, don't expect to see a massive play-call shift.

None of these numbers include sacks taken, either, which would push the potential pass numbers higher. Taking sacks out of it, Detroit has run 38.7 percent of the time since 2001 and passed 61.3 percent of the time.

A 50-50 split hasn't been typical for Jim Caldwell historically. In his three seasons as head coach in Indianapolis, the Colts never rushed more than 393 times in a season. They never threw less than 534 times in a year, and that was in 2011 when Peyton Manning was injured.

The only sample size in which a team coordinated or led by Caldwell has had more runs than passes came during the Baltimore Ravens' Super Bowl run in 2012, when Caldwell took over leading into Week 15. Through the final three weeks of the regular season and the playoffs, the Ravens ran the ball 249 times and passed it 235 times.

The following season was more in line with what happened in Indianapolis, where Baltimore had 423 rushes to 619 passes.

The proliferation of passing in the NFL since 2001 has led to a change in the NFL, something Elvis Grbac, who retired after the 2001 season, recognizes as the biggest shift in the league.

"It's all quarterbacking," Grbac said. "I got in a league where Drew Bledsoe was starting to come in and just in the last 10 years, retired since 2001, so it's been some time. But just the league in general, it's quarterback-driven.

"If you don't have a quarterback, you're screwed."

Of course, Grbac means not just a physical being who can play quarterback, but one who can succeed at the position. This is nothing new as the league has transformed from one in which running backs were premium performers to one where almost every team uses some sort of platoon at the position.

Grbac likes Detroit quarterback Matthew Stafford and believes the former Georgia star has shown development over the past couple of years despite playing in a new offense with a rotating cast of rushers and pass-catchers.

Asked how many teams he believes have quarterbacks who can win games, he didn't give an exact number. Instead, he focused on teams -- and quarterbacks -- that are consistently in the playoffs. That is his barometer.

"If you're not in the playoffs on a consistent basis and really competing for a Super Bowl, that's what it really comes down to," Grbac said. "The guys who truly are the franchise quarterbacks have Super Bowl rings.

"That's just the nature of the league."

The Lions have made the playoffs two of the past four seasons. They have never been to the Super Bowl.

^ Back to Top ^